“Fedya… Wild?! Wild!!” or where is her “neon”?
In one well-known chain of stores, “Everything for a low price” 😉a keyboard has appeared on sale. And not a simple one, and wirelessworking with Bluetooth 5 and very compact. And relatively inexpensive, in the shops of my city its price was 460 rubles. Seeing it for such a ridiculous price, I became interested, “What's inside her? Where's her neon light?” I bought it to open it and satisfy his desire for destruction your curiosity.
Hidden text
“The wireless mini keyboard, FLARX, is a compact and lightweight device that is easy to take with you. The kit includes a USB cable for charging (23 cm). Before use, read the instructions and precautions on the package. Range: up to 10 m. Voltage: 3.7 V. Output power: 3 W. Bluetooth: 5.0. Bluetooth frequency: 2.4 GHz. Frequency range: 50-20,000 Hz. Built-in battery capacity: 150 mAh. Battery charging time: up to 2 hours. Operating time from a full charge: up to 80 hours. Before use, read the operating manual. Composition: ABS, steel, PVC, copper, lithium-polymer battery.”
I won't get paid for it anyway By pressing special key combinations you can switch the keyboard mode for PC, Android and iOS
Opening up the “game”
To hell with advertising integration, I won't get paid for it anyway, let's get down to opening up the “game”!
On the back of the keyboard, we find a metal plate, about a millimeter thick, which almost completely covers the bottom and is attached to the top with 12 small screws. On the plate there is a sticker with information about the characteristics of the device, the manufacturer and the importer.
Opening it, we see a laptop keyboard connected to the printed circuit board and a battery.
The keyboard is soldered to the top of the case and has markings on it. YT-234-4 WJS-828. Searching the Internet by marking did not yield any results. Perhaps this is a custom laptop keyboard. But this is not certain. 😉
We unscrew the screws holding the board, pull it out a little, turn it over and disconnect the keyboard cable from a typical laptop keyboard connector with a latch.
What do we see on this board? Two chips with erased markings (who would doubt it)16 MHz quartz, a scattering of SMD components, a bluetooth antenna in the form of a track, and the fact that only power is removed from the USB port. The most interesting thing is that on the printed circuit board there are three pads marked as RST and TX, RX, which gives hope that there is an accessible UART, and that it will be possible to interact with the MK in a square case, read the firmware or at least recognize it.
The printed circuit board has the following markings (searching for them also yielded no results):
qkie-bt5.2-2.4g-030dm-q6832-v2.0
2024/03/16
pcb=fr4 ply=1.0mm
And looking at them we can assume that this is already the second revision of this board, and that its design was completed on March 16, 2024.
The keyboard assembly is carried out in the reverse order of disassembly. Try to screw the screws into the same grooves, and do not use excessive force
Conclusion, where would we be without it…
What can you do with such a keyboard, except for using it for its intended purpose? You can stuff a Raspberry Pi Pico RP2040 into it (it fits in there in terms of dimensions), upload the appropriate firmware and get a miniature BASIC computer, or even a real ZX Spectrum or BK0010, or even an almost full-fledged IBM PC/XT in the keyboard form factor. And by the way, the empty “humps” just beg to be filled with micro speakers or piezo tweeters.
You can also use such a keyboard as part of the body of a homemade netbook. 🙂
In short, if after reading this article you suddenly “wanted something strange” and felt “itching hands” then don't be shy, be sure to mark yourself in the comments and suggest where else you can wisely apply such “game”.
