No.1381
matrix with diodes is like a chording keyboard for the pins of that chip
No.1382
Working with the board I have, came up with a concept layout based on the keyboard I'm currently using, and placing the keys I use the most on the left-hand side. Realized by actually thinking about the layout that it might be better if I create the board from scratch... The spacing between the buttons, and the wide buttons on the current board are unnecessarily wide. Have to look into CAD for designing the board in 3D, then find a service that will print it out. Not the best with 3D designing stuff...
>>1380The 3x3 was just for trial, to better understand how the connections are supposed to work. The plan is to create a 60%/70% keyboard for daily use.
>>1381I don't know what you mean...
No.1384
>>1383Those curved ones seem cool, but I don't think it'd fit on my short keyboard tray thing on my desk
No.1385
>>1384How short is the keyboard tray thing? The keyboard is pretty small at 29cm x 14cm.
No.1386
>>1385Uhhhhh hmm I don't have a ruler but probably like 20cm deep. I like to have a little handrest thing hanging off the halfway so it's kind of weird, I guess.
No.1387
>>1386>hanging off the halfway so it's kind of weird, I guess.Hanging off the edge halfway, that is. Requires specific positioning
No.1388
>>1382>I don't know what you mean...a chording keyboard is where you're meant to press combos ("chords") of multiple keys at once to type a single letter, allowing you to get away with fewer keys than the total number of letters you are able to type
the matrix diode setup has the keyboard send signals to multiple pins at once, allowing the chip to have fewer pins than the total number of keys it can support
No.1389
>>1387>>1386That's going to murder your wrists please don't do this for much longer. You don't want to end up like me.
No.1390
>>1389Ehh, my wrists are fine. Well, not great but for my lifestyle of spending so much time on the computer they're doing very well. I barely ever make use of the rest, but it prevents my wrist from just hanging over the edge which
does actively prevent pain.
I have heard about the rests on mouse pads and stuff being bad, but I've never liked those. The one on the keyboard is just what came with it, very minor.
No.1391
>>1390I said the same thing until one day I suddenly couldn't use a mouse for longer than 10 minutes anymore without being in horrible pain. The pain isn't the worse part. It's the numbness and inability to move your fingers and sometimes entire hand however you want.
I eventually got a little better by getting a new desk and chair. Properly setting the chair and desk up so my elbows were level with my pointing devices and keyboard. But I never could get them well enough to use a mouse full time anymore. I had to get a large trackball. I had to give up FPS games to. I can kind of play them with the trackball but not anywhere near as well as I did with a mouse. I still have a mouse and use it from time to time. But I can't play an FPS for longer than about 20 minutes without the horrible pain coming back.
It's cumulative damage. By the time you realize it's getting bad it's already too late.
No.1396
>>1391That sounds awful. Sounds like you were pinching nerves or something? I've heard of that, but thankfully never experienced it myself. What exactly kind of position were you in? I still hold my fingers upright, but the base of my palm is lightly on the pad thing. I can't put weight on my palm and type fast at the same time so I never do that.
No.1399
Found services near me that do 3D printing, so will be going the 3D printing route. If I'm going to be building a keyboard anyway, might as well create it the way I want, right?
Just copied the layout on
>>1383 with a few changes to keys I wish were easier to access with just my left hand: the page up and page down keys.
Debating if I should remove the space bar on the right hand side and replace it with the enter key... I don't think I use the right hand space bar at all so might as well lessen the burden on the pinky (and less misclicks on enter trying to erase) .
No.1402
>>1401At $200 you're just shy of $80-$100 of buying a 3D printer yourself. Might be a better investment. When I looked into this I decided to go with an aluminum case instead of a plastic one. That way your keyboard can double as self defense weapon.
You can get most shops to make one-off aluminum case for your fairly cheap. You can even make your own with a simple sand mold and some old soda cans. Aluminum is very easy to work with.
No.1404
>>1401Forgot to say that 3D print jobs can take many hours once you get into larger or more complex templates. Go to youtube and check out how long it takes to print a frame for a Glock or Glock magazine. Even simple little toys can take many hours. Get an estimate for sure before you commit to paying hourly for this service. 10x10=100. 10x30=300. So at 30 hours paying for this service you're already up to a point where you could have just bought the printer yourself.
It has been a couple of years since I've looked deeply into the 3D printing thing. But I know the most recommended printers hovered around $300-$400. You have to feed it of course. But spools of raw plastic are pretty cheap last I looked.
I just don't see the point of doing a 3D print project and paying hourly when you could own the machine yourself for just a little more and make tons of fun stuff with it.
As for cases for keyboards in particular. I know your design is an odd-ball. But I think you'd be better off paying for a metal shop to fab an aluminum case instead of going with 3D printer plastic. 3D printer plastic is pretty brittle. I think you'll come out cheaper with the aluminum option and it'll last you many more years than a 3D printed case. There is a big different between 3D printed plastic and high quality plastic when it comes to durability.
No.1411
>>1402>>1404>make one-off aluminum caseI don't even know where to start looking for a shop that'll make an aluminum case on order...
>make your ownSurely, you jest!
Came across
https://www.pcbway.com when watching videos on creating keyboards, seems like a trusted place to get 3D prints. Tried getting a quote from them: $29.62 with PLA and $59.26 with ABS, +$20 shipping. Which is starting to look more affordable. I could either go the "test with PLA then get the ABS" route for ~$110, or go straight for the ABS at ~$80.
Currently in talks with a colleague who owns a 3D printer to see if they'll let me use it for cheap.
>own the machine and make tons of fun stuff with itCould also do that. Have to look up the costs of maintaining a 3D printer, the materials, electricity bills, etc. before deciding though. Owning one and creating tons of fun stuff with it does sound fun.
>3D printer plastic is pretty brittleFrom what little research I've done, "ABS" seems to be the go-to decently durable material for 3D printings, with "PLA" being the brittle one. To be fair, the keyboard will just be laying on the desk, barely even moving, let alone taking any breakable impact. Also, I have other metallic objects for self-defense.
No.1432
>>1411>I don't even know where to start looking for a shop that'll make an aluminum case on order...You want what is called a fabrication shop. I looked around and got some quotes. Turns out I was wrong. You're going to end up paying about the same price or maybe a little more for a one-off by a shop with a CNC machine. If you want 1 or you want 20 units the price is pretty much the same. Since you're paying for someone to program the CNC machine and not just for raw material.
I still think casting your own using old soda cans would be fun though. You could even use the 3D printed one to build your sand cast with. But I'm weird like that.
You actually might be able to find a pre-made aluminum case that will fit your custom layout. Since all you need is a rectangle for your custom plate to sit in. I'll try to remember where I was sourcing aluminum parts from my build. If I can I'll come back and link to them.
No.1433
At any rate if you do go all plastic plan to buy some weights to go in the bottom of your case. You want your keyboard to have some weight to it. That way it doesn't slide all over your desk when you're using it.
No.1437
no just stick some rubber thingers on the bottom
No.1438
>>1437You want both. Lead is cheap. No reason not to add some weight
No.1439
Paused building the keyboard and created a test build first. Thought I'd first print out a test build, test to see if the parts fit, then go for the whole keyboard. Right now, I don't think there will be any progress unless I can 3D print. Going to check with the colleague's 3D printer I mentioned in
>>1411 next week, till then the project is probably on hold. Probably will look into some electronics theory.
>>1432>You're going to end up paying about the same price or maybe a little more for a one-off by a shop with a CNC machine.If it's the same price or a little more for aluminum then that's a steel (heh). If it doesn't work out with the printer, will search for "fabrication shop"; PCBway being the last resort.
>casting your ownCasting my own would be the ultimate DIY experience I could ever ask for, even have a ton of empty cans lying around... but I'm scared of working with aluminum melting temperatures... Don't even have anywhere to do it but my room.
>>1433>>1437>weights>rubber thingersYeah. Speaking of rubber thingers, have to remember to create holes for rubber thingers on the bottom of the case.
>>1438Do I just stick in a block of lead or create some sort of casing for it in the case design? Creating a casing is probably ideal but then I'd have to get the lead block pre-printing... Don't even know where I can get a block of lead.
Trouble getting the materials was a problem I was not expecting.
No.1440
By the way, the quote for the test build on PCBWay is ~$15 with $20 shipping.
No.1441
>>1439>Don't even know where I can get a block of lead.Go to junk yard and buy wheel weights for next to nothing. Assuming there are any left and the ammofags didn't buy them all up yet.
No.1468
>>1467A more doable quote...
Asked if there's another even cheaper shipping method....
No.1596
The 3D prints are here!
The plate is usable, while the switch holes are a tight fit, the body itself is pretty rigid; considering it didn't break when I had to apply a boat load of pressure on the switches to set them in to their holes(my thumbs hurt like hell). The case was a failure, gap between the case and the plate is too big, the standoffs broke, etc. It's visibly obvious in the image how loosely the plate fits onto the case. Will see if I can make do with this, probably going to have to create a new one...
The key caps... some of the key caps I took out from an older keyboard had unconventional sizes, rendering them unusable as I'd assumed they'd be squares, apart from the space, caps, etc key caps. The layout is the same as
>>1400 but had to re-purpose some lesser used keys to other more often used keys.
Now all that's left is the soldering and firmware creation.
No.1600
>>1596That's rough, but I think some bumps with such precise things is to be expected. So how is the quality of the 3D printed stuff? I'm still amazed that it's something individual people have access to, it still feels futuristic to me.
No.1601
>>1599I'd be down another $50 - $100 if I didn't have the keycaps and the switches from my older keyboard; but as of now, with just the 3D printing and the micro-controller, it's pretty affordable (at the price of a mid-end keyboard?) at around $60. That is, not taking into account the soldering iron and other related devices/items I've bought for this project, but I see it as an investment for future projects and not just a one time expense for this one.
>>1600>qualityUsed PCBWay's PLA as the material for the printing and the quality is great! Honestly, far better than I'd expected. Had to push hard on the plate to fit the switches in, and not even a crack.
The problems I had were bad designing on my part, followed a tutorial that said to have 1mm of space around the plate (between the plate and the upper part of the case) as a margin of error, but now it's just a loose fit. Totally recommend PCBWay's services to any anonymous looking to 3D print anything.
>I'm still amazed that it's something individual people have access to, it still feels futuristic to me.Yeah, and it's also pretty cheap, depending on where you live. For me, the printing cost itself was $36, but shipping added $22. Which was still leagues cheaper than any in-country printing service I found.
No.1602
>>1379>Jisaku KeyboardI wonder what a Jirai-kei keyboard would look like.
No.1604
>>1390>I have heard about the rests on mouse pads and stuff being badWait, they are? What the hell... I thought the rest was meant to try and avoid having cumulative damage buildup... What am I supposed to do then if I want to avoid developing carpal tunnel in the future?
Also what's the key setup you're thinking of? One of the more traditional ones outside of QWERTY like ABCD/Dvorak/Colemak or something you thought up yourself?
No.1606
>>1604>key setupBeen working with QWERTY my whole life so don't want to change to anything else.
No.1607
>>1604>What am I supposed to do then if I want to avoid developing carpal tunnel in the future?I think it's more that those mouse cushion things encourage most people to adapt a bad angle which can put pressure on your elbow and stuff.
It WOULD reduce carpal tunnel, unfortunately it makes you more susceptible to uhh... ulnar/cubital tunnel?
https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/carpal-tunnel/ulnar-tunnel-syndromehttps://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/cubital-tunnel-syndrome No.1716
Have grown some what confident in my soldering skills, the wiring in the image works as imagined. Having a hard time creating the logic for the micro-controller though.
Following
https://youtu.be/h-NM1xSSzHQ?t=275, the first solution was pretty easy to implement, turn on the row, check the all the columns, turn off the row, turn on another row, check all the columns, turn off the row, ... and so on. But then there's the power consumption problem that comes with it.
The second solution makes things harder. I can probably do it easily with an array or a mapping or some multithreading but am probably missing a simple logic to do it single threaded (and possibly with no-array)...
muzukashii.....
No.1765
Fell short 5 diodes when soldering the columns for the keyboard, now I have to get another 50 pack...
Pretty proud of the soldering work I've done here, looks pretty clean I'd say.
Soldering the rows is looking to be a challenge. Have to have a single connection running through every pin in a row. Ideally I'd use a single long wire with chunks of exposed copper in the middle, but I don't have any means of stripping wires in the middle. In the video (
https://youtu.be/iv__343ZwE0?t=978) I've been following, it looks like he's burning away the plastic cover around where the connection should be made, so maybe I'll try that first. Other than that, I'll have to connect multiple short wires to each other, creating a "single long wire".
>>1717Decided to go with kmk because I couldn't figure out how to create the logic for the matrix in C...
No.1766
>>1765>looks pretty clean I'd saytaking the video you linked as reference, it definitely does
and yeah it seems he's melting the plastic at the same time as the wire, is that supposed to help it stick or does it not matter much?
No.1769
>>1766Pretty wires. Too bad you don't get to see them in action.
No.1783
Done with wiring the rows and the columns (almost)! While extending the columns to connect them to the MC, ran out of the soldering wire that came along with the soldering kit. Thought I could just continue the soldering with the wire I bought from a YouTuber's rommendation (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjml-K-pV4E)... They were complete shit. Should have known better than to trust a pompous faggot's recommendations. He alone has cost me maybe $50 of waste, nothing he recommended was usable/needed in the least. Absolute waste of time and money.
Now to wait till tomorrow for the new soldering wire to come...
No.1784
>>1783>nothing he recommended was usable/needed in the leastdamn, how'd that happen? how come it's entirely useless?
No.1792
>>1784The 16g (naked) copper wire (and heat shrink) he used in his build is what I'm referring to. Sure they look cool, but it was damn near impossible to have a solid connection between the pin and the copper wire. With a normal wire (like the one I'm currently using) you can wrap the copper around the pin to stabilize it, then solder it to further stabilize the connection; with the 16g copper wire, since the wire is so thick, you can't wrap it around the pin so the connection is dependent on just the solder alone, one strong push and it breaks apart.
No.1816
Here's what the finished product looks like. Had to repurpose some of the non-standard sized keys, so the + and the Shift keys you see in the image are actually LShift and SpaceBar keys. All in all, kind of glad I did it, have a working keyboard in the layout I liked, and I can now put the old one in a showcase or something. Though, there are some regrets; regret the soldering iron thing a lot. I could have easily bought a better soldering iron if I'd added the copper wires budget to the soldering iron budget... Also regret making the plate yellow......
Not the best of executions, the plate is too small to fit to the case, the case's standoffs are broken, the connections to the MC could disconnect at any time, but I can use it and it stays in place. In the end, all that matters is that it werks™.
A break down of the total cost
Total expenditure on the project: ~$190
Soldering kit + helping hands cost: $38
Total parts cost: $40
Money wasted on parts I never used: $24
Total cost just for the keyboard (includes 3D printing cost, electric parts, and keycaps): $86
No.1817
>>1816That's not bad. Did you have fun learning the stuff? It's a skill you can apply to future projects or whatever so that's worth something.
Are you going to label the keys? Add neon lights? Personalize it at all?
No.1818
>>1817Yeah, it was fun. Soldering the rows and the columns were fun, seeing how clean it looked... It's just that the project ended on a low note with kuso soldering with the MC... Learned plenty of stuff about soldering, keyboards, USB, even 3D designing and printing. Fun experience, but yeah it's how something ends that sticks with you, pretty meh ending.
>label the keysThe keys are already labeled actually, it's just on the sides of the keycaps, you can kind of see them on the top row keys and some on the bottom row.
>lightsAt first, my thought was to add some RGB after the fact, but now I'm too scared to open up the back (so to speak), because it might disconnect some wire somewhere on the MC...
Maybe some day, after I've saved enough again, I'll buy a better soldering kit, some better keys (want the brown ones), and re-do the connections in a better way.