Sony HB-20p keyboard membrane replacement

Rookie (24)

23-11-2022, 00:20

Hello all,

In va-de-retro.com forum I have started a funding to reproduce 30 of these MSX Sony HB-20p membranes that are so fragile.
I'm selling them (with almost no earning from my part) at 30€ each, plus 5€ packaging and ordinary postage or 10€ certified postage. Payment method as per today is limited to PayPal.

Just to make you aware on how things are going, I contacted a company in Madrid area (Cao Ingtec) which does this kind of products for industrial machinery keyboards so I expect them to have broad experience.
I sent two old broken membranes and a full keboard set to that company so they can reproduce the membrane with confidence. They have offered to create a test membrane for free and check if the reproduction works, so I can test beforehand if the new ones will be working or not. Regarding to that, you can wait to place the payment if you wish, but I'll deliver first whoever has shared the risk with me and advanced the money! I'll keep sharing news as promptly as I receive them.

Needless to say, if the test membrane is not working or finally cannot be produced I'll do a full refund of the money using PayPal (that's the reason I'd prefer to keep PayPal as the only international payment method at this moment).

Before placing any order, please check the membrane's part number because there are some of them and may not be compatible. For instance, japanese membranes have this P/N: 56-7238A and are not compatible with european ones, which we identified 2 different P/Ns: 56-7238B and 56-7238F. It may be possible that there are some more P/N issued to different countries and those may not be compatible with the ones we will be manufacturing 56-7238B

All the details can be found in following post in va-de-retro.com but regrettably they are in Spanish. However, feel free to ask whathever question comes to your mind, I'll be happy to answer.

You can contact me in vsellares(at)gmail.com and share with me how many membranes you want and which is your preferred delivery method. I will update the first va-de-retro post with the details for clarity to everyone.

Hope this can be useful to some of you!

بواسطة mzoran

Master (157)

23-11-2022, 10:47

great initiative, this should also work for 10P model
e-mail sent

بواسطة vsellares

Rookie (24)

23-11-2022, 13:53

Hi mzoran! AFAIK those two computers (HB10p and HB20p) are the same, only difference is that 20p only has RF as video output while 10p has a DIN5 connector (I don't remember if it is RCA or RGB).

I'll send you the answer to your mail afterwards.

بواسطة vsellares

Rookie (24)

09-12-2022, 19:08

Hi everyone,

Last week I requested the company who is developing the membranes some updates but I haven't received any. That doesn't worries me because this week was quite strange in Spain with two bank holiday on Tuesday and Thursday and most pepole just extending those days to have up to nine days of holidays (I've also did so to get those 9 days off to fiddle with my retro computers).

Anyway, I'll keep an eye on it and I hope next week I receive some news regarding the membranes and I'll share with you.

Cheers!

بواسطة vsellares

Rookie (24)

19-12-2022, 22:13

Hi! Some update about membranes:

Last week I was in contact with the company that is working with the membranes.
They told me that they progressed a lot with the membrane replica drawing in their CAD software and they expect to have it finished next week, between Christmas day and New Year.
First samples for testing should arrive first week of January, then I'll test them on my two HB-20p and I'll let you know the outcome, if everything is Ok or some rework needs to be done, or whatever.

Thanks for your patience, I hope we can get those membrane replicas very soon. Stay tuned!

Cheers!

بواسطة mcolom

Champion (316)

19-12-2022, 23:40

Great news!
Hundreds of HB-20P will be thankful to you! Mine too.

If possible and if the company accepts, it'd good if you could make these CAD diagrams available. For better documentation and to help with preservation and future repairs of these machines.

بواسطة vsellares

Rookie (24)

27-12-2022, 16:36

Hi mcolom, I'll try to ask them. Keep in mind that this is a private company developing that and maybe they want to keep their design work. Keep rest assured if that membrane's desig was mine I'd share it openly for the community. I'll ask anyway, but I can't promise anything on that.

بواسطة gdx

Enlighted (6219)

28-12-2022, 01:48

I suppose this membrane is for the spanish keyboard only.

بواسطة sdsnatcher73

Prophet (3963)

28-12-2022, 06:09

As far as I can see the only difference in HB-10P international and Spanish variations is the characters on the keys, basic layout is identical. So it should work fine in all HB-10B, HB-10D, HB-10N, HB-20N and HB-20P. (HB-10D looks to have extra wide right shift to compensate for the missing accent key on that model).

It is unlikely to work in Japanese models.

بواسطة vsellares

Rookie (24)

11-01-2023, 11:22

Sorry for the late reply. No, for the Japanese keyboard it does not fit.
At va-de-retro.com forum we checked different mebranes of different owners. There are a couple of Part Numbers we identified. If your's is different just let me know to document and cross check compatibility.
You should check membrane's P/N:

Japanese: 56-7238A
European: 56-7238B
European: 56-7238F --> this diferes from 'B' but otherwise is compatible (different maker / membrane technology).

بواسطة wbahnassi

Master (192)

16-01-2023, 04:07

Hi vsellares. I don't want to derail this thread to another model. But just want to ask if there is possibility to do other MSX model keyboard membranes too? Or this will only be for Sony HB -20? (I have an AX-370 that has a keyboard membrane on its last days). If yes, I can spawn another thread to discuss that.

Thanks!