deskthority

Anyone have a stash of Tipro MID style 1x1 transparent covers they'd be willing to part company with? I'm looking to acquire 50 to complete my lighting desk controller keyboard, but everywhere I search online seems not to have any stock.

Tipro discontinued the MID range quite a while ago, so the demand will be so low that retailers are not particularly interested in keeping such supplies in stock.
Anyway, now you obviously chose the right place for your query. I still do have some of these transparent lids, 50 will be no problem.

But as this is a forum and I'm not a retailer but just a Tipro fan, you'll have to post some pics of your keyboard first

kbdfr wrote: 20 Apr 2020, 07:42 I still do have some of these transparent lids, 50 will be no problem.

But as this is a forum and I'm not a retailer but just a Tipro fan, you'll have to post some pics of your keyboard first

Ha! Nothing too exciting I'm afraid. I manage to pick up a MID-AM-KM128A-014 on eBay. The serial number suggests it was manufactured in 2012 but it doesn't show any signs of wear at all so I wonder if it's possibly NOS. The only drawback to it is that it came in a EPOS layout with plenty of coverless keycaps meaning I need some more:



I intend to turn it into a controller keyboard for the PC-based lighting desk my students and I have been building at school (we really wanted to buy an ETC Ion, but that was at least an order of magnitude beyond our funds!). We've built the PC, managed to scrape together a couple of touch screen monitors, and the next stage is some sort of control surface. I was quite taken by LXKey for EOS but at £279 it's too expensive for us and has been out of stock since Christmas anyway. So, the plan is to roll our own and end up with a layout something like this:



All I've managed to get done so far is some planning as I'm having to self-isolate at present and my printer is such poor quality I'd end up replacing any labels I printed as soon as I can get to a better one!

This will likely end up part of a larger control surface with rotary encoders, faders and an LCD display attached - getting as close as possible to the experience of using a real theatre lighting desk. ETC do a kit called lighthack that uses an arduino to interface between rotary encoders and the Nomad lighting control software, and I've had a go at modifying it to work with analogue faders too. Sadly I only have two faders to play with at the moment as COVID-19 has not done Ali Express' shipping times any favours.

Anyway, I hope that's at least partially satisfied your curiosity! Do you mind if I PM you to discuss further, kbdfr?

Now that’s what I call a thorough description, thanks - even if I have to admit I understand next to nothing in it

You will certainly have noticed that the "LXKey for EOS" you linked to also is a Tipro keyboard, KMX range. So if you manage to get its programmed configuration, you will be able to simply upload it to your keyboard (with the usual restriction that programming your PS/2 Tipro keyboard will require a 32 bit computer with a native PS/2 keyboard socket).

So you’re a teacher? Then the 50 transparent lids are yours for just shipping + PayPal fees

kbdfr wrote: 21 Apr 2020, 12:31 So you’re a teacher? Then the 50 transparent lids are yours for just shipping + PayPal fees

Spoiler:

I used to be a teacher myself, until I settled for a decent profession

Wow, that's incredibly generous. Thank you!

I went the other way - studied Software Engineering at university and then realised that while I enjoy programming, I didn't want a career in software development. I sort of fell into teaching, but here I am 15 years later still loving it - there's clearly something very wrong with me!