Old Keyboard == New Footboard

[Bradster]

Old Keyboard = New Foot Switch
Guide made by Glo



Meet my new healer!

I did this little mod because I was having trouble healing in heroics. I was thinking of getting foot pedals and one of my neighbors threw an old keyboard away so decided to try something different.

http://aycu40.webshots.com/image/46079/2003260812779197467_rs.jpg

A few uses of SetBindingMacro and some 77 cent knobs from wal-mart and this is the finished product.

http://aycu24.webshots.com/image/46783/2005947646382931187_rs.jpg

My total cost was less then 5 bucks, even if you have to purchase a cheap keyboard for the project it can be done for $15.

I have a traditional tank, healer, 3 dps setup with the first button set to cast a big heal on the tank and a chain heal if alt is held. The other 4 buttons are just chain heal for each of the other 4 characters. It's pretty simplistic but it's helped me with both the tanking and healing since my hand doesn't need to leave the main keyboard to heal at all.

[Shonkey]

Impressive. Thanks for sharing. Its given me a few more ideas.

[Pikey]

lol... awesome.

I take it this for a multi-pc set up.

Looks good. Very creative.

[Yagamoth]

awesome, i love that idea xD

[Surabe]

rofl.......... :D

[völu]

Nice, really nice.
I will do the same. That can probably boost my Warri, Paladin 2on2 Team :)

[Ozbert]

I notice your left-most foot button is on the S key.

How do you distinguish between pressing the S on your footboard and the S on your normal keyboard, assuming you still have it bound to the default of move backwards?

[Signal7]

That's some thinking outside the box type of action right there. Very cool indeed. :)

[Thulos]

Very interesting. I'm not quite understanding how you set it all up. Is this keyboard hooked to a different computer, which happens to be your dedicated healer comp? Or is it hooked to your main computer. My best guess is that this keyboard is hooked to your healer and those keys are on your Do not pass list so they don't accidentally get sent from your main keyboard. Can you give just a little more details on this because it's giving me some ideas.

[Marious]

Hehe takes typing to a whole new level, you should be able to type faster now :)

"I got tired of typing with my hands alone so now I have a keyboard that I can type with my feet as well."

Actually the whole pedal thing is not a bad idea if your hardware based since you definitely can just assign healing to those particular buttons or a number of other things.

[glo]

Very interesting. I'm not quite understanding how you set it all up. Is this keyboard hooked to a different computer, which happens to be your dedicated healer comp? Or is it hooked to your main computer. My best guess is that this keyboard is hooked to your healer and those keys are on your Do not pass list so they don't accidentally get sent from your main keyboard. Can you give just a little more details on this because it's giving me some ideas.

This keyboard is attached to the machine my healer runs on which also shares a wireless keyboard with my 4 follow characters. If I want to dps and heal with this character I leave the default bar up, if I need it to be a dedicated healer I pull up a bar that doesn't have damage spells binded so all he does is heal.

One of the best suggestions from the original post was to tape down one of the modifier buttons(shift,ctrl,alt) so you can bind any buttons you like without interfering with the main keyboard.

[Fizzler]

That a way to think outside of the box. I am not keen on the taping down a modifier button though. What do you do if you need to do other things with that character other than heal?

You might be better off messing with keymapping and perhaps loading a different language with special characters. I had a friend remap his keyboard using a registry hack which of course is risky :)

[Bradster]

Just wanted to say Glo that this is a awesome idea you had, which is why I had to post this. Foot switches in any form cost a lot of money. What you've created here is something cheap and effective. Something I'll have to make for myself in the future, thanks for posting it.

[Thulos]

Very interesting. I'm not quite understanding how you set it all up. Is this keyboard hooked to a different computer, which happens to be your dedicated healer comp? Or is it hooked to your main computer. My best guess is that this keyboard is hooked to your healer and those keys are on your Do not pass list so they don't accidentally get sent from your main keyboard. Can you give just a little more details on this because it's giving me some ideas.

This keyboard is attached to the machine my healer runs on which also shares a wireless keyboard with my 4 follow characters. If I want to dps and heal with this character I leave the default bar up, if I need it to be a dedicated healer I pull up a bar that doesn't have damage spells binded so all he does is heal.

One of the best suggestions from the original post was to tape down one of the modifier buttons(shift,ctrl,alt) so you can bind any buttons you like without interfering with the main keyboard.Thanks for the followup. I absolutely love it!

[glo]

Just wanted to say Glo that this is a awesome idea you had, which is why I had to post this. Foot switches in any form cost a lot of money. What you've created here is something cheap and effective. Something I'll have to make for myself in the future, thanks for posting it.

I was just having some fun but thanks and you are welcome.

[Teejayv]

hey Glo, after our discussion earlier, i went out and got the stuff i needed for the footboard. I was unable to do the screw method though, because i was unable to find any screws that were thin enough to fit into the hole of the individual keys. I did get some super glue though and just crudely put it together. So far it's been holding and all, but actually i haven't really put it through strenous "battle-testing" as of yet.

Right now it's kinda just sitting there, because i don't know what to really use it for. I guess i could use it for healing, and i was also thinking of using it for warrior tanking, because as we all know they've got more than a couple skills to actually use unlike the good ol' pallies.

I guess i'll have to start practicing with it regardless, it not only looks cool, but i'm sure the functionality aspect is off the charts. PLUS some of my RL friends are already starting to call me "The Octopus", since now i'm using all four limbs to box. Actually, because i play the drums in RL, i'm already quite used to using four limbs interdependently, it would be nice though to apply this "real life skill" to something like boxing.

Anyways i'll let you guys know how it works out. I want this to be the start of bigger and better things (and by that i mean, maybe 2 footboards at once? One for each foot.. who knows?)

[glo]

hey Glo, after our discussion earlier, i went out and got the stuff i needed for the footboard. I was unable to do the screw method though, because i was unable to find any screws that were thin enough to fit into the hole of the individual keys. I did get some super glue though and just crudely put it together. So far it's been holding and all, but actually i haven't really put it through strenous "battle-testing" as of yet.

Right now it's kinda just sitting there, because i don't know what to really use it for. I guess i could use it for healing, and i was also thinking of using it for warrior tanking, because as we all know they've got more than a couple skills to actually use unlike the good ol' pallies.

I guess i'll have to start practicing with it regardless, it not only looks cool, but i'm sure the functionality aspect is off the charts. PLUS some of my RL friends are already starting to call me "The Octopus", since now i'm using all four limbs to box. Actually, because i play the drums in RL, i'm already quite used to using four limbs interdependently, it would be nice though to apply this "real life skill" to something like boxing.

Anyways i'll let you guys know how it works out. I want this to be the start of bigger and better things (and by that i mean, maybe 2 footboards at once? One for each foot.. who knows?)

I had to take the top of the keyboard off to attach the knobs, believe I mentioned that problem in the original thread. I considered glue but I'm certain it would work right up to the point I was in a critical situation and go flying off ;)

[Barman]

rofl.. probably one of the best pictures I have ever seen :-D

[Buck]

Just think! 2 of these and you can be your own 10 man raid! Great idea! thanks for sharing! :thumbsup:

[Dotone]

Sweet
I made one, without the knobs because it was 3 in the morning, attached it to my laptop for my healer.
Works great!

[zaediex]

This post inspired me. After waiting a few weeks for parts this is what I came up with at a recent trip to my inlaws:

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/4190/topsmallhx8.th.jpg ('http://img207.imageshack.us/my.php?image=topsmallhx8.jpg')http://img207.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif ('http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php')
http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/4898/undersidesmallrv3.th.jpg ('http://img508.imageshack.us/my.php?image=undersidesmallrv3.jpg')http://img508.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif ('http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php')
http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/4610/undersidesmall2mm5.th.jpg ('http://img508.imageshack.us/my.php?image=undersidesmall2mm5.jpg')http://img508.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif ('http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php')
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/7205/profilesmallqh7.th.jpg ('http://img207.imageshack.us/my.php?image=profilesmallqh7.jpg')http://img207.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif ('http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php')
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/540/undersideprofilesmalleo0.th.jpg ('http://img207.imageshack.us/my.php?image=undersideprofilesmalleo0.jpg')http://img207.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif ('http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php')
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/9313/feetsmallks2.th.jpg ('http://img207.imageshack.us/my.php?image=feetsmallks2.jpg')http://img207.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif ('http://g.imageshack.us/thpix.php')

I'm using the guts of an old Nostromo n50 to drive the buttons so it's fully programmable. I haven't finished wiring it up yet, but I was too excited to wait till it was totally complete to share it.

I hope this inspires someone else to push this concept even further!

[Vyndree]

Multiboxing DDR!

Ready, set, GO!