Hey all! My name is Abstrakt! I spend a lot of my time working on fully custom projects, however, I wanted to try something a bit different with this one. I bought 2 Pingmasters a while back, and harvested one for switches, as I really enjoyed the feel of SKCC Greens. In the end, that left me with a 1. destroyed PCB as I sucked at desoldering at the time, and 2. a case and plate that are in perfect condition. For me, I intend to scrap the case and do something nice myself, most likely out of wood. That leaves me with the plate. I intend to keep the original layout, so all I need to do for the plate is cut down and add mounting points. Before I get ahead of myself, I would like to set up a set of goals for this project.
1. Retain original switches, keycaps, and plate of the IBM Pingmaster.
2. Create a high profile, wooden case.
3. Design and manufacture custom PCB, programmable with QMK.
4. If 3 is not feasible, hand wire the whole project, and use one of the fancy new QMK Proton C's as the main controller.
5. Retain a high level of polish.
This will be a fun one for me, and will definitely test my skill of working with existing components, then modifying them to use for another purpose.
So, the first part of my project is going to be modifying the existing plate. I plan on completely removing the right-hand portion, where the original number pad and navigation cluster were located.
From there, I will need to add the mounting indents, where a screw will be added. this will fix the assembly to the top case. In essence, I am creating a ghetto wooden top mount case. During this process, I will even out the 2 sides, as the left side of the plate is originally about 2mm thicker than the right side. I will use a belt sander to remove the extra material, and a Dremel to add the mounting holes.
I will update this project as I go! It might take a little while, as I am a full-time student, but I think this will be a fun and stress-relieving project.