my A1000

She's a beauty, MJ!

thanks you kind sir....i must get the HDD in a housing this week as im off work all next week!!

Okay next update:

Keyboard arrived from the USA yesterday and I've started making a gvp hard drive conversion 500 to 1000 ...

Work continues next week.

Oh it's got 8.5 mb ram now too :-)

A1000 keyboard repair.

My new (to me) A1000 has arrived from the good old US of A and is looking erm , well used lets say..
However i have one thats complete and thats all that matters. it has issues of course - why wouldn't it , everything i buy has issues :-)

various keys don't work and a ball point pen spring has been fitted on the Enter key

sooo...

lets strip her and see the damage.

Well its okay, a little water damage and a little rust but no big deal. As its an A1000 keyboard by cherry (i believe?) the keys are in individual pods which are soldered to the pcb , so to repair the 'pods' i have to unsolder each non working key ...a pain but simple enough.

non working keys:
QAE ctrl , caps lock, shift ,A,S,D,Z and one or two more.

after unsolder the key housing , usually two solder points, the pod pops right off the pcb with no damaged or stress. Open the little housing up and inside is a forked piece of metal that acts as a switch which over time has lost it strength or is dirty / rusty . a clean up and slight re tension and a quick continuity test with a multi meter and its working fine...

only another ten keys to do....:Doh:

coffee time :-)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mjnurney

.. the keys are in individual pods which are soldered to the pcb , so to repair the 'pods' i have to unsolder each non working key ...a pain but simple enough.

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Great info!! I have a few stubborn keys on my 1000 and one non-working (caps-lock.. Light is OK on powerup, but doesn't respond to any keypress attempts..)

Could you take a pic of the back of the keyboard with a "sample" of which to unsolder, just so I can make sure..
I'm a very very newb on the soldering front, so I am taking it very slowly.. ;-)

Thanx!

desiv

p.s. Actually, I finally used some desolder braid stuff (whatever it's called) to remove a couple of blobs of solder on my drive light that someone before me soldered even worse that "I" would have done!! Incredible!! :o Then I resoldered it OK and used shrink tubing to cover it.. I'm sure it's not Amibay quality yet, but I think I'm getting a little closer.. ;) (I have to work my way UP to replacing the audio jacks on my A1000 MB.) :wooha:

hi,

my caps was the same - I've rebuilt the keyboard now but its pretty easy to be honest.

let me find a pic ..

PS

a solder sucker is brilliant and some what quicker (to me) than braid

The pic shown is a BBC Keyboard but its almost exactly the same as the A1000 (same shape and type)

each key is held by two soldered legs on the pcb..except caps lock it has 2 like the rest and 2 smaller ones for the built in LED in the key housing.

I'm sorry i forgot to photograph the pcb and I've rebuilt it now :-(

method:

pop the plastic key top off and turn the pcb over - look (guess) which legs are for that key and unsolder them.

wiggle the key housing off and insert a flat screwdriver into the two sides with the tabs on to open the housing.

separate the two halves , inside is a small spring (it should not fall out) a middle plastic key holding upright and a metal fork - the fork lifts out and doesn't fall apart unless you want it to.

:-)

GVP hard drive case (WIP)
Mouse / Joy extensions - to be mounted on the HDD case

Ongoing project

Kickstart 2.0 rom adaptor - just started it.

Looking good

just wondering what u going to use for feet on the HDD, me been a frog is thinking along the lines of frogs legs :roll:

lol i will give it some thought cosmic ....

:D