Mouse interface for double paddle

[foggycoder]

Some internet morse platforms have a "straight key" mouse facility (LCWO, CWCOM, Vail, morsecode.me) - you put the mouse pointer on a pad and click away with the left mouse button. You can even wire a proper straight key into the left mouse button. That's fine if you're a straight key guy, but what if (like me) you use a double or single paddle? Answer: it doesn't work.

So I've made an adapter. I hope you can see what I've done from the attached image. The double key goes into a K-16 keyer. The output from the keyer goes through a stereo jack/socket. After that, it's very much the same as for wiring a proper straight key. The left and right channels are wired together and soldered to one line going to the mouse left key. The earth line is soldered to the mouse left key earth. I used trial-and-error to work out which wire is the earth and which the live. Finally I disabled the laser tracking function of this mouse so that only the other mouse (my main mouse) moves the pointer - that way I can put the mouse pointer on the software pad and it won't move.

It's not rocket science (although extracting the wiring from the stereo socket is rather fiddly) but I just wanted to show that it can be done fairly simply.

 

[foggycoder]

Some platforms (Vail, for instance) have a facility whereby the left mouse button will generate dits and the right mouse button will generate dahs. So, can you just wire one side of your double paddle to the left mouse button live, the other side to the right mouse button, and join the paddle earth to the mouse earth?

Answer: no. For electronic reasons that are completely beyond me, the left and right mouse buttons use different earths - if you try to connect those two button earths together (via the paddle earth), the buttons stop working.

 

[Ham4CW]

Some platforms (Vail, for instance) have a facility whereby the left mouse button will generate dits and the right mouse button will generate dahs. So, can you just wire one side of your double paddle to the left mouse button live, the other side to the right mouse button, and join the paddle earth to the mouse earth?

Answer: no. For electronic reasons that are completely beyond me, the left and right mouse buttons use different earths - if you try to connect those two button earths together (via the paddle earth), the buttons stop working.

Had the same issue when experimenting with CW-Com. I found that if the left and right contacts were closed at the same time it would short out the mouse controller (this could be seen by monitoring the current drawn down the USB line).

However, if you use a single paddle key then it is impossible for that to occur, so it is a nice easy fix, unless you were after Iambic keying of course.

Other workarounds use relays to isolate the left from right circuits, and such a methods would allow Iambic keying while still maintaining isolation between the left and right button circuits.

It may also be possible to use opto isolators instead of relays, but it is not something I have looked in to.

73, Mark...