Recommended Posts

My keyboard has a wired USB cable - tethered to the device.  I watched a bunch of youtube videos noting how it's just 4-core USB and almost any device can be snipped, and a USB-C socket soldered into place.

I am about to try this - but before doing so - I noticed that the cable attaches to the keyboards PCB with this connector - anyone know what it's called?  It has the same 4 core wires as USB, and is about 7mm by 4mm (ish).

Purpose being, I want to see if someone can make a cable up for me with that on one end, and USB-C female on the other.

Ta

 

IMG_7584.JPEG

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1451624-converting-keyboard-to-usb-c/
Share on other sites

What model keyboard is it? Or if you can find an identifier on the PCB or provide a picture of the whole PCB, I'm sure we can find the type of JST connector it is. Plenty of people talk about this stuff in the mechanical keyboard community so it should be easy to find.

Another important attribute of a connector is the pitch (distance between neighboring pins as measured from their centers).

If the pitch is 1.25mm, then it looks like it might be equivalent to a Molex 0537800570. The mating plug is a Molex 0511460500.

 

So someone else suggested Molex, and I wrote it off thinking they'd not paid attention, as the only Molex I was aware of was the old style HDD power connector - but with your context of a part number, I think you could be right!

  On 12/02/2025 at 10:08, Dick Montage said:

So someone else suggested Molex, and I wrote it off thinking they'd not paid attention, as the only Molex I was aware of was the old style HDD power connector - but with your context of a part number, I think you could be right!

Expand  

Same here, I've been dabbling in PC repairs since the mid 1990's and learned something new today!

https://www.molex.com/en-us/products/connectors

  On 11/02/2025 at 20:05, Dick Montage said:

My keyboard has a wired USB cable - tethered to the device.  I watched a bunch of youtube videos noting how it's just 4-core USB and almost any device can be snipped, and a USB-C socket soldered into place.

I am about to try this - but before doing so - I noticed that the cable attaches to the keyboards PCB with this connector - anyone know what it's called?  It has the same 4 core wires as USB, and is about 7mm by 4mm (ish).

Purpose being, I want to see if someone can make a cable up for me with that on one end, and USB-C female on the other.

Ta

 

IMG_7584.JPEG

Expand  

Why not just use a usb a to c adapter?

proxy-image (1).jpeg

  On 12/02/2025 at 10:08, Dick Montage said:

So someone else suggested Molex, and I wrote it off thinking they'd not paid attention, as the only Molex I was aware of was the old style HDD power connector - but with your context of a part number, I think you could be right!

Expand  

Molex is the manufacturer, technically even the old FDD plugs were molex's 😛

  On 12/02/2025 at 19:42, Som said:

Why not just use a usb a to c adapter?

proxy-image (1).jpeg

Expand  

Not the point mate :)

  On 12/02/2025 at 12:39, DKAngel said:

could just unpin the wires from the connector and pin new ones in?

there should be holes on the other side of the connecter to unclip

Expand  

It’s a surface mount connector, no wires to unpin.

  • 2 weeks later...

Right, so - I did it.  Turns out that:

1) something must have been missing continuity because this time it just worked

2) I bought a much better soldering iron (full soldering station) - my last one was USC rechargeable junk and just not reaching the temperature

Next step, Stream Deck (I unfortunately have one of the old integrated cable ones)

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • i built my own, all ya need is a pc with two network cards and i used operwrt as the os
    • hi thanks for input. those two modems are supported  thankfully. i really am leaning towards the b12 though since there's a few complaints of the cm3000 and its chipset (drops and whatnot), although those might just be vocal minority complaints.
    • A PDF or text file is all you need for Copilot to generate a PowerPoint for you in seconds by Usama Jawad Assistive AI is all the rage these days. In the past few hours alone, we have witnessed AI summaries on YouTube, context-aware text generation capabilities in Google Sheets, Gemini tools on the cloud, the availability of additional AI models with smarter defaults in Visual Studio, and chat summarization on WhatsApp. Now, Microsoft has detailed an upcoming Copilot capability in PowerPoint. Microsoft has outlined a streamlined approach to creating PowerPoint presentations within seconds using a PDF or text file, and a natural language prompt as input. Previously, you could just ground Word files for this purpose, so support for additional formats is certainly welcome. In order to generate a slide deck using Copilot, you can simply open a PowerPoint presentation in the platform of your choice and click the Copilot button. In the resulting Copilot pane, select the "Create a presentation from a file" option, which allows you to type in the name of a PDF or text file stored on the cloud or browse for files in OneDrive or SharePoint manually using the "Attach cloud files" button. You can then refine your prompt by adding details about items that you'd like Copilot to focus on and click the "Send" button. This will generate the slide deck which you can rearrange or add more topics to, before you create the final version of the presentation. Of course, this is a particularly useful feature in many scenarios including those which require you to create a slide deck based on some detailed documentation that you have already completed. That said, it's obviously worth vetting any content that Copilot creates, since data inaccuracy is still a concern when it comes to AI models. This feature is available to Insiders across PowerPoint for web, Windows, and Mac for the following versions: Windows: Version 2409 (Build 18025.20000) or later Mac: Version 16.88 (Build 24082514) or later That said, you do need an Enterprise Copilot license in order to utilize the AI assistant in this way.
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Month Later
      jfam earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • First Post
      TheRingmaster earned a badge
      First Post
    • Conversation Starter
      Kavin25 earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • One Month Later
      Leonard grant earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      pcdoctorsnet earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      541
    2. 2
      ATLien_0
      200
    3. 3
      +FloatingFatMan
      177
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      146
    5. 5
      snowy owl
      114
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!