C65 keyboard repair

From: Michał Pleban <lists_at_michau.name>
Date: Sat, 08 Oct 2016 19:35:27 +0200
Message-ID: <57F92E5F.7050805@michau.name>
Hello!

The keyboard in my C65 stopped working - a few columns of keys do not
work anymore. I tried looking at the cable and the connector to find a
broken trace, but I don't see any obvious problems. I thought that the
connector on the flat ribbon cable might get flaky, so I cut it to make
new contacts. It helped a bit - most columns got back to work but the
last one (which contains the rather important Return key) does not. I
don't have more cable to cut so I would like to try other solutions.

Awhile back, there were C65 keyboards available on Ebay and I bought one
of them, so I plugged it into my computer thinking it will solve my
problem, but nope... it turns out that this keyboard has incompatible
pinout! Fortunately the difference is only in the GND pin for the LEDs
so I have all keys working now, but the LEDS don't work.

I thought to rework the keyboard to change the pinout, but it turns out
that it's not made on a PCB like the C64 or 610/710 keyboards I worked
with before. Instead, the whole keyboard is made as a big sheet of flat
"cable" in plastic envelope, and looks like this:

http://i64.tinypic.com/k3njti.jpg

The black conducting contacts are not metallic, so they cannot be
soldered. Everything else is covered by plastic.

Does anyone have any idea how a thing like this could be resoldered? My
idea was to peel the plastic gently to reveal the metal trace below but
I am not sure how easy it could be, and I have no idea if the metal
below can be soldered. Also I would not like to try this on a C65
keyboard and would love to have something similar to try before, but
where can I find another keyboard like this?

Regards,
Michau.

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Received on 2016-10-08 18:00:02

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