Fixing your CYOA Ortho v0.2

On the 28th March 2024 we identified an issue with CYOA Ortho v0.2 PCBs.

Is my PCB affected?

  • CYOA Ortho v0.2 (black) PCBs are affected.
  • CYOA Ortho v0.3 (black) PCBs are not affected.
  • CYOA Ortho v0.1 (purple) PCBs are not affected.
See photos below to identify your PCB
Affected CYOA v0.2

If you have an unaffected PCB, then no need to do anything else! Your CYOA Ortho PCB should be working great.

How are the PCBs affected?

In the affected CYOA Ortho v0.2 PCBs, one of the traces connecting switch C9 and switch D9 is broken. This means that the keys D9, D10, D11 and D12 will not work properly. See the photo below to see the gap in the trace.

If you are building a 3 row keyboard or a keyboard with 8 or fewer columns then this will be a non issue for you as you will be snapping off the affected area.

If you are building a larger keyboard then this will cause an issue with your build. Read on to see how to fix it.

The affected trace on the PCB

How to fix the issue

If you are building a 3 row keyboard or a keyboard with 8 or fewer columns then this will be a non issue for you as you will be snapping off the affected area.

I am reaching out to everyone with an affected board to offer a replacement, but in the event that you have already started building your board, you might just want to fix the one that you have. In order to fix the issue you will have to add a small jumper wire on the back of the PCB.

This small jumper wire should connect the positive / anode / lower end of diode D34 (beside switch C9) with the positive / anode / lower end of diode D46 (beside switch D9). See the photo below for an indication of how the wire should be placed. You can connect this wire to the surface mount pad (as I’ve done below), the through hole pad or the diode leg itself.

Jumper wire fom D34 to D46

You should be able to use any type of thin wire to do this. Just ensure that it does not touch any other pins with bare wire.

How will I know that the fix has worked?

You will know that the wire has worked if you use a multimeter to see if the lower / anode / positive pins of D34 and D46 are now connected (i.e. you will see zero resistance on a multimeter, or a continuity beep if you use it in that mode).

If you have already built your keyboard then you can further verify this by checking that keys D9, D10, D11 and D12 are now working as expected.

We have reached out to all those customers who we believe have an affected board. We apologise for any challenges that this might have caused during your keyboard build.

If you have any questions about the fix or anything else, please get in touch at hej@sthlmkb.com

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