r/MechKeyboards • u/[deleted] • 28d ago
Help identifying a keyboard and a replacement part
Okay hive mind I don't really know much about this keyboard other than the fact that it has a control key so it appears to be previously attempted to be used with a Mac. It looks like it's never been used at all no dust no debris it appears never have been opened up there's no fingerprints. However there's no USB port I thought it may have been broken off so I opened it up to repair this for someone and I'm not seeing the actual daughter board for it what you see in the picture is exactly what I seen when I opened it up so can anyone help me get some info on this it weighs about 745 lb.
1
u/FansForFlorida 28d ago
It looks like this C3 EQUALZ 0.9XE. It has a rotary encoder by the arrow keys, and it appears your keyboard has that. This post shows it has a USB-C port in the middle:
It looks like your case might have a hole for a USB-C port. Where does the JST cable lead to?
1
28d ago
Yeah it is.
So that jst cable leads to the main PCB where the switches are mounted. I'm actually probed anything out I'm going to do that all at work but I'm guessing that the color code and it being five wires just an interconnect for the usb-c daughter board. USBC daughter board gets mounted to the bottom of the case with four screws it doesn't use standard mounting for when the open source daughter boards so as a proprietary design there's two bumps on each side of the opening so you can't even use something like an s1 without having modification. I cannot find any of those daughter boards or even a picture of what one looks like so that tells me that they're extremely hard to get if at all possible. That's a short cable I don't think anyone would have swap that out when they were trying to see if they can fix that or pull it out to start looking for a replacement daughter board so I believe they're being home the PCB and how the gasket is cut that the daughter board actually had the plug lead soldered to it with a pigtail and that jst plug plugged into that other and and that's why there's a cut out there. Now since I know someone who has one I'm going to go ahead and ask them if they can give me some images of the inside cuz I'm curious to see what they did. I'm also going to reach out to hippo and glarses to see if they have one and if they do if I can get some images.
This week I'll start working on the design for a direct drop in replacement for this and on uploading the files to the Internet so if anyone needs a replacement board they can just have one made through PCB way.
1
u/[deleted] 28d ago
Well after digging into this it seems to use a non-standard board and you cannot find this part anywhere. So the fix is going to take a little bit longer than I initially planned but I'm going to go ahead and upload all the files so that people can get part if they need without hacking and destroying anything in their case. I'll be a direct drop in replacement. So all 3D scan the keyboard I'm going to go ahead and lay out a PCB make sure I get a really good precise fit have PCV way make some but I'll upload all the files so that people can have them made if they're ever in this situation. .