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Holland

I've been working on a keyboard mod with a DMG-04, I did the pin switch. And soldered wires to what I thought was right. Then tried it without luck, then re-soldered with a different combination them still with no luck. So my question: what wire needs to go to what wire?

A picture of the wires in the keyboard
As the colors are not that clear: from the top, White, Green, Red, Yellow.

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From top to bottom:

Ground, 5v, Data, Clock. As indicated on the board. The rest of the information can be found here: http://littlesounddj.wikia.com/wiki/PC_ … _Interface

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Holland

So I now have:

Gameboy      Keyboard
Blue              White
Red              Green
Orange         Red
Green           Yellow

I think thats correct, but it still doesn't work

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Sweeeeeeden

Red and orange are the data lines and they cross over, so in on one side becomes out on the other side. That's most likely where the error is.  Either you're not remembering correctly which of the two wires you used for the pin swap, or you did the pin swap with the wrong one, so +5V is correctly placed, but data connects to the Gameboy's data output.

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Holland

I checked.
pins are:
Green/Red/Blue
X         /X    /Orange

I only swapped the blue.

I now have
GB/Keyboard
red/ red             In/Data
Blue/Green        5V/ VCC
Orange/ White   Out/ GND
Green/ Yellow     Clock/Clock

The only thing that looks odd is out/ground, but no documentation I found says you needs to fiddle with that.

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Sweeeeeeden

It now follows that you don't have a ground connection. The recommended way when connecting a keyboard would be to use SOUT (orange in your case) for the pin swap mod instead of blue. SOUT is not needed for anything else since LSDj won't send data to the keyboard. The point of using the ground pin for the swap mod is for use with an Arduinoboy so you can send data both way for MIDI for example.

But you still always need a ground connection. The way you typically solve this is by connecting the shield in the cable to ground, since it's connected in the socket to the Gameboy's ground. And leave orange unconnected.

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Austin, Texas

You're blowing my mind here, Nitro.

I've done something similar with a DMG pin swap. So, how should your final wiring vary from the DMG to PS/2 diagram found in the LSDj wiki article? I copied that pretty much exactly in the adapter I've made.

Last edited by Telerophon (Jul 6, 2012 1:15 am)

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Sweeeeeeden

If you mean this one the only actual difference is that gnd doesn't use pin 6 but instead the shield. (I think you'll find this method easier than opening up the plug again to do more pin swapping.)
Thing is, that diagram shows you what goes where, but then it's up to you to find a way to connect everything.

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Austin, Texas

Ah, yeah. I cut a DMG-04 in half and pin-swapped it to make the blue ground wire the +5V wire, then I got two female 6pin Mini-DIN connectors to put on the other ends as adaptors, copying that diagram exactly.

I'm now at a point where I can't tell if my wiring is bad, or if LSDj just doesn't like my keyboard.

Ideally, I'd have a multimeter and a computer with a PS/2 port to test these things, but I don't…

Last edited by Telerophon (Jul 6, 2012 1:53 am)

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Holland

It now work by switching the orange pin to the ground, but oddly enough in older version give I00 behind the purge sequencer. Now only, what looks like a minor problem, my link cable head falls apart when I pull it out of the gameboy. Now I need to fix that, could I just glue that?

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Austin, Texas
nitro2k01 wrote:

If you mean this one the only actual difference is that gnd doesn't use pin 6 but instead the shield. (I think you'll find this method easier than opening up the plug again to do more pin swapping.)
Thing is, that diagram shows you what goes where, but then it's up to you to find a way to connect everything.

I opened my link cable head up again and redid the pin-swaps. You were right about having done it for an Arduinoboy instead of a Keyboard, I totally didn't realize they were different pinouts.

It still doesn't work, though. Hrmm.

I'm going to hit a thrift store with a DMG and my adapter in a bit to plug a bunch of keyboards into it and see if its just my keyboard…

Last edited by Telerophon (Jul 6, 2012 10:11 pm)

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Sweeeeeeden

First sanity test: Does the keyboard blink when you power on the Gameboy? Normally it should, and if it doesn't, your problem is probably that the keyboard doesn't get power.

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Austin, Texas

Yeah, I've never gotten the LEDs on the keyboard to light up.

Since this is my first time building a keyboard/adapter set, I wasn't sure if the keyboard should light up or not, but I had always expected it to.

Strange. I'm not sure what could be wrong with my wiring, then.

Here's a picture of my handiwork:

If I've set this up correctly, the wire color codes are:

Blue   — +5v
Red    — GND
Green  — CLK
Orange — Serial In

My soldering is admittedly very sloppy, but I think it still conducts, and nothing is crossed or shorted that I can tell…

Last edited by Telerophon (Jul 7, 2012 12:35 am)

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Sweeeeeeden

As far as I can tell, everything is correct except that the PS2 socket connections are mirrored. Furthermore, you may have destroyed the keyboard permanently because mirroring the plug means that you have reversed the polarity of the power supply to the keyboard.

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Austin, Texas

Oh, awesome. Well, you live and you learn…

I'm not sure if it's apparent from that photo, but the orientation notch for the female PS/2 port is facing up in that picture.

So, looking at the female port from the interface side and going clockwise from 12 o'clock, GND should be the second pin, or the fifth?

EDIT: The orientation notch being 12 o'clock. Man, this is way more confusing than I would have hoped…

Last edited by Telerophon (Jul 7, 2012 1:32 am)