The Sakhr AX170 Cyberdeck Build Part 1

 With the AX170 in hand it was time to open it up and see what I have to work with. Only a few screws on the bottom held the case together and it came apart easily, allowing me to view its vintage design.

The original motherboard is of no use to me but I want to retain the cartridge slots and keyboard connector. I was able to source identical 50 pin card edge connectors so I wouldn’t have to go through the pain of desoldering the originals, but unable to find matching through-hole FPC connectors for the keyboard so removed those from the motherboard. Since I am removing the original motherboard I need a new base for the components. I found a large perfboard that was almost an exact fit, so I trimmed some off the back to fit the shape of the case, drilled holes for the mounting posts to pass through and mounted the components.

With these components in place I can start to design the layout of the Raspberry Pi, hard drive and other components. But before any of that I need to get past what I consider what may be the most difficult part, the keyboard. I want to use the original keyboard but I must first convert it to work with the Raspberry Pi.