Project Zero aka how I bastardized a discontinued keyboard

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Julle

26 May 2014, 20:06

CheeseBaron was kind to sell his Filco Zero tenkeyless to me. What's the appropriate thing to do? To take it completely apart, of course. This not so much a build thread, more like a take apart and replace parts kind of thread. Sorry in advance for the amount of dust in the shots

Still to do:
  • Change switches to Matias clickies, possibly later to Quiet Clicks
  • Look for possible solder points for extra ISO keys
  • Find better keycaps for the modifiers and the F row keys
  • Make the USB cable detachable



The first thing to go was the stock controller which reportedly had some transposition issues.

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This might interest other Zero owners. Here's the donor part, a Pegasus Hoof from bpiphany.

Interestingly enough, the firmware I created with "Easy AVR USB Keyboard something something" was not entirely compatible with this combination of keyboard and controller. I've had no issues, however, with bpiphany's Costar firmware which works like a charm.

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Here's where we are now. I've put some phoneboard doubleshots (from Ascaii) in place. I've called it the Brown Zero but somehow that reminds me of an anus.The keycaps do feel really nice, though. I also swapped a nicer case from a Majestouch 2. I might swap it later to a KBT aluminium one once I sort out all the issues it has (i.e. horrible tooling, shorting issues, problems fitting the USB cable underneath the PCB).

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That's all for now.

Last edited by Julle on 26 May 2014, 20:36, edited 1 time in total.

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Muirium
µ

26 May 2014, 20:09

Those caps!

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scottc

26 May 2014, 21:47

Excellent! Looks fantastic. I'd love to get my hands on one of these beasts. The caps are beautiful too. If I had any justifiable keyboard budget left over, I'd be on to Ascaii straight away...

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Daniel Beardsmore

27 May 2014, 01:38

I only recall ever reading about complaints about the controller in the version with Forward ("Fukka") switches. I don't know if that's because they had different controllers. Yours has Xiang Min switches, so in theory it wouldn't have any trouble. I don't know that I could type fast enough to get transposition errors on those switches, as they're so stiff ;-) Actually, I did manage to type on that keyboard at work (where I have a desk at the correct height) and I never encountered any controller errors. The switches didn't have enough ping for me, or enough bass.

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