How to fit a Keyrah to an Amiga 1200 desktop =)

[Turran]

Well, got myself a very crappy chassi so I thought I'd make a USB keyboard out of it for use with my PC / WinUAE for that authentic feeling and gameports.

While I'm still waiting for the keyboard itself to arrive from Ebay, I started thinking of how to fit the Keyrah in an Amiga 1200 chassis. This is my first experiment.

Please note that this is only testing and not very nicely done.

I did not want to drill holes in the chassi and I did not want the Keyrah glued to the case. I wanted to be able to take it out without having done any modifications to the chassi or card.

So, while being sentimental with an old Amiga, why not go all the way and use Lego + Gluegun! Lego donated by the kids. Well.. stolen, but yeah...



I put the Keyrah where I wanted it and glued the legos in place. This seems like the best place because the keyboard flatcable is exactly aligned and does not need to be extended. The LED lights do not reach this far though, but a lot easier to extend.



An extra red piece to the left and an extra yellow keeps it from popping upwards. I found that this was not really needed since its such a close fit. Could put it upside down and shake it without it coming loose.

If you're shipping it though, you might want to glue the "holding" lego peices in place.



Like I said. Not my finest work but its only a test. I used an aluminium tape enclosed in silvertape to cover all holes.



Extensions for the leds fitted. Since the amiga is 20 years old, I used 20 year old speaker cable =) Yeah, it was the only thing I had handy without digging in the garage.

Now I'm just waiting for the keyboard. I tested it with another keyboard and it works just fine in the PC!

Things to do better next time.
Find something else to cover all holes.
Fit the extension cable for the LEDs in the "roof" of the chassi instead so the top can easely be removed from the Keyrah.
Find proper cables and solder them for the extension.. Or even better, find a female connector and another male and make a proper extension so that you dont have to "ruin" the led cables.

Oh yeah, there are a few things sticking out of the Keyrah.. use those when gluing to get a more solid hold.



Edit: I'm an idiot. When I was going to put it together now, I see that I placed the Keyrah in the wrong position in the images above =)
It should move to the left for the keyboard flatcable to line up. There are holes in the back where it fits there too without any modifications, so just place the keyrah where the cable lines up before you glue the legos in place =)
And don't use as much glue as I did... They took a beating to get loose. Usually, the glue can just be pulled out in one piece but not when sticking to the amiga plastics it seems. Impossible to get off.
I'm writing this on my new keyboard anyway =)

[ElectroBlaster]

Not bad at all m8

Given me some ideas infact. I need to mount a keyrah in an a500 case, I really do not want it sitting under the keyboard with its ports hidden and I really cant bring myself to start unsoldering bits from it.

[lesta_smsc]

lol - liking the LEGO! I suppose you could 'stack this up' and put something on another level!

[Turran]

Sure! Lots of space over to do fun things =)