Model M blusb conversion

Here's the kit. The board, the battery, a screwdriver, and a beer. Only the pcb comes in the kit. Beer not included.

I received my blusb kit from geekhack user chanceman42069. I was searching for information on USB converting my model m, and stumbled upon his geekhack post. A couple of very friendly emails later and here we are. The guy customizes each pcb based on the internals of your model m, so compatibility problems are a non-issue, making this an extremely easy install.

The package shipped to me from overseas, so I was very happily surprised when it came very comfortably wrapped in bubble wrap and a sealed antistatic bag. Very high quality packaging.

The board comes with a thermistor and thermistor header taped to it so they don't get lost during shipping. The ground pin is also wrapped in foam for extra protection.

Close up of the thermistor.

Close up of the bluetooth board. The whole pcb is designed very well, and seems very robust.

A look at the backside of the board.

Normally the thermistor and header are presoldered for convenience, but I know how to solder so I was left to decide how I wanted to orient my own thermistor. I connected my thermistor plug to the header and taped it down to make it easier to solder.

Here's a look of the backside. With the tape in place this was very easy to solder.

Now I move on to the battery portion. The controller board has polarity conveniently silkscreened on, so you know how to connect your battery. Now, if you act before you think like me and just plug the battery in right away without checking polarity, it's no big deal since there is some decent protection circuitry to prevent any damage from this.

I bought a 2500mah battery from adafruit for this project. I've simply taped it to the bottom of the case with blue tape. You don't want to secure it too firmly in case you want to remove it later, lipo batteries are very soft and damaged easily. I've similarly taped the thermistor to the battery.

I needed to extend my battery leads to actually reach the board, but it's wasn't a problem for me. Note that adafruit batteries also have reverse polarity on the connector from what the board needs, so if you need to extend battery leads now would be a good time to switch them.

Here's a picture of my Model M's plate. Mine has a white/cream plate, which is rather unusual to me. I haven't seen many like this.

In the back, there are 3 ribbon cables that simply slide right into the board. These cables are the keyboard matrix, and are what electrically allows the keyboard to type.

And here's a picture of the ground pin. I'm not sure if this is actually necessary or not, but I screwed it in anyway just in case.

And here's the finished project! Simply button the case back up, and you have a high quality Bluetooth Model M!