About the keyboard

A good name for this project could be: "I have some spare hardware and did not yet start a project using it":

• Arduino Mega 1280
• 4x40 LCD display, requiring 3+8 GPIOs (digital pins)
• 12-keys physical keyboard, requiring 4+4 GPIOs
• full-blown notebook keyboard, with a FPC 24 connector (24 GPIOs)

The full keyboard only has a flex parallel cable (24 pins with 1mm spacing), thus requiring a connector. This is my first time fiddling with 1mm-spaced things, but I decided to go with it because having a full keyboard opens a wide range of applications.

Note: this is a FPC 12P 1mm-spaced

I'm considering a Würth Elektronik FFC/FPC 24P connector (€2.60 on Distrelec). After quite a bit of googling, I didn't find anything easier to solder manually (pitch changers 0.1mm to 0.1" do exist but I can't find a FPC-female-to-0.1"-spaced-male connector).

I will search again other shops (Mouser, RS components, Farnell, etc) because I don't want to spend 10 bucks local shipping for a 2.60 bucks component...