3M Whisper Writer

[jsheradin]

Picked up a keyboard for a 3M Whisper Writer recently. It rocks Hi-Tek/stackpole switches and some nearly solid 2.7mm thick keycaps. Unfortunately it had very limited KRO so a PCB replacement was my chosen route.

This repo has most of the project files: https://github.com/jsheradin/3m_whisper The scans I took are too high res to upload easily.

Pictures:

Spoiler:

Desoldered everything and measured the PCB with the help of a flatbed scanner and some pixel counting. Threw together a quick 1:1 PCB in kicad only now featuring NKRO and a socket for a Teensy.




And you'd be none the wiser that it was converted.

Overall a pretty fun project that came together surprisingly quick (JLCPCB's turn around time blows me away). I still have some extra PCBs thanks to the minimum order qty so PM me if you want one.

[Rayndalf]

Neat. I'll keep this in mind if I ever see a Whisperwriter for a fair price.

I'm still waiting on my Teensy to arrive to get my Geac working, but I'm glad to see you're designing more PCBs to retrofit boards, JLCPCB is incredible (and their SMT pricing is great too).

Any insight into how you make these? I have a couple obscure boards I'd love to be able to retrofit, and spending $50 on a batch of PCBs is so much nicer than spending several hours handwiring.

[jsheradin]

Any insight into how you make these? I have a couple obscure boards I'd love to be able to retrofit, and spending $50 on a batch of PCBs is so much nicer than spending several hours handwiring.

I mostly followed this guide https://github.com/ruiqimao/keyboard-pcb-guide except that I just used a Teensy library in place of doing a full controller onboard. The most time consuming part is loading up the scans of the original PCB in Gimp and taking a million measurements to get the positioning just right.

I'm planning to do another board pretty soon so I'll try to make a guide as I go.

Good luck with the Geac! I've been using mine pretty regularly and have been really enjoying it (I'm a sucker for sphericals).

[Rayndalf]

Any insight into how you make these? I have a couple obscure boards I'd love to be able to retrofit, and spending $50 on a batch of PCBs is so much nicer than spending several hours handwiring.

I mostly followed this guide https://github.com/ruiqimao/keyboard-pcb-guide except that I just used a Teensy library in place of doing a full controller onboard. The most time consuming part is loading up the scans of the original PCB in Gimp and taking a million measurements to get the positioning just right.

I'm planning to do another board pretty soon so I'll try to make a guide as I go.

Good luck with the Geac! I've been using mine pretty regularly and have been really enjoying it (I'm a sucker for sphericals).

I'm looking forward to a guide, in the mean time I'll try to brush up on CAD and Eagle (or Kicad or...)

What kind of USB extension (pigtail/ panel mount?) did you use to route the USB connection? It fits perfectly in the cable hole.

I just noticed the "who are you" key, that's a lot of fun.