• V4 did the Trick!

    atltvhead • 02/09/2022 at 01:33 • 0 comments

    TheV4 of the PCB's are working! It's been a few months since I've gotten to really sit down with this project, due to travels and life, but it should be getting going again. 

    This design which is on oshpark link here and here, can handle various 6mm switches. The photo above is showing off a weird metal tactile switch and an elastomer switch. 

  • GitHub is up and BEST INVENTION!

    atltvhead • 12/14/2021 at 23:47 • 0 comments

    Well, I finally got the GitHub link up! 

    And as a special gift to you from me, I'll introduce you to a quick HMI solution - KEYBOARD PANTS! Yes, that is right. 

    Ferris Sweep keyboards with a 3d printed case that holds them on your pants. The spit keyboard resting on your upper thighs is surprising comfortable and ergonomic both standing or sitting. 

    The files for the 3d prints/CAD are also found in the Cyberdeck Z2 GitHub!

  • Soldered!

    atltvhead • 12/13/2021 at 16:01 • 0 comments

    Even with the V3 boards not being perfect for the buttons, I still managed to make them work. The two jumper wires on the Arduino Rp2040 is for a special function of the io expander. I am not sure I want to use the feature, but still want to test it. Each wired pin connects to an output on the io expander, which should output a block of pin states as an interrupt for the Arduino.

    Testing and coding will commence this week. I remember when this project was about a wrist mounted Cyberdeck (pipboy) with the raspberry pi z2, but I guess it's turning into an HMI problem. Wearables seem to always need a way to make the interactions more intuitive or have high enough functionality that they aren't a pain to use. A device thats tedious to use, stops getting used. 

    Writing this out more for myself than anyone else. 

    Best,

    N. 

  • Take 3 again!

    atltvhead • 12/08/2021 at 16:01 • 0 comments

    The final version of the boards (version 4) are below, available on osh and in the GitHub (linking after work)

    https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/rPfTPqRx

    https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/qMDQFzo1

    After testing my version 3 boards, It seems that I lengthened the wrong footprint pins of the 6mm buttons. Although the buttons fit, they only fit in the wrong orientation. Lessons learned: never trust a 3rd party library, measure twice, don't fix your board designs at 1am. 

    Below are some photos of the beautiful, but wrong v3 boards.

    Time to wait for the new boards, again 😅

    I suppose I'll move on for now to design the main housing for the raspberry pi and display.

    Best,

    N.

  • Take 3 on the PCB

    atltvhead • 12/07/2021 at 03:19 • 0 comments

    Doing one last iteration on the designs for the keyboard and the thumb board before publishing them to GitHub! 

    Fixed the footprints of the keys and the directional thumb switch!


    Oh and I did start soldering the Arduino rp2040 connect good news is the io expander is functional! 

    Not my best soldering job, but I don't have access to a reflow oven :P 

    Best, 

    N


  • PCB Mount

    atltvhead • 11/24/2021 at 16:18 • 0 comments

    Don't you just love 3d printers. Whatever shape you need, you can have, lol. Anyways the mount for the PCBs is in progress, I think they'll be another revision to it, once I have all the components in hand and can test the hand fit. Otherwise I am happy with it. I am debating now whether to make the shell of this keyboard extremely ergonomic or have it barebones cyberpunk, ergolite. The pcb production is also coming along, so that's nice.


  • Arduino Connect RP2040 with an IO expander

    atltvhead • 11/21/2021 at 04:10 • 0 comments

    In the previous post, I mentioned that I was considering using an io expander and I did! I am using the MCP23017E/SO, which will read in all keys. The thumb navigation switch will be connected directly to the Arduino Rp2040. Here is the OSHPark Board OSH Park ~

    And now I'll turn back to the ME and ID work until I receive the PCB's!

  • AAAAAANNNNNDD V2's of all the PCB's

    atltvhead • 11/19/2021 at 23:37 • 0 comments

    Like so many of us. I remade all the PCB's to a v2 because I noticed some mistakes on the originals or wanted to shrink them up a bit more.

    Ah well! Always room for improvement right? 

    The thumb board can be found here on OSH Park ~

    And the Keyboard segments can be found here on OSH Park ~

    After giving it some thought, I'll probably add on this GPIO expander. I might only attach the keyboard segments to it though. I'd like to retain my i2c lines for also using the IMU and other sensors that come with the Arduino Connect RP2040, which would be impossible if I used all of it's gpio for buttons.

  • Faux Twiddler Thumb Stick V1 Done!

    atltvhead • 11/19/2021 at 03:23 • 0 comments

    Edit** The fix has been implemented and published in the following project log.

    Edit* I just noticed the switches GND pins are wrong and would permanently ground the switch. Fix coming later, noted on this post.

    Woo! Just finished the thumbstick pcb for the chorded keyboard. Again you can find it here on oshpark.

    It has 4 of these switches and one of these thumbsticks.

  • Keyboard Segment PCB

    atltvhead • 11/18/2021 at 12:43 • 0 comments

    After my previous build of a chorded keyboard using Cherry MX Switches, it was clear that I needed to work with smaller components if I was going to have any more keys. Not wanting to solder to the pins of smaller switches and deal with designing complex mounting to make them secure, I decided to design a pcb segment for 4 switches. 

    I am planning on using an Arduino Connect as the main micro to run the chorded keyboard, and it has enough GPIO for me to be satisfied wiring the switches independently, with a shared ground plane. 

    You can find the first revision of the segments on Oshpark already! 

    Enjoy,

    Atltvhead