Let’s get Dark – the Paintjob.To paint the case and keys I used Plasti-kote Matt Super black spray paint, I bought 2 cans just to be safe. I put the keys on half toothpicks so 1 toothpick for 2 keys. I suggest keeping the keys a little bit better organised than on the picture when painting (mark the back) to make your life easier when putting it back together.
And the most important thing: Do not let your 2.5 years old to “Ihelpyou” because that means you’ll find F7 in the grass just after all the other keys dried.
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The keyboard – and let there be (back)light:I sorry for leaving this to the end, this is the thing I’m the most proud of. As it is partially revealed, the Atari badge is the button to control the backlight. Short presses increasing the brightness by 10% and a longer press switches it off. This is controlled by an Arduino Nano. I combined 2 projects basically, one is using a tactile switch to control an LED, the other one is controlling a 12V LED strip with Arduino.
These are the links to the projects and also the program for the Arduino. Thanks to those guys for their work.
LED control:http://aaronvb.com/articles/arduino-led-control-with-button.htmlLED strip control:.
http://blog.dcxn.com/2013/03/03/dimming-a-12v-led-strip-with-an-arduino/On the Arduino, Pin 2 is getting the input pulses from the board below the Atari badge (this is where I used the +5V of the floppy power). Pin 9 is the PWM output to control the base current of a Tip 120 NPN transistor. This is basically converts the +5V range to the LED level. The Emitter is on GND, Collector goes to the Negative (GND) of the LED strip. The strip gets the +12V from the floppy power connector. I bought the 3528 type smd LED strip (SMD 5M 3528 300 Leds LED Strips DC 12V Flexible Lighting Cool White Ribbon Tape) which is wired in between the keys. You can cut the ribbon after every 3 LEDs and I was surprised how effective these sizes worked when put it down. Basically you can jump between the keys wherever it is convenient as long as all connected together. The LED height fits well for this, you still can press the all the keys down.
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As this picture shows, I wanted to put the Arduino to one of the eprom sockets and in theory this works (Arduino is getting only the Vcc from the socket, the other pins are only supporting the board, must have no connection between the Atari’s bus and Arduino Pins). This solution worked well on the table, but I experienced some problems during assembly so I moved the Arduino above the metal shielding (to be accessible if needed). It sits in a plastic case of a CF card with some cut-outs for the cables coming in and out of course. You must also isolate the Tip120, when it’s back touches the metal, your lights will start doing funny things.
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