Keys on A500 keyboard stop working

This afternoon I hooked-up a second hand German A500 keyboard (Mitsumi) to my Raspberry Pi (running Amiga emulator Amibian), via my newly acquired Keyrah v3. When I turned on the Raspberry Pi, both LEDs on the A500 keyboard (green and orange) lit up (and both kept burning). Once I started up Workbench 3.1, I tested a few keys on the A500 keyboard (in Amiga shell) and everything seemed to work just fine. I wanted to go back to the WinUAE menu (by pressing F12), but forgot that the A500 keyboard does not have an F12 key. Therefore, I hooked up my normal USB keyboard to my Raspberry Pi, pressed F12 and went back to the WinUAE menu. So far, so good.

Problems began when I restarted the emulation. Both LEDs on the A500 keyboard still work (burning continuously), but in Workbench 3.1 the keys do not work anymore. The green light on the Caps Lock button does work, but after a few presses the light does not work anymore. Strangely enough, if I press CTRL and both Amiga keys, the green light on the Caps Lock button does turn on again, but after a few presses the green light again stops working.

I also hooked-up the A500 keyboard to my PC laptop (via Keyrah), but the exact thing happend. The LEDs on the A500 keyboard work, but the keys don't. The green light on the Caps Lock button stops working after a few presses. Pressing CTRL and both amiga keys does turn on the green light on the Caps Lock button again, but it stops working after a few presses.

I tried several things (pressing the switch on the Keyrah down, closing the jumber on the board to change the keyboard lay-out to German), but I can't get the keys working again. Perhaps it is just a faulty PCB of the A500 keyboard (it is second hand), but maybe I just missed something (obvious)?

If you have any advice/tips, please let me know!

Kind regards,

Jurian Meijering

Hi Tobias,

Thanks for your swift reply (on a Sunday even)!

I just followed your instructions. I first connected the Keyrah to my Windows (10) laptop (without any other devices connected to the Keyrah). Unfortunately, Windows does not automatically detect the Keyrah and I can't find the Keyrah in the device manager. If I connect the A500 keyboard to the Keyrah, the LEDs of the A500 keyboard do turn on (as well as the small green LED on the Caps Lock button).

I also connected the Keyrah to my Raspberry Pi (3b, running Amibian on Linux) and typed in lsusb in the menu. Also here, the Keyrah is not listed. When I connect the A500 keyboard to the Keyrah, the LEDs do turn on. I also connected one of my original C64 joysticks to the Keyrah. When I run Amibian and check the WinUAE menu, the joystick is not detected. When I run the emulation (starting-up Workbench 3.1), the "powerswitch" (pressing up) on the Keyrah does not take me back to the WinUAE menu.

I included some photo's to show you what I did.

So, I guess this means the Keyrah does not work? How could this have happened? Did I do something wrong or was I just unlucky? Is there anything I can do to solve this issue?

Many thanks for your help!

Jurian Meijering

Quote from Jens

You may have a cable problem. Keyrah does work without any driver on all operating systems. If it doesn't show in the list of USB devices, try a different cable. THe one that you have may be a charger-only cable with no data lines.

Jens

Hi Jens,

Thanks for the suggestion! To test your hypothesis (cable problem) I used the same cable to connect another divice to the Raspberry Pi (my Casio Digital Piano). This device is detected by the Raspberry Pi (see photo). So, the cable seems to work fine (but it was a good idea to check this!).

Also, the first time I connected the A500 keyboard via the Keyrah to the Raspberry Pi (and started the emulation, running Workbench 3.1) the keys did work. Only when I restarted the emulation things went amiss (keys on the A500 keyboard stopped working).

Any other suggestions?

Kind regards,

Jurian

Quote from Jens

You're operating Keyrah on the antistatic foam. Maybe try it in a case or removing the foam?

Quote from Tobias

Yeah, thats not a good idea - that foam is conductive!

Oeps... I did not know that. I have a case, but I wanted to test whether the Keyrah and A500 keyboard work before I actually mount them to the case. I thought it would be safest if I keep the Keyrah in its original box and touch it as little as possible (sorry for my inexperience).

Anyways, I just took the Keyrah out of the box, placed it in the case and connected it to the Raspberry pi. Unfortunately, the Raspberry pi still did not detect the Keyrah (if I connect the A500 Keyboard to the Keyrah, the LEDs still turn on).

I then connected the Keyrah to my Windows laptop. This time (to my surprise) the laptop did find the Keyrah and installed it without problems! I then connected the Keyrah to the Raspberry pi again, but no result. I went back to my laptop, but this time it did not detect the Keyrah anymore... (and I can't get it to detect the Keyrah anymore). I even tried a different cable (just to be sure), but to no avail.

Could it be that something is wrong with the Keyrah? Is is possible I damaged the Keyrah by operating it on the foam? Any new ideas/suggestions?

I really appreciate your swift replies and support!

Update: I just connected the Keyrah one last time to my Raspberry pi and this time it did detect the Keyrah! I ran the Amiga emulation, started up Workbench 3.1 and pressed the power switch (up) on the Keyrah. It brought me back to the WinUAE emulation! I then connected my original C64 joystick to the Keyrah, and it appeared in the WinUAE menu (I even shortly played a game using the C64 joystick).

I then connected the A500 keyboard to the Keyrah. The first thing I noticed was that this time only the green LED turned on and not the orange/red LED. In Workbench 3.1 I ran Amiga shell to test the keys. Strangely enough, the keys did not work on input, but random characters did appear automatically in the shell (that might just be the keyboard itself).

Finally, I rebooted the Raspberry pi (without touching the Keyrah, the Raspberry pi or the cable). Unfortunatly, once restarted the Raspberry pi did not detect the Keyrah anymore...

So, it seems that the Keyrah is only detected sporadically? Any ideas on what's could be the cause? See below some photographs.

Quote from Tobias

Please try if it is reliably detected when no keyboard is detected. If not, then it might be a defect of some sort.

Hi Tobias,

Thanks for the suggestion. I already did this last evening. I connected the Keyrah - without the A500 keyboard - multiple times to the Raspberry pi and my Windows PC. Almost all of the time, the Keyrah was not detected. Only one time the PC detected the Keyrah (but when I connected the Keyrah again thereafter, it was not detected anymore) and one time the Raspberry pi detected the Keyrah (same here: after rebooting the Raspberry pi, the Keyrah was not detected anymore).

All in all, it seems the Keyrah (without the A500 keyboard) is rarely detected. If there is a defect with the Keyrah, what would be the best way for me to proceed?

Kind regards,

Jurian

Quote from Jens

Yes, we'll take a look at the unit here, but please include the cable that was used when the problem first appeared.

Jens

Dear Jens,

Ok, I will send back my Keyrah to you and I will include the cable as well. I assume to the following address?

Individual Computers Jens Schönfeld GmbH
Im Zemmer 6
52152 Simmerath

Germany

If you indeed find a defect in the Keyrah, will you attempt to repair it and (if successful) send me back the repaired Keyrah? What if you don't find a defect or are unable to repair the Keyrah?

Just as a final check, see below a photo of the USB cable I used to connect the Keyrah to the Raspberry pi for the first time (when the problem first appeared). It is new and it is supposed to be for PC/networking. I also included a photo of the second USB cable I used (an old one I had lying around). Do you think the problem may be due to these USB cables? Is it worth to try to connect the Keyrah to the Raspberry pi using another USB cable (before I send the Keyrah back to you)?

Kind regards,

Jurian Meijering

Ok, I understand. Considering the support you provided so far, I'm confident we will work it out.

This afternoon I sent the Keyrah + USB cable back to you (both in the original Keyrah box, including a page with my address and a reference to this thread in the forum). Please let me know the results of the staff in the workshop and how we will proceed from there.

Kind regards,

Jurian

Hi Tobias, Jens,

Just for your information: I received a message from the Dutch post office (PostNL) that my package (Keyrah + USB cable) was deliverd to you yesterday. So, I hope you indeed received it.

I will patiently await the results of your staff in the workshop.

Kind regards,

Jurian

Quote from Jens

I got a note from the shop yesterday that the MCU had to be swapped out. We'll handle this as a warranty case, although it truly smells like "something connected the wrong way round" or "connected to the wrong header". It would be only fair from your side to tell us what truly happened to the unit, now that you know we won't charge for the repair.

Jens

Hi Jens,

Thanks for your quick reply. Nice also that the shop already found the problem. I understand that you want to know how this could have happened, but I honestly tried to tell you about everything I did in the posts above. I am inexperienced in the field of retro computers (and computer electronics), so it is possible I did something wrong I'm just not aware of.

Connecting the A500 keyboard to the Keyrah and connecting the Keyrah to the Raspberry Pi is rather straightforward, so I can't imagine I did something wrong there. I did (as I stated in an earlier post) operate the Keyrah on the antistatic foam. Or perhaps the problem was caused by the A500 keyboard (maybe something wrong with the PCB of the A500 keyboard?). Other than this... I really have no idea...

If you have a specific idea/hypothesis about something else I could have done wrong, don't hesitate to ask! I'm more than willing to help you uncover the root of the problem. I'm also open to a live conversation via phone or Teams.

In any case, I really appreciate your support and your willingness to repair the Keyrah without any additional costs. Once I receive the repaired Keyrah, I will operate it more carefully/systematically (e.g. put it in a proper case and first connect it to the Windows PC/Raspberry Pi without any other devices connected to the Keyrah).

Kind regards,

Jurian