Retrofitting Removable USB C Cable on Corsair K70 LUX

[Carl DaBeast]

The cable on my keyboard broke (from being bent when placed in a backpack to move) so I figured I could try modding by adding a USB C port and making a custom cable.

My issue is that the keyboard has a USB passthrough port and I want to keep the functionality of it. My plan is to use a USB C 3.0 port on the keyboard and make a custom cable that splits from a USB C connector to two USB A connectors. This mimics the original cable that has two USB A connectors, one for the keyboard and one for the passthrough.

 

The "backwards compatible" USB 2.0 pins (GND, V, D+ and D-) would be used for the keyboard so in the off chance I loose the custom cable a normal USB C cable could work. The passthrough could use the two twisted pairs, one acting as data transfer and the other ground and voltage. This would mean that the cable was plugged into any other device it would most likely fry it, but it's a risk I'll take.

 

Something like this.

 

Now for materials is where I need some help. I have a ethernet cable whos connector broke but the wire is still fine. It has 8 wires on the inside which would be enough for two USB signals. It doesn't have any shielding, but I'm already outside of the USB specifications so how much would it matter?

Would it be fine to use it or should I find an alternative that has shielding?

 

Also when testing the continuity of the cable I noticed that on both connectors on the keyboard side (6 pin each, of which 3 were ground) two of the ground pins were grounded via the casing of the USB connector while one was connected to the ground pin on the USB connector. Does it matter how a ground pin is connected to ground? Is there a difference if it is grounded via the USB casing rather than the GND pin?

[CUB5]

Hi, I was looking for some guides or references to mod my keyboard, Corsair K70 Lux, the same as you have, could you give me some information about what did you finally do? I am insterested in moddifing my keyboard to allow a detachable cable and use the usb passthrough as you said