Hey guys I dont know if this topic has been brought up already but I cant find it. I'm building a pit for mechwarrior online and want to hack a keyboard to work with buttons in the pit. can any one point me in the right direction thanks?

Here's what I did and it works well, can be a PS2 or USB keyboard. It may depend on how the keyboard interface board is connected to the keyboard membrane as to how easy it is to connect, but old keyboards are a dime a dozen so get a few and use the easiest one.




Just connect a wire to each tab on the keyboard chip and to the terminal strip. Label them ABC... 123... and then work out which combo makes a key stroke/command. eg A3 connected is the letter "Y".

Remember a terminal will have more than one wire connected to it.

I traced the lines on the membrane to work out a matrix so I knew which combos were which.

I guess you can probably use something like Propnut and Dud used as well (Teensy ++)as a multiple input interface device.

Yep, made many of those type back in the day.

Just remember that you are limited to using ONLY momentary contact switches, as they replicate keyboard switches.
Toggles, rotaries, slides, are all ON contact switches and your PC will see them as stuck keys.

Also, remember to buy 2 or 3 pole switches, if you have to add a CTRL, or SHFT, or ALT to you keystroke.
One pole for the keypress and one pole the altering keypress. You can't tie them together on the same pole, or you can end up with ghost keyresses that drive you crazy trying to find.

Which is the reason most of us gave up on these type of controllers a while back....they're just too limiting.
It's very difficult to replicate a cockpit, when all you get is momentary push buttons.
I guess if you're doing a Mech, or a Starfury, you can work around it by coming up with your own pit layout.

They are the cheapest and fairly easy to make (if you have a bit of soldering skills).
Just so you realize the limitations.

Thanks for the advice guys. On the strip theres a a ground where should I place the ground on the terminal strip?

Here's what i did.



Just spliced all the lines and soldered it to a breadboard. Worked out pretty well

Not sure what you mean, what you'll end up with is 2 groups of inputs. One represents one layer of the key contact sheet and the second is the other. There's no common or ground as such.

There's a great section at this site here