Awesome article!
A tip: the images are way too heavy for the 600w you gave them. They range from 2 to 7MB. You can probably get them down to like 50KB each!
Microsoft Sculpt Wired Conversion Mod
21–30 of 75 posts
Re: Microsoft Sculpt Wired Conversion Mod
#22Great work. Something I'd definitely want would I still be using the Sculpt.
Like others have mentioned here, the Sculpt suffers from other issues apart from being wireless:
My biggest issue is the small, poorly constructed F-keys. Switching to regular sized keys on the Microsoft Surface Ergonomic shows how bad they actually are.
Anyway, is there a way we could get Microsoft to build a Sculpt v2 which fixes the shortcomings of the original one?! I still think it's one of the best ergonomic keyboards, even with issues it has.
Re: Microsoft Sculpt Wired Conversion Mod
#23> It was like the keyboard would go to sleep if a key wasn’t pressed for a few seconds, and the first keypress after a wake would be delayed or, worse, dropped. I have a Sculpt keyboard as well, and the way to fix this is just to move the wireless USB stick that's in your computer closer to your keyboard. I have mine at about a 40cm distance. If I place it over 100cm away I start getting sporadic connectivity issues,…
Also keep in mind whatever frequency they use doesn't go through cats very well. Took me a while to realise that the keyboard and mouse are playing up only if a cat is sleeping on the desk just behind them.
Re: Microsoft Sculpt Wired Conversion Mod
#24I'd actually like a mod the other way round: There are a bunch of great mechanical keyboards (such WASD V3, daskeyboard prime or many other amazing custom builds) but they are all wired. I don't know why they don't make proper mechanical wireless keyboards (they are bulky enough that a battery should easily find space). But a wireless conversion mod would be the next best thing. Due to my (unchangeable) desk situatio…
Most mechanical keyboards fans prefer to use PS/2 connectors instead of USB because of latency, it's unlikely they will accept wireless any time soon.
Re: Microsoft Sculpt Wired Conversion Mod
#25> It was like the keyboard would go to sleep if a key wasn’t pressed for a few seconds, and the first keypress after a wake would be delayed or, worse, dropped. I have a Sculpt keyboard as well, and the way to fix this is just to move the wireless USB stick that's in your computer closer to your keyboard. I have mine at about a 40cm distance. If I place it over 100cm away I start getting sporadic connectivity issues,…
I wonder if this problem could've been solved easier with a USB extension cable and simply taping the receiver to the keyboard!
I even saw a power-plug > AA battery adapter on YouTube yesterday they could use if they really wanted to make it fully wired.
Re: Microsoft Sculpt Wired Conversion Mod
#26> Given tantalum is a rare earth metal, it might be nice to replace it with a ceramic and maybe a 4 Ω resistor in series. I’d love any input here.
USB allows for 10uF of capacitance, and you don't seem to have an LDO on your board, so you don't need a minimum amount of ESR to maintain stability. I don't think there's any reason you can't just replace the tantalum with a ceramic?
> https://chadaustin.me/images/sculpt/pcbway-top.jpeg
This is shockingly bad. I was thinking of using PCBWay to assemble a run of a dozen or so PCBs, because JLCPCB is limited on solder mask color and part selection, but this has pretty firmly turned me away from that.
Re: Microsoft Sculpt Wired Conversion Mod
#27I'd actually like a mod the other way round: There are a bunch of great mechanical keyboards (such WASD V3, daskeyboard prime or many other amazing custom builds) but they are all wired. I don't know why they don't make proper mechanical wireless keyboards (they are bulky enough that a battery should easily find space). But a wireless conversion mod would be the next best thing. Due to my (unchangeable) desk situatio…
I posted this [1] a few days ago [2], but there are a few custom, wireless, mechanical, ergonomic keyboards.
e.g. Redox-W which falba.tech (Poland) will provide assembled if you need that [3]. It's not cheap though.
For a DIY method, start at [4] or [5].
[1] https://aposymbiont.github.io/split-keyboards/
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26179311
[3] https://falba.tech/19644-2/
[4] https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/ht0pb6/c...
Re: Microsoft Sculpt Wired Conversion Mod
#28> It was like the keyboard would go to sleep if a key wasn’t pressed for a few seconds, and the first keypress after a wake would be delayed or, worse, dropped. I have a Sculpt keyboard as well, and the way to fix this is just to move the wireless USB stick that's in your computer closer to your keyboard. I have mine at about a 40cm distance. If I place it over 100cm away I start getting sporadic connectivity issues,…
> I have a Sculpt keyboard as well, and the way to fix this is just to move the wireless USB stick that's in your computer closer to your keyboard.
The article author actually tried that already: "I’d gone as far as mounting the wireless transceiver directly under my keyboard, on the underside of my desk, and keys were still dropped." - which presumably means the receiver was an inch or two from the keyboard.
This is exactly the reason I'm a wireless hater: every single problem produces the same symptoms. Keyboard battery getting low but hasn't quite failed yet? Dropped keypresses. Keyboard receiver too far from the keyboard? Dropped keypresses. Keyboard receiver getting conducted interference over the USB power rail? Dropped keypresses. Keyboard receiver too close to wifi antenna? Dropped keypresses. Keyboard receiver getting interference from the neighbours' wifi? Dropped keypresses. RF reflective surfaces nearby create nulls? Dropped keypresses.
Re: Microsoft Sculpt Wired Conversion Mod
#29> Given tantalum is a rare earth metal, it might be nice to replace it with a ceramic and maybe a 4 Ω resistor in series. I’d love any input here. USB allows for 10uF of capacitance, and you don't seem to have an LDO on your board, so you don't need a minimum amount of ESR to maintain stability. I don't think there's any reason you can't just replace the tantalum with a ceramic? > https://chadaustin.me/images/sculpt/…
> This is shockingly bad.
What is so bad about it? I suppose they ordered prototype quality.
Re: Microsoft Sculpt Wired Conversion Mod
#30Great work. Something I'd definitely want would I still be using the Sculpt. Like others have mentioned here, the Sculpt suffers from other issues apart from being wireless: My biggest issue is the small, poorly constructed F-keys. Switching to regular sized keys on the Microsoft Surface Ergonomic shows how bad they actually are. Anyway, is there a way we could get Microsoft to build a Sculpt v2 which fixes the short…
Indeed, the Sculpt is my favorite keyboard so far. Despite being a mac-only user, I have several for them (work, home...). The biggest complaint I have is the small function button/escape row. If that was full sized, the keyboard would be close to perfect. A nice addition would be Bluetooth support, so you don't need the dongle for the keyboard any more.