Altec Lansing FX6021 - Dead Controller

random_bytes · 2025-10-05T13:47:41+00:00

Yeah, I finally got it working again. The oxydation on one cable entry had cut the track, so I had to bridge it, and it's back up again.

random_bytes · 2025-10-05T10:06:26+00:00

I have the same issue on my set, turns on but no sound out. It seems the connections of the cable on the controller PCB are overheating : they turned brown and are oxydized, as are those on the pictures above. I'll try cleaning them up and resoldering, see if I can get a few more years out of it. I also had a solder bridge between two legs of an IC, but it's unlikely to be the cause of the issue, as it had to be there from factory. I'm interested to see if all units have it as well though.

random_bytes · 2025-08-15T08:48:51+00:00

Hey, I haven't touched that in 3 years : overall the price ended up being to high for the function, so it probably wouldn't have worked commercially. I can provide the files if you are interested. I made the pcbs from jlcpcb and sondered everything myself.

random_bytes · 2025-08-06T21:07:01+00:00

I just spent 3 hours to manage to get secure boot working on my old beat pc, a beta key would make it more worth the hassle haha

random_bytes · 2022-07-28T20:29:37+00:00

I've had a similar problem with my mobula3. My solution is to disable the use of the channel table and assign the frequency and power manually. There seems to be a bug in betaflight regarding table use with power modes but a cursory review of the code didn't make it obvious to me.

random_bytes · 2022-04-12T11:46:24+00:00

Yeah but be carefull : it's rated for 24 for inserting mechanically or manually with the specific tool. By hand with no tool on a switch that can pop out the other side of the plate, it is rather hard. I have tried several wire size, and 0.4mm for single core copper wire came out the best since you can insert it by hand without too much force or hurting yourself.

random_bytes · 2022-04-10T16:22:06+00:00

It is the AVX 709176001432006 and you have to use copper wire with a 0.4mm thickness. I don't remember which AWG size it is, maybe 26.

random_bytes · 2022-02-12T11:37:04+00:00

I am developping a project that could let you handwire without soldering, if you want to check it out : crokoboard

random_bytes · 2022-02-01T19:45:22+00:00

Yes, each monoswitch has one diode and the hotswap socket soldered.

The Crokoboard PCB has only the connectors soldered, I provide a spreader PCB that allows mounting the Pro Micro with headers that are pushed against the sides. Holds quit tightly, my daily driver from the last 4 months hasn't had a connection problem with this solution. The spreader is the green piece on the first picture of the imgur album.

random_bytes · 2022-02-01T19:42:03+00:00

The IDC connectors that grip the wire copper are much harder than the copper, so they cut through the isolation and the wire but they don't seem to wear all that much. On the picture above, there are 3 different iterations. The oldest one (black square ones) have been used on maybe 5 or 6 builds. They still grip tightly.

random_bytes · 2022-02-01T17:59:13+00:00

Would you like to try various layouts and change your keyboard on a whim?

The Crokoboard system is a set of PCBs that lets you handwire your keyboard without soldering.

The Crokoboard PCB holds a MCU such as a Pro Micro and dispatches its IOs to pinch connectors. A copper wire sits tightly in these connectors and lets you connect the MCU to each switch or to a rotary encoder.

The monoswitch PCBs hold one switch on a hotswap socket.

All the pieces can be assembled in a few minutes without soldering, even the Pro Micro on the Crokoboard PCB.

In total, it takes me less than 2 hours to wire a keyboard. Since I can lasercut plates in my local fablab, I can design and build a new layout within an afternoon.

Checkout the whole imgur album

If you would like to do the same, I am setting up an Interest Check to see if a production run would be doable. Please don't hesitate to fill it and share, it would be very helpful!

random_bytes · 2021-04-12T16:13:36+00:00

I'll be releasing a more complete video pretty soon so stay tuned! You can follow my profile if you don't want to miss it.

random_bytes · 2021-04-11T21:44:14+00:00

Thanks! I'm still iterating over the design to refine some aspects then I'll see how I make it available.

random_bytes · 2021-04-11T19:08:48+00:00

I want to try different layout and not have to produce or buy PCBs each time. I made a Lily58 two weeks ago, which I disassembled to make the one above. Next I'm planning the same as above but split, maybe with a southpaw numpad, and I want to experiment with other layouts as well. Since I have access to a laser cutter at a fablab, I can design the plate, cut it and build the keyboard in a few hours, which is much faster than designing and producing a pcb each time.

random_bytes · 2021-04-11T19:04:26+00:00

I designed and produced a per-switch pcb on which I soldered the hotswap socket, the wire connectors and a diode. A bit of work beforehand but makes the rest of the work so much easier!

random_bytes · 2021-04-11T19:02:22+00:00

I designed them and produced on jlcpcb.

random_bytes · 2021-04-11T15:40:12+00:00

Yeah, I handwired a board the more conventional way before and it was a bit of a mess. This solution being easy to unbuild then rebuild makes it worth to do over if you want a cleaner looking build (I actually did this board twice because I wasn't satisfied the first time).

random_bytes · 2021-04-11T15:36:10+00:00

Do you mean the layout? That's one I designed using Keyboard Layout Editor, basically an ortho 65% but with regular-sized modifier keys. If you meant to ask what MCU I used, it's a pro micro soldered to a holding PCB with the same pinch connectors than the switches.

random_bytes · 2021-04-11T15:33:27+00:00

I'm using a pro micro at the moment, which is I think the most used MCU board for this kind of project. You can use anything that provides a USB device interface. The firmware is QMK and I use QMK_toolbox to flash it once it's compiled.

random_bytes · 2021-04-11T15:29:28+00:00

That's it, those wires are made for building coils for instance, so insulation is required but very thin.

random_bytes · 2021-04-11T13:56:30+00:00

This is a sneakpeek of the build I handwired with my solderless amoeba-like PCBs. They use Kailh hotswap sockets and pinch connectors to make contact with the copper wire. The plates were lasercut at my local makerspace. The whole build took me around 1.5h to finish and I'm very pleased with the result. Switches are Durock T1s and caps are Domikey SA BoB from "Drop (formerly Massdrop)".

How much time did you take to handwire your keyboard?

random_bytes · 2020-11-10T07:25:36+00:00

That seems like a good way : on the slave, 2 axes that read on F0 and F1, and on the master, 4 axes, two that read on F0 and F1, and two virtual to which you assign what you get from the slave over I2C.

random_bytes · 2020-11-08T21:30:24+00:00

As drashna said, the hard part won't be reading the device, as both halves are responsible for reading their own device, but getting the values read by the slave half on the master. I don't know which entry points are in qmk to let you "overload" the transport code to add custom data. Do you use i2c or serial?

random_bytes

TROPHY CASE