/adapter-use-kb600-with-kb500-controller

adapter board which allows you to keep using your old custom keyboard controller in a new Kinesis Advantage 2 keyboard!

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License: CC BY-SA 4.0 Buy PCB: Oshpark Buy Parts: Oshpark

Are you using an older Kinesis Advantage ergonomic keyboard with a custom keyboard controller?

This adapter boards allows you to keep using your old custom keyboard controller in a new Kinesis Advantage 2 keyboard!

This adapter was split out of the kinT keyboard controller project, which is a replacement controller for your Kinesis Advantage or Advantage 2 ergonomic keyboards.

Quick overview

3D render (front) 3D render (back) schematic

Building your own adapter board

  1. Follow “Buying the board and components (Bill of materials)”. When ordering from OSH Park (board) and Digi-Key (components), you’ll get the minimum quantity of 3 boards for 5.15 USD (1.71 USD per board), and one set of components for 3.69 USD.

  2. Wait for the components to arrive. When ordering from big shops like Digi-Key or Mouser, this typically takes 2 days to many places in the world.

  3. Wait for the boards to arrive. This takes 6 days in the best case when ordering from OSH Park with their Super Swift Service option. In general, the longer you are willing to wait, the cheaper it is going to get.

  4. Follow the soldering guide. This will take about 10 minutes.

Buying the board and components (Bill of materials)

To buy the board, you can order the u6w5 adapter board from OSH Park, or upload the adapter-u6w5.kicad_pcb file to the manufacturing service you prefer.

To buy the components, check out the u6w5 adapter BOM in the Octopart BOM tool, from where you can conveniently buy all components via Digi-Key or Mouser.

For your convenience, this is the full BOM (links go to Octopart):

Part Number Count Cost Description
Molex 39-53-2135 2 $1.06 13 position FPC connector
Preci-Dip 801-87-010-10-001101 2 $0.78
$3.69

Note: any female pin header that you still may have lying around should work fine.

Soldering

If you prefer visual instructions, check out the soldering instructions video on YouTube: soldering instructions video thumbnail

All the soldering connections on the u6w5 adapter board are easy to make, so the whole assembly can be done at home, with a cheap soldering iron and basic electronic hobby equipment.

For example, I used the Miniware TS100 soldering iron, which can be found for 50-60 EUR or USD.

A build takes about 10 minutes of time and involves making 46 soldering connections.

If you’re new to soldering, check out this excellent soldering reference card from adafruit.

Soldering instructions

  1. Populate the FPC connector.

  2. Populate the female pin header.

  3. Repeat for the second board.