Question Keyboard joystick research

[Charagma]

In another thread this was briefly touched, and figure that since it is not related to that topic it is still something (Hardware) that can shed some light on a few thoughts. The thread was about controllers and attachments to the keyboard.

When we press a button it closes the circuit, tell the system which button we pressed and TADA we have a character as shown on the keyboard. That is if your keyboard is set up correctly and you do not get Tilde when pressing the delete key. This is pretty much where my knowledge on keyboards end.

So here is where I need technical information that I cannot find on google. I am in specific referring to "Steering" on AWSD keys. If I take 2 potentiometers (Dual input), reverse it so that when in the middle they will both send the exact same current and then to left give more to A and to right more to D keys.

I do not know if a keypress can be regulated (first problem) and secondly, will a regulated "press" give a different character? Are the keys set to voltage detected, for the system to recognize which button is pressed or is it set to stone to a N/O or N/C setting or is it adjustable that the pressure of a button can have a different effect on it...............

Any ideas?

 

[Colif]

Not all keyboards use the same switches either.

or is it adjustable that the pressure of a button can have a different effect on it...............

its likely the cheaper keys have set reactions whereas if you throw money at a Hall Effect keyboard, or one with digital switches, they can have different reactions depending on how far you press key in
this one lets you set two actions to one key, depending how much you press key in... not cheap though

https://steelseries.com/en-au/gaming-keyboards/apex-pro-gen-3?connectivityType=wired&color=black&keyboardSize=fullSize&keyboardLanguage=english

Maybe someone here can answer the question:

KeebTalk

The community for people who love keyboards.

www.keebtalk.com

it is hard to get past the obvious. Perhaps people who mod them know the answers.

 

[Charagma]

Not all keyboards use the same switches either.

https://steelseries.com/en-au/gaming-keyboards/apex-pro-gen-3?connectivityType=wired&color=black&keyboardSize=fullSize&keyboardLanguage=english

That is a very nice keyboard. LMAO something I seriously would not take apart to "try" something.

Made me think of a story of the First RGB backlit keyboard and mouse set I bought.

After much reading and pondering and turning my money over 300 times, making sure I am doing the right thing, I order it and pay the fee's.

About 2 months later (Yeah, we have snail mail in our country. Depends on how much the products is because if it is a bigger product the carrot they dangle in front of the donkey cart is bigger and the donkey runs a bit faster. But that is a different story all together). But 2 months (local order) the package arrived. Very excited with my new "toys" I rip open the box and get it plugged into my PC. RGB, working great.

Later the evening I went to sit down to play a bit of games, and this was where the problems started. Keyboard backlight in RGB correct! but the keys are not visible since the light do not shine through the keys. Also had no control what colours I could use or change. Was just flashing in all different sequences (Like a Christmas tree that was missing its speaker) Mouse, well exactly the same but do not need to see the two buttons my fingers rest on and had a strip in the middle so could see the scroller in the dark (At least).

A month later my oldest daughter came to visit and mentioned that my grandson spilled some Cold drink on her key board so she is now on permanent Sticky-key settings. I unplugged my very pricey (not so fancy) keyboard and gave it to her. Back on my old Lenovo (Room-lit, not back lit) keyboard (still using the Lenovo btw) and my daughter thinks she won the lottery (till today). Still waiting for her to realise that it does not work so nice in the dark and she's been using it for about 4 years now.

 

[Colif]

if she can touch type she may not need lights

I could take my current keyboard apart completely as its fully customisable - its only 3 months old so it doesn't need any adjustments

https://nuphy.com/products/halo75-v2-qmk-via-wireless-custom-mechanical-keyboard

Hall Effect keyboards are great for gaming but no so great for typing, so depends what you do more. I chose normal mechanical switches on mine.

last time I bought a mouse/keyboard set was... 20 years ago. No rgb back then. It was wireless and it left a bad taste in my mouth regarding wireless that didn't wear off until recently.

 

[Charagma]

if she can touch type she may not need lights

Have no idea (just knows she kicks my butt in a few games although I personally would never admit that to her), but like I say she cheats a lot. LMAO.

I could take my current keyboard apart completely as its fully customisable - its only 3 months old so it doesn't need any adjustments

https://nuphy.com/products/halo75-v2-qmk-via-wireless-custom-mechanical-keyboard

Hall Effect keyboards are great for gaming but no so great for typing, so depends what you do more. I chose normal mechanical switches on mine.

last time I bought a mouse/keyboard set was... 20 years ago. No rgb back then. It was wireless and it left a bad taste in my mouth regarding wireless that didn't wear off until recently.

Also, a nice keyboard. Saw Linus with a few of them (or similar) in his upgrade videos. Personally, would not break it.

If you want you can try but it is just a thought. I am wondering if it would be possible to create a "steering" for a keyboard using potentiometers.

I never went into the wireless scene. Still do full sized wired keyboards with the numpad since I use the num pad when I work, mouse, well it it has two buttons and moves the cursor then I am happy with it. Keyboard I am using now I bought about 7 or 8 years ago (Lenovo sk-8825 as per the label underneath) and it is going strong. Usual game keys "Shines bright like a diamond" but still works perfectly.

 

[Colif]

i used to like backlighting and then I got my last keyboard

And suddenly realised its way easier to just have black text on white keys to see the lettering without any. Keyboard could still do RGB but as it was also wireless its battery wasn't amazing with lighting on, so I just had it off.
I buy a kb called Halo that has an rgb strip around its edge and then turn off all the lighting... yep, that worked.

I would still be using that except I broke its USB port and its hard to charge them once that happens.
This new one I run as wired and can have the lighting on more.

I just wish its keycaps had black text and not grey. That does make it harder to find right keys sometimes.

I went 75 as I realised that I never used the keypad on my last one and long ago had used another keyboard without it and I used to like that.

Mouse is wireless but unlike in photo, I mostly run it with no rgb on as it can last 20 days on battery without it

upside to its design is its easy to get all the dirt that falls into it, out again. Its got a reasonably high dust resistance rating

 

[Zed Clampet]

That is a very nice keyboard. LMAO something I seriously would not take apart to "try" something.

Made me think of a story of the First RGB backlit keyboard and mouse set I bought.

After much reading and pondering and turning my money over 300 times, making sure I am doing the right thing, I order it and pay the fee's.

About 2 months later (Yeah, we have snail mail in our country. Depends on how much the products is because if it is a bigger product the carrot they dangle in front of the donkey cart is bigger and the donkey runs a bit faster. But that is a different story all together). But 2 months (local order) the package arrived. Very excited with my new "toys" I rip open the box and get it plugged into my PC. RGB, working great. Later the evening I went to sit down to play a bit of games, and this was where the problems started. Keyboard backlight in RGB correct! but the keys are not visible since the light do not shine through the keys. Also had no control what colours I could use or change. Was just flashing in all different sequences (Like a Christmas tree that was missing its speaker) Mouse, well exactly the same but do not need to see the two buttons my fingers rest on and had a strip in the middle so could see the scroller in the dark (At least). A month later my oldest daughter came to visit and mentioned that my grandson spilled some Cold drink on her key board so she is now on permanent Sticky-key settings. I unplugged my very pricey (not so fancy) keyboard and gave it to her. Back on my old Lenovo (Room-lit, not back lit) keyboard (still using the Lenovo btw) and my daughter thinks she won the lottery (till today). Still waiting for her to realise that it does not work so nice in the dark and she's been using it for about 4 years now.

I had a sort of similar situation recently. I had always wanted a keyboard that looked differently from all the black keyboards I've had through the years, so I bought one when I was doing my new build. It was light grey and had circular keys, and I thought it looked great. And then I tried to use it. The circular keys threw me off a little, but I'm used to barely having to hit the keys at all for them to register, and these felt like I had to press them for a mile before they hit. I just couldn't type on it at all. I gave it to one of my kids, and they love it.

As for the technical questions about keyboards, I really don't know anything about them except for how to type.

 

[Charagma]

I doubt I will go the Wireless route someday but will never say never. The RGB thing with millions of fans does not do it for me. Thats why I ended up with the m720q tiny. Small, discrete, silent and I can hide the pc anywhere.

Back in the day you needed HUGE cases to daisy chain your drives (Yes I was that guy that ran 7 drives on SCSI daisy Chain on an AMD dx 4/100 with 1 Meg RAM. But well that was years ago, I also remember buying my first HDD. Was a Western Digital 20Meg HDD (Large Adress) Showed it to my dad and he asked, "So what are you going to do with all that space?"

But time has changed. Or I changed somewhere, where larger is not better anymore. I had a SFF (Compaq) and a few laptops (Clevo and few HP's and 1 Lenovo) but the Mini PC range has fully grabbed my attention. Think I might have carried 1 too many full tower cases to a LAN Party. LMAO.

What kind of battery life do you get out of a Wireless keyboard? My keyboard is pretty much active from 9am till around 3am. Not sure if a battery would hold that but also not sure since I never looked into it.

 

[Colif]

large cases allow better cooling, really depends what you put in them.
My last case looked over sized until I put my current GPU in it.

Sure, plenty of people are happy running their hardware at warmer temperatures than I am, they not concerned about reducing life of their components as they buy new ones so fast nothing really goes bad. I am not in that camp, I like having a case that runs everything cool.
I haven't played any games on this PC yet but at idle, nothing is ever over 40c in case, and is often around 35c - that will change in summer.

none of my fans have rgb on them (yet) and you can only see two of them from most angles - there are 11 in there but most are obscured. Other three chassis fans hiding in front so obscured by the case. CPU cooler fans are hidden by plastic and the rest are in GPU or PSU.
I wasn't concerned about having any RGB in this PC, GPU and Ram are about it.

Storage isn't the reason for large cases now, many new motherboards only have 4 sata ports and every other drive is mounted on the motherboard itself. I have 3 drives but two hide under the GPU or CPU cooler, and the only sata drive is hiding behind motherboard backplate. HDD are mainly used in NAS PC now anyway.

 

[Charagma]

none of my fans have rgb on them (yet) and you can only see two of them from most angles - there are 11 in there but most are obscured.

Very Nice setup. Think I saw it in the "Microphone" thread. Love how you added "Yet" on the RGB side. 11 Fans.....not to noisy? (Asking since I do not know the new systems)

I am pretty sure we do not have access to those kind of cases over here. Most will be purchased online and then assembled locally by private owners. Also why PC hardware is so expensive over here. You can go and buy a Keyboard and mouse at even a grocery store here, but if it comes to GPU's, cases etc the hunt begins.

You have not played a game on it yet? What are you doing with it?.....paperweight? Something like that would be working overtime the moment it boots up first time over here. We do not use benchmarking software around here. We get the biggest game we can find and run it. If it does not run, we drop down 1 one the list. The first working game is the benchmark. LMAO

Spoke to my speaker guy this morning and he said my keyboard plan can be scrapped. Keyboard input is either open or closed. There cannot be a "Halfway" on a keystroke unless the keyboard keys are designed to do it. He had huge explanations of N/O's and N/C's as well as keystroke vs signal strokes etc. But bottom line was "NO will not work"

 

[Colif]

11 fans
PSU 1 - I never hear it, think it only comes on if PC uses 50% power
GPU 3 - They never run unless GPU runs over 60c, and with 2 fans underneath GPU pushing air up at the fans, I haven't seen them run at all. Last benchmark I ran the GPU didn't get warm enough to run them.
Air Cooler 2 - I only hear its fans when CPU is above 55c, so recently that is when I run performance tests on my nvme drives. Or at start up.
Chassis fans 5 - I replaced the three front fans with Bequiet Silent WIngs 4 fans, and I don't hear them at all. Front 3 are 140mm fans meaning they don't need to run as fast to push out plenty of air. Slower than 120mm fans.
I need to replace the bottom 2 fans at some stage as they make noises if run too fast, but as its winter I have just ignored it for the time being.

Where is here?
I have been doing a training course and I won't allow myself the distraction of wanting to play a game instead... I have enough distractions as it is. Once I finish the course, I will find something to play.

 

[Charagma]

11 fans
PSU 1 - I never hear it, think it only comes on if PC uses 50% power
GPU 3 - They never run unless GPU runs over 60c, and with 2 fans underneath GPU pushing air up at the fans, I haven't seen them run at all. Last benchmark I ran the GPU didn't get warm enough to run them.
Air Cooler 2 - I only hear its fans when CPU is above 55c, so recently that is when I run performance tests on my nvme drives. Or at start up.
Chassis fans 5 - I replaced the three front fans with Bequiet Silent WIngs 4 fans, and I don't hear them at all. Front 3 are 140mm fans meaning they don't need to run as fast to push out plenty of air. Slower than 120mm fans.
I need to replace the bottom 2 fans at some stage as they make noises if run too fast, but as its winter I have just ignored it for the time being.

Lots of fans. LMAO I at least have a CPU fan. Know that for a fact since I replaced it with a better one about a week ago.

Where is here?
I have been doing a training course and I won't allow myself the distraction of wanting to play a game instead... I have enough distractions as it is. Once I finish the course, I will find something to play.

I am in South Africa (Free State) and closest Major city to me is about 200km. Here we grow a lot of "nothings", and it grows all season. Season starts January and end December just for the new "Nothings" to come up and grow again.

It is good if you can "control" yourself like that with regards to studies. I generally make time for everything. The "Work Hard, play hard" phrase gets used a lot. So, the harder I work, the harder I can play.

 

[Colif]

I do have lots of fans but I hadn't really noticed I could only see two of them until today. It should have been obvious but its just a side effect of choices.

Having a PSU fan is normal, most PSU should have one to keep them cool. Also normal not to see it. Only cheap PSU have rgb fans on them... most cases hide the PSU so lighting on it makes no sense.
Its also normal not to see the GPU fans as they face down in most cases.

Most times you will see the CPU cooler fans but my cooler is designed in such a way that the front fan is inside the cooler and the 2nd fan on cooler is on its rear exhausting air out back
This is my old PC - just showing where cooler hides front fan - I have same cooler on two PC

Only other part that is the same in both PC was the GPU, I couldn't afford a new one of those as well. Its in new PC.
Some angles I can see all my chassis fans but not from where I sit

That is last time I saw most of my motherboard, its hidden under GPU and cooler now.
I am from Australia, we too have lots of area of Nothing grows here. Most of the Country in fact.

If Sacred 2 remastered was released now, I would struggle to not play it instead of course, but there really isn't anything now I have to play right now, that can't wait. The longer I wait, the more chance there is.

 

[Charagma]

Both units look great. Unfortunately, here, White appliances usually go beige (yellow) very fast especially during dry season (Winter) where you have more sand in your house than on the dirt road, but the wind still seem to find sand somewhere to bring home. Opposed to wet season where the sun will burn it yellow for you. We steer away from white appliances; black plastic usually goes grey (fixable with a bit of cooking oil and heat) and black panels goes white. That unfortunately means respray if you want to fix it. Average color lifespan here is around 3 years then then it's not the color you originally purchased. We keep our pc's fairly close to windows but out of sunlight where possible. My PC is mounted under my desk (Just the face sticking out). Anything else gets pounded by the weather daily.

Do not think I have ever owned a case that looks so neat. I used to end up with wires all over, so the panels were there to hide the ugliness. Yours almost look like a work of art. LMAO my little pc has everything crammed into a 1L box. External power supply without a fan (I cannot ask quieter)

I had a manager years ago that would invite me to every company action cricket, every company rugby game actually anything that happened he invited me. One day during a visit I asked him if he ever rests since he is always busy with something. Obviously, he said yes, he rests, but he added "I work to live, not live to work. The harder I work the harder I live" Just stuck with me through all the years. When I was still employed, I used to have my section up and running even before the cleaning service was done and at night, I would finalize my audio tracks before heading home. When at home would game, visit friends and family and on a Friday from 3pm till Monday morning 5am you could never get hold of me because I was living. Different ways for different people, I guess. I stopped studying in 2019. Figured I am clever enough now to teach. Amongst everything I still live.

Read a university "thingy" (Cannot remember the name of those papers now, sorry my brain is not with us tonight) (Even Google do not know what I am on about, but the paper you write about a topic for points and then sometimes it gets published) where the topic was about Gamer vs. Employee. Obviously one side kept saying that with gaming the Individual just sit there as opposed to the Employee that is actually working and thinking. The Author then dissected an RPG game into different parts and overlayed it on a phycological tests. (Yes was a phycology paper) This included brain stimulation which raised the IQ bar (As per his paper) Puzzles, exploring, chats with NPC's all came back to the evaluation and end result showed that the Gaming was more mental and physical and due to the periods of time a gamer would spend playing game, proved that a gamer is a much better investment for hire. Bottom line, gaming keeps the grey matter going and the more it goes the better for you.

Think those papers are called a "Thesis" but could be wrong. Like I said the brain is not here tonight.

Not pushing you to go and load a game and start gaming now, just showing my perspective.

I will get there someday. Right now, my little 1L Lenovo does what is expected (And more). Will probably Upgrade the whole system in 2- or 3-years' time (if funds permit) So no Unchartered, Veil guard, Red Dead Redemption 2 and many other heart-breaking titles I can only window shop and read the label. (LMAO)

 

[Colif]

White would probably fade in the sun here too if I let sunlight into my room. For the last 10 years I have had coverings over my windows to keep sun out in summer, and because I had lava lamps for the last five years, and they fade in direct sunlight. Covering windows also meant it doesn't get as hot in here in summer.
Black case in a dark room means you can't see into it anyway. Its main reason I wanted white this time around.

My PC for the last 10 years has always been closer to the window that I am, mainly so it can get cool air. That hasn't really worked in recent years as every time I open my windows up a spider decides to come in and I really prefer they don't. So to combat that I just leave window closed. Luckily we haven't had a hot summer in about 5 years... that has to change. Some time soon we replacing the glass and insect wires to stop them coming in - double glazed windows also help with heat.

Hiding cables can help with airflow. People like @Lutfij would have words to say if you could see all my cables.
Case lets you put the power supply in sideways which means most of the cables are hiding behind the Powersupply and can't even be seen with the side off like in photo above. Only cables I can see normally are the two that connect to GPU. I may replace those next year.

 

[Frindis]

*looks under Colif's desk*