older keyboards

[river rat316]

I have an older construction sign that you can rotate messages on and use it for advertising, this last weekend the keyboard went haywire and basically rendered the sign inoperable, the keyboard is an older style witha telephone style plug in that is 4 pin, I called the company that makes the sign and of course they no longer stock parts for this style of sign since they went to LED, I ordered a keyboard from a place off hsolist as a shot in the dark because it looked like it was the same style connector, well turn out is a wider 5 pin style connector. My question is does anyone know someone who can refurbish an older keyboard, or possible re wire the newer one to the same style of connector? I would really like to retain use of this sign and not turn it into an over priced bill board holder

[jentz]

I have an older construction sign that you can rotate messages on and use it for advertising, this last weekend the keyboard went haywire and basically rendered the sign inoperable, the keyboard is an older style witha telephone style plug in that is 4 pin, I called the company that makes the sign and of course they no longer stock parts for this style of sign since they went to LED, I ordered a keyboard from a place off hsolist as a shot in the dark because it looked like it was the same style connector, well turn out is a wider 5 pin style connector. My question is does anyone know someone who can refurbish an older keyboard, or possible re wire the newer one to the same style of connector? I would really like to retain use of this sign and not turn it into an over priced bill board holder

Are you stuck with the one you just bought? If so or if you'd want to try splice the old plug onto the new keyboard.You may have to open them and trace wires to make sure the color code is the same,its not too tough with shrink tube,May not be perty but would serve the purpose

[delcecchi]

Splicing the wires or installing a telephone jack on is so simple a cave man can do it, more or less. They sell the plugs for phones many places. Only tricky part is figuring out which wire goes where. Since you can't use the old keyboard or the new connector, you might try cutting off both connectors to get a look at the wire colors. With any luck, you can match colors. Just twist and tape the phone connector wires to the wires from the new keyboard.

If you are lucky it will work and you can put the phone connector on more permanently. BTW there are two connectors that look a lot alike... The ones used on telephones and the ones used on ethernet cables. The ethernet one has more contacts but otherwise looks very similar.

Will the sign company tell you the wiring to the connector?

[upnorth]

This maybe the ticket if you have an old ps2 keyboard laying around. The phone style plug is called an rj11 plug. Basically follow the pin outs below. You would need to figure out how to crimp it, pliers and a piece of plastic?

[delcecchi]

If he doesn't just want to splice to the cable off the old keyboard (solder and heat shrink tubing would do nicely) they sell crimping tools all over, like fleet farm and home depot. Probably menards too. Amazon for sure.