Monday, January 28, 2019

Tipro MID-KM096A

Cheap 12x8 POS keypad

Found these for cheap on eBay. New old stock. They look like they were meant for an OEM to integrate with some other system. There are no PS2/Serial/USB connectors.

It came with relegendable keycaps. The clear tops were included. The keycaps alone were probably worth the price.

The case is ABS plastic. The bottom is a solid steel plate held on with 8 self tapping screws.
TIPRO MID-KM096A. 9 years old.

There are knockouts on the back panel. Should be easy to modify for a connector.

The LED indicators have no covers. 

The sides of the case are open and expose the PCB.

96 Cherry MX Black switches in a powder coated steel plate.

The steel plate is held in place with screws across the top and bottom.

There is an ATmega8515 controller and a 74HC4051D multiplexer. The ATmega8515 has only 8KB of flash. Very little compared to the ATmega32U4 (32KB).

Tempted to map out the existing matrix, but since it has no diodes it can not support NKRO so it is probably not worth the effort.

I will probably remove the PCB and replace it with 4x4 PCBs. Two rows of 3. The columns can be bridged between the two sets and the extra data pins used to connect the bottom 4 rows.