Dalius's blog

Saturday, October 21, 2023

Keyboard with joysticks (part 2)

Part one here

So PCBs arrived in a week or something like that (instead of 3 weeks) while I have chosen cheapest delivery option from JLCPCB. I am OK with that as I can do some initial work with it.

I have started with soldering rp2040-zero first. First I have shortened long side of headers with scissors - surprisingly that worked quite well and allowed to cut headers evenly.

Headers cutting

Then I have soldered rp2040-zero and key switches. If you looked into PCB (here https://github.com/daliusd/joyride) at top left switch, then you might notice that it looks like all 3 key switch points are connected. They are not, but I was afraid that this will not work properly when soldered.

When soldering I do everything in this way:

  • Solder MCU first.

  • Test connections for each key switch with piece of soldering wire or metal clippers.

  • Solder key switches.

  • Test again left and right side separately.

  • Solder TRRS connectors (however I don’t have them now, so I have to wait).

Sneak peek

As I am still missing some parts I have decided to disassemble PSP 2000 joystick as it is not working properly anyway.

First you can remove button (just pull it stronger to remove):

disassembly 01

Then I have removed metallic cover from the bottom and bottom board can be easily separated as well:

disassembly 02

Then you can remove little pieces that determine how much joystick is pressed. First:

disassembly 03

Second:

disassembly 04

Then I have removed little metallic part that stops switch from rotation (I believe it has not other function):

disassembly 05

Since nothing else can be separated here I had to separate two plastic parts keeping remaining parts:

disassembly 06

Inside we simply have metallic spring. I have expected more of them there, so this is interesting part for me:

disassembly 07

Overall it looks very fragile item. Now I will wait for other parts.