Tools and Supplies

To perform the USB Typewriter mod, you will need:

A USB Typewriter DIY Kit, which includes:

• A pack of 5 reed switches (they break easily and it is good to have extras).
• A length of shrink-wrap tubing to protect the reed-switches.
• An assorted sprinkling of neodymium magnets, in several sizes.
• All electronic components needed to populate the PCBs.
• An Arduino (Atmega168) microcontroller, pre-programmed with USB Typewriter software.
• A pack of 50 custom-fabricated "feather" contacts.
• A blank Interface Board PCB
• A blank Sensor Board PCB

In addition, you will need the following supplies (not included in the kit):

• Stranded wire, preferably 24 AWG.  (Although 22 AWG from Radioshack will work, its difficult to fit in the holes on the PCB).  Magnet Wire from Radioshack will also work well, and looks the classiest, but its more fragile.
• A small roll of gaffer tape (1" wide), for insulating the crossbar -- available at artist stores, photography stores, and some harware stores.
• Solder
• Superglue (optional)
• Simple Green or similar degreaser/cleaner (for de-gunking your typewriter keys)
• Can of compressed air (optional for cleaning your typewriter).

And you will need the following tools:

• Hot glue gun (I prefer it to superglue)
• Fine tip tweezers like these
• Wire strippers like these
• Bendy pliers like these  (regular pliers are ok, too)
• Clippers like these (nail clippers will work, but don't use them for nails afterwards).
• Toothbrush and qtips (for scrubbing gunky typewriter parts)
• Dremel rotary tool with a cutting disk, or a set of small metal files like this (actually, this is just the cheap-o set I use -- you could do much better)
• Two steel hammers for making feather contacts -- one to use as a hammer, one to use as an anvil.
• A third hand or some Elmers Tack to hold the PCBs while soldering.
• An Arduino development board (optional, for those who want to hack the source code).