Amiga 500 USB keyboard adapter assistance needed

[eightbit]

Hi all,

 

I purchased one of these and it arrived today:

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Connect-favourite-wired-or-wireless-USB-keyboard-to-Amiga-500-500-and-other/232364971223

 

The seller didn't ship for a LONG time and did not respond to any emails until I emailed him requesting to cancel the order. Magically right after that email a label was created. Then it still didn't ship for two weeks ?

 

Anyhow, it did finally arrive today and I have installed it and tested with a cheap USB keyboard...and it works fine thankfully. However, the reset wire that the seller shows in the pictures was not included. And, in the picture it makes no sense. the wire is coming from under the board and there is nothing there that this would connect to. I think he just stuck it there to take a picture of the board with nothing in the way perhaps.

 

Anyway, there is a "reset" two pin header on the top of the board that I am assuming is it. Does anyone have one of these? How do I wire that reset? I can't see both pins getting jumped and then going to that third pin on the keyboard header. 

 

I know someone else must have one of these and some advice on this I contacted the seller but given his record I doubt he will ever reply. Without it connected the only way to do a hard reset is with the actual A500 keyboard.

 

 

[eightbit]

After some scouring the net I see Sinphaltimus bought one *with* the cable  I sent you a message my friend...hopefully you can help shed some light on this!

 

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=87712

[Daedalus2097]

Hmmm... I suspect that the wire is supposed to be soldered to the rear of the board. It would need to be an output from the controller chip (not the big CIA that takes up most of the board). A kind of awkward way of doing it though... I would imagine the header is wired to the same pad underneath and ground (grounding the KB_RESET line initiates the reset cycle), so if you figure out which of those 2 pins on the reset header is ground, the other will be the one for the wire.

[eightbit]

Yeah...just want to make sure I choose the correct pin. This ebay seller makes nice products (this, the Jerry+, etc) but is horrible with communication and nothing exists on his page regarding the product. 

[Daedalus2097]

Choosing the wrong pin (if it is indeed ground) won't do any harm, it will just stop the machine from booting in the same way as holding down Ctrl+A+A would. If you have a multimeter, you can check which pin has 0 ohms to ground - the other pin is the one to use.

[eightbit]

30 minutes ago, Daedalus2097 said:

Choosing the wrong pin (if it is indeed ground) won't do any harm, it will just stop the machine from booting in the same way as holding down Ctrl+A+A would. If you have a multimeter, you can check which pin has 0 ohms to ground - the other pin is the one to use.

 

 

Thanks for the tip. I will check this when I get home!

[eightbit]

This has been resolved. I'll give the seller credit...he is very friendly. Just a bit slow to respond at times. But I was way off as to where the wire is attached. I have attached the image just in case this happens to someone else down the road...although I think my situation was a one off.

 

The seller refunded a small amount for the missing cable and the trouble and I soldered my own cable to the board (I just soldered to the underside as the cable I used was a bit too thick to fit under the socket) and I am happy to report that reset now works from USB keyboards (LCTRL-WIN-WIN or LCTRL-ALT-DEL).

 

Neat little product and a little bit of extra insurance in case the official keyboard ever dies (I have actually had that happen once)

 

Edited November 14, 2019 by eightbit

[eightbit]

Well this thing was short lived. Came home tonight and my Amiga keyboard was not working...CAPS light blinking. I suspected this board and I was right. Removed it and thank God it did not damage anything and my Amiga keyboard works again. No physical damage I can see but it smells like burnt component. Can't say I recommend this thing...although the idea was neat.

[+OLD CS1]

Wonder what burned on it.

[eightbit]

23 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

Wonder what burned on it.

 

 

It smells like the ARM chip toasted. It has been in the A500 since mid-November and the computer has been closed up and working fine. Tonight I decided to play some games and quickly realized the keyboard wasn't working, and then saw the caps light just blinking. I have had this before with a bad keyboard in the past and it brought up some bad memories let me tell you! But, I took a hunch that it was this thing. Most annoying part was taking the computer down, disconnecting everything, opening, removing the shielding just to get to this.

 

Well, returns to Europe are not even worth it and even if I had this exchanged I have lost faith in it....so in the trash it sits. I am just thankful that the CIA was not damaged or the keyboard....and everything is working properly again. You have to be weary of some of these "ebay homebrew" devices.

 

This is the second device that came from ebay to cause me problems. The other was a home made USB mouse adapter. But that one did cause damage. It was designed poorly and burned a resistor. I had to replace that...which was really annoying as well.

Edited December 20, 2019 by eightbit