Pendant revisited

I have been toying around with the idea of building a pendant for a
while. I read the article on Tim's web page and dismantled a load of
keyboards to make a start on this. I bought some key switches but
didn't like them as they weren't sealed.
I then bought a sealed tactile keypad in a 4 x 4 setup but due to the
way the columns and rows are worked out these can't interface with a
keyboard chip to give you a custom setup.
I then found the programmable keypads called X Keys from
http://www.ymouse.com
I bought one of these to test it and found it would do exactly what I
wanted.
Custom programmable and the feature to nest three commands per key,
ideal if you have something like Control - F6
You also have the choice to use just the X keys pad or keep both
keyboards.
Bad thing about these were a bulky keypad and again not sealed. In
any even I had this STOLEN by my wife who now has it setup for Excel
and Quickbooks.

Recently PI Engineering who make the X Keys [ usual no connection
bulls**t ] released the module out of their keypad. This has the
ability to use 96 keys in two layers, far more than any pendant
needs. Last week I had one of these sent from the US. I then started
to look for a decent tactile keypad bigger than 4 x 4 and a decent
case.
Looking on the RS website in the UK yesterday I found a case with a
tactile pad already fitted.
RS web site http://rswww.com look for part number 139-697
Got this today and it's actually made in the US by Pac-Tec. I looked
on their web site but couldn't see this listed with the keypad, only
the case.

Started this tonight after work. I used an old floppy drive cable cut
down and soldered to a 10 way 0.1" pitch header to fit the keypad.
Plugged it in and programmed it the way I work. It's no good setting
out any key layouts as everybodys system is different and we all work
the way that suits us.
I just wanted the necessary keys to setup and operate. Editing can be
done on the full qwerty keyboard.

Only thing I didn't like about the keypad was the overlay. This is a
self adhesive cover with non transparent keys. You have to write the
legends on top of the cover and there is no way to protect it.

I have put three pictures on my web space.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/machines/pendant1.jpg
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/machines/pendant2.jpg
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/machines/pendant3.jpg

Number 1 shows the matrix and the old overlay cover
Number 2 shows the internal connections and
Number 3 shows the new cover I drew up on the cad system, laminated
it and double sided taped it on.

I'm really pleased with this. I have a professional looking pendant
that works the way I want and all on single key press's

John S.