Sanity Check - Driving EZ-HID Key from Soarer's Controller or TMK?

[MacMarty]

Hi! I'm working on a project to connect an Apple eMate300 keyboard - through BlueTooth - to an iPad Mini. I am --so-- close, and need some wisdom for jumping the final gap.

At this instant I have successfully implemented Soarer's Controller on the Teensy 2.0 and Teensy++ 2.0, giving me a -wired- USB keyboard. I have a BlueFruit EZ-KeyHID which can do serial I/O through Rx and Tx pins. (Maybe no extra handshaking.) I would DEARLY love to divert or tap off of the HID codes that are going out through the Teensy's USB connector. Is that that a "possible" dream?

My "plan B" is to dive into the deep end of the pool, and work my way through setting up a TKM-Keyboard implementation, but I face a bit of a learning curve if I go that route. I know I can gather the UART pins on the Teensy++ if I go that route, and I know that there is already a BlueFruit protocol written for TKM.

So the core question is, is there an easy (Soarer's Controller) way to pull this off? Or shall I start my way up the learning curve?

 

[MacMarty]

Well, word from the AdaFruit side of the world tells that option 1 is no-go. "USB and serial are fundamentally different protocols." It's good to know what is NOT possible.

 

[PaulStoffregen]

I would DEARLY love to divert or tap off of the HID codes that are going out through the Teensy's USB connector. Is that that a "possible" dream?

Well, you could edit the USB source code. For Teensy 2.0, all the outgoing HID keyboard messages are transmitted by this code:

https://github.com/PaulStoffregen/cores/blob/master/usb_hid/usb_api.cpp#L284

I don't fully understand what you're trying to accomplish, but I do know how the Teensy USB code works (I wrote it). Maybe this helps?

 

[MacMarty]

I don't fully understand what you're trying to accomplish, but I do know how the Teensy USB code works (I wrote it).

My overall goal is to modify an Apple eMate 300 into a case+keyboard for Apple's current iPad Mini. (Or from another viewpoint, upgrade the eMate 300 to contemporary levels of technology. )

http://www.technologytell.com/apple/109994/apple-emate-300/

There are two subtasks - mount the iPad Mini in the "lid", which I have mostly accomplished. The second subtask is to turn the eMate's keyboard into a Bluetooth keyboard. I've conquered the mechanical aspect - the eMate's keyboard is membrane-type device terminating in Flexible Printed Circuit ribbons - 8x16 matrix. First goal (completed) was to build a controller to set the keyboard up as wired USB, the Teensy 2.0 and "Soarer's Controller" firmware was enough, with just one I/O pin left over. The next step is to change from wired-usb into Bluetooth, with BlueFruit EZ-Key. In theory, the EZ-key is flexible/smart/compliant enough to only need power, ground, and the Rx signal - no UART handshaking. I have no objection to going to Teensy++, which could get me full UART serial, and a few more pins left over for some external inputs present on the eMate shell.