Anyone ever seen a PS2 "Y" Splitter that

[mgravy]

has one female and splits into 2 male connectors?

Every single one that I have searched for is the opposite (1 male to 2 female).

 

[imported_Tick]

What are you trying to do????

 

[mgravy]

Knew I would need to explain this....

I have 2 PC's that are both dual monitor setups... One of the monitors is hooked up to a Belkin KVM. The other monitor has an input switch that I can use to go back and forth between PC's, but I'm getting sick of it. I would much rather use the one keyboard to flip both monitors and I can do that if I can find a splitter, or a ps2 converter that is male/male and one female/female.

I have found a way to hook up 2 kvm's to switch both monitors with both PC's using one keyboard. I know that there are KVM's available for dual monitors, but this solution is much cheaper, plus I can also use the microphone and speaker inputs on the KVM to easily swap 4 speakers between each computer.

Kind of a rig job, but it works great so far...

 

[imported_Tick]

That doesn't seem like it will work that wonderfully, but if your hung up, you can buy 2 cables, some breadboard (or not, depending on how much your worried about EMI) and some electrical tape and make a custom one.

 

[mgravy]

I know it sounds like a mess, but it really does work perfectly. The KVM's are the same model and switch exactly at the same time. The hard thing to find on KVM's is one that supports both microphone and speaker switching. Usually they just come with one option. By ditching the microphone jack on the KVM, I can swap my Logitech surround sound from rig to rig along with the monitor, keyboard and mouse simultaneously. The trick is to get the dual monitors to sync,

Never thought about the custom job. Not sure what the cabling looks like inside, but, I have plenty of cables lying around so I might just go for the hack.

 

[imported_Tick]

Originally posted by: mgravy
I know it sounds like a mess, but it really does work perfectly. The KVM's are the same model and switch exactly at the same time. The hard thing to find on KVM's is one that supports both microphone and speaker switching. Usually they just come with one option. By ditching the microphone jack on the KVM, I can swap my Logitech surround sound from rig to rig along with the monitor, keyboard and mouse simultaneously.

Never thought about the custom job. Not sure what the cabling looks like inside, but, I have plenty of cables lying around so I might just go for the hack.

It should be color coded, just match color to color, be neat, and make good solder jobs. Also, you need to twist each wire into the extension one, otherwise your electrical conductivity will be compromised, which is bad on an analogue device like a keyboard. But it should work. And the cost is very low. If you want to do it reall right, use a small piece of breadboard/demo board to make the connections on, as that way you suffer from fewer connection problems. Also make sure to nail polish/electrical tape all connections. And make sure to report back to us.

 

[corkyg]

Look for Ps/2 gender changers. Use them with your regular female to 2 males.

 

[imported_Tick]

Originally posted by: corkyg
Look for Ps/2 gender changers. Use them with your regular female to 2 males.

That's really getting slipshod....

 

[mgravy]

Just cut open the cable a minute ago. Had several male/female 6" PS/2 extensions that were useless 2 minutes ago!

I'll admit, I've never completed a sucessful solder job and it's been years since I've even tried. I have a kit, so maybe I'll give it a shot. I was thinking about just splitting the wires and twisting them together with electrical tape. I have LOTS of experience with doing that!!

I'll let you know how it goes...

 

[mgravy]

Look for Ps/2 gender changers. Use them with your regular female to 2 males.

Problem with that is I dont need a male/female (gender change), I need one female/female and 2 male/males. The male/male is easy to find but try and find a female/female.... I can't.

The reason is the KVM's have female connectors, the keyboard end is male, and the Y adapter is male split into female/female. (if that make any sense)

 

[imported_Tick]

Originally posted by: mgravy
Just cut open the cable a minute ago. Had several male/female 6" PS/2 extensions that were useless 2 minutes ago!

I'll admit, I've never completed a sucessful solder job and it's been years since I've even tried. I have a kit, so maybe I'll give it a shot. I was thinking about just splitting the wires and twisting them together with electrical tape. I have LOTS of experience with doing that!!

I'll let you know how it goes...

You really need to solder them, otherwise you'll have problems with dropped keystrokes, etc. The wires did turn out to be color coded, right?

 

[mgravy]

yes, they are coded.... alright, you talked me into it. This should be amusing!

 

[imported_Tick]

Originally posted by: mgravy
yes, they are coded.... alright, you talked me into it. This should be amusing!

If they were just sitting around there is no downside, except maybe burning yourself.

 

[mgravy]

True, and I actually have 3 more sets to practice on in case I mess up. Doubt I'd have the patience to try 3 more times though... well, here goes...

 

[imported_Tick]

Originally posted by: mgravy
True, and I actually have 3 more sets to practice on in case I mess up. Doubt I'd have the patience to try 3 more times though... well, here goes...

Good luck.

 

[imported_Tick]

Ok, it's been an hour. It is so time for an update.

 

[mgravy]

Yeah, the wife made me eat dinner!

Anyway, I soldered all the connections and left the wires bare just to do a quick test and I'm stunned to report that it worked great! There was just a slight fraction of a second difference in the monitor switching. Not enough to bug me and much better than reaching up to flip the monitor input switch.

After about 5 minutes though, it stopped working and I'm guessing that the wires moved a little and got too close to each other. I just finished up putting 3 coats of fingernail polish on the connections and will wrap each one with electrical tape next. I'm crossing my fingers that this will do the trick. The nice thing is now I can still flip the input switch on the 2nd monitor to connect to my laptop if I can get this working right.

Not too sure about the solder job. I always thought that the connections have to be real chrome shiny to be a hot connection. My connections are not too shiny, but not as dull as I remember trying in the past. The connections hold real well when trying to pull them apart so if anything, it functions as a pretty good glue.

I'll update again after a little testing...

 

[mgravy]

Well, crapola... what happens is this: I can use this setup and toggle between the 2 monitors and PC's about 20 times. Then, for some reason, the keyboard hotkey fails to switch the monitors. If I unplug the keyboard PS2 plug and reconnect it, it works beautifully again... for another 20 rotations.

Seems as if the KVM's get confused or something. I don't think it's any type of bad connection with soldering the wires because it works flawlessly for 20 or so repetitions and then the hotkey function fails, but typing otherwise works just fine.

Kinda sucks. I guess I'm back to flipping the monitor switch again. Oh well....

 

[mgravy]

Hmmmm, well I was wrong about something...

after 20 or so rotations, both the KVM hotkeys AND the keyboard within windows doesn't recognize the right keys.

When I run into this KVM switching problem and then try to type in Notepad or somewhere, the keyboard keys start giving different values. In other words, typing an "A" might invoke a different typed response. BUT, if I unplug and plug the PS2 cable in and out, everything is back to normal. Kind of strange. I wonder if some data is being exchanged between the two KVM's via the split wires and garbleing up the input somehow? That's the only thing that I can figure out.

Right now I am typing via the split wire but if I were to toggle back and forth 15-20 times it becomes corrupt. Could be a windows thing too. I guess I may never know!

 

[imported_Tick]

This sort of sounds like cross-talk between the wires. Your getting feedback from each of the KVM's, perhaps, and it creating electrical differences on the wires. What you probably need is a properly sized resistor somewhere, but I'm not an electrical engineer, so I can't help you there.

 

[imported_Tick]

I have an idea. Try twisting the individual wires from each of the two output cables around eachother, as per cat-5, for a portion of their length. Just an idea, lemme know what happens with that.

 

[mgravy]

Hmmmmm, I'm almost inclinded to go with the male-female/female splitter route and get a 2 male/male couplers, and then splice a female/female coupler. Seems that the chances of interference would be minimized a little with just one female coupler on the keyboard side of the equation... maybe not... but it's all just an experiment. I suppose if there is some kind of feedback going on between the 2 KVM's it wouldn't matter?

 

[mgravy]

Alright, well, curiosity got the best of me and I went ahead and spliced together try #2, twisting the cables like you said. I was a little more meticulous this time and the solder job was definately an improvement. I'm typing on the spliced cable right now. Just wrapped them real quick with electrical tape for a quick test. Should have a consensus in 10 or so minutes...

 

[mgravy]

Well, quicker than that...

No change. Works great for about 20 cycles. Then I get problems. If I unplug and replug the keyboard it resets everything for another 20 cycles.

I'm about at the end of play time...

 

[imported_Tick]

Eh, it was an experiment. Lemme know if you ever figure out what's wrong.