Group Build prototyping phase

[matt3o]

experiment with press-n-peel failed. next experiment photoetching.

[pyrelink]

Photo-etching looked like a really cool method. With most of these methods though, how tough is drilling out ALL of those damn holes going to be for you? Even with a drill press (actually probably not even possible with a hand drill) I imagine that would get incredibly tiring.

[matt3o]

manufacturing a professional PCB 300x94 goes around €70 (+shipping) if I have to produce only 1. And the chances v1 has some errors are pretty high. Meaning additional €70 if something goes wrong.

Making them at home costs about €15. Making the holes doesn't take that long, it took me 30 minutes for the HHFox, I would need an hour maybe with the robot-65. Not that bad after all.

The best would be to CNC them... but I still don't have a cnc machine unfortunately

[pyrelink]

manufacturing a professional PCB 300x94 goes around €70 (+shipping) if I have to produce only 1. And the chances v1 has some errors are pretty high. Meaning additional €70 if something goes wrong.

Making them at home costs about €15. Making the holes doesn't take that long, it took me 30 minutes for the HHFox, I would need an hour maybe with the robot-65. Not that bad after all.

The best would be to CNC them... but I still don't have a cnc machine unfortunately

Oh yeah, I agree. DIY PCB all the way. I was just wondering like you said, how long it took you to drill all the holes for it.

[matt3o]

I drilled all the holes. It took me 20-25 minutes. Totally feasible.

[pyrelink]

Nice! So how did the photo etching work?

[matt3o]

the pcb is too fit, I should have made the case 1 or 2mm larger than it needed to be. You do not have any margin of error (some tracks are actually at 0.4-0.5 from the border). Ultimately it didn't worked. So I went for plan B. I'll show you pictures later.

[pyrelink]

Huh. Well I'll be excitedly awaiting plan b.

[matt3o]

basically 90% of the connections are on the PCB and 10% wired. this helps alot keeping the PCB simple.

[pyrelink]

Oh very cool. Is the teensy still soldered to the PCB or is that wired?

[matt3o]

it lays on the PCB and it looks "soldered" but actually all connections are wired.

[pyrelink]

Hm so I guess that means I probably should have gotten a couple Teensies without pins instead =D. Sounds like a great idea though. Love seeing all of this come together.

[matt3o]

I should finish soldering tomorrow. If it works I'll post everything. If it doesn't I'll throw everything from the window and change hobby.

[pyrelink]

Hm. I have always heard that knitting was an incredibly exciting hobby.

[matt3o]

cross stitch

[Muirium]

Knitting's for pussies. Everyone knows all the action is in crochet!



@Pyrelink: I only have one Teensy with preinstalled legs and it's my most useful one… with a breadboard. But yes, you can never have too many of the little buggers.

[pyrelink]

The ones with pins are really nice, and that's exactly what I use mine for - breadboard testing. I also need to build another Soarers Box, so I say it's never too soon to start another Teensy group buy.

[Muirium]

A little peek into what I'm designing: a 56 key sub-60% for use with Kile's wireless controller!

Screen Shot 2014-06-14 at 08.03.41 pm.png (88.62 KiB) Viewed 8919 times

Pardon the Colemak. I'm trying to shake off Qwerty in general, and want to make sure that I still have enough keys where I most need them!

This is a bit of a strange layout: I took out a column from a standard 60%, while adding my usual HHKB bits. Kile's controller has just 15 pins, so the biggest matrix it can handle is 7*8=56 keys; when optimally routed. Speaking of which, I'd be looking at a PCB with a matrix something like this!

Screen Shot 2014-06-14 at 08.17.33 pm.png (36.73 KiB) Viewed 8919 times

Maybe not the easiest thing for Matteo's workshop…

56 is a few less keys than ideal. The smaller you go, the more you need your function keys, and I have only one on this design. So it's far from final. Though it does look pleasing to the eye at least.

Anyway, I could lose a row instead and go small like Neo's THKB or the JD40. That would mean less demanding PCB work, too. Now just imagine this in a wood case and running off a little battery!

[pyrelink]

Wow I love it. Seriously what a nice layout. Do you have any info on this "Kiles controller"? Is it still available?

[Muirium]

Thanks. I like the look, I'm just going to have to look into the function.

Kile developed a 2.4 GHz (but not Bluetooth) keyboard controller for the OneHand project. I bought one of his "starter kits" of: a receiver, a programmer, a complete wireless OneHand PCB and a spare controller chip for my own project.

http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/oneh ... ml#p157154

He gets really impressive battery life out of it. I need to spend the time figuring out how to program the layout, but it definitely works as expected.

[pyrelink]

If I can get my hands on one of those controllers, I will absolutely try something like this. I assume the amount of keys you use has to be limited, for power reasons? Battery life is one of the biggest concerns when it comes to any wireless tech.

[Muirium]

No, the limit is simply the available pins on the controller. Here's the hardware in question, alongside a Teensy 2 and Leonardo clone:

IMG_2517.JPG (336.25 KiB) Viewed 8917 times

Note the integrated antenna. The whole thing is very flat:

IMG_2504.JPG (208.35 KiB) Viewed 8917 times

Those tiny pins are going to be a bugger to install, I just know it!

Here's the other one in action on the OneHand. Note the CR2302 battery, which is enough for many months use.

IMG_2508.JPG (332.12 KiB) Viewed 8917 times

And how it attaches to the OneHand PCB:

IMG_2510.JPG (339.32 KiB) Viewed 8917 times

Programming is trickier without a USB port right on the board. Here's Kile's solution: a programmer board.

IMG_2515.JPG (300.45 KiB) Viewed 8917 times

And the last remaining component is the receiver you plug into a USB port to make the keyboard show up. Once again, reuse of the same technology!

IMG_2502.JPG (353.78 KiB) Viewed 8917 times

I'm thinking this could make a nice little wood-cased wireless keyboard.

[pyrelink]

Absolutely. What a cool little board. Even with only 56 keys, the layout still looks very useable. Were you planning on using those M84 or what ever those PCB low profile switches were for this one? I think that could make a really neat small sized wireless board.

[Muirium]

Yep! I have 88 of them, in case I wanted to make a TKL.

[DerpyDash_xAD]

I'd have locking FN key - you then have control, alt, shift, caps, tab at your disposal for incredible layering

[Muirium]

I do in fact have a latching Fn key on my Shiny 60% custom (an MXLOCK under the "Caps Lock" key) and it's kinda, sorta useful but nothing revolutionary. Maybe with a sub-60% layout it would make more sense. Because I'd be hunting down missing alphas (like the brackets keys) instead of just navigation. But I don't have latching M84s, so it would have to be a software layer lock instead of straight hardware!

[DerpyDash_xAD]

It would most certainly work best on a KB with just typing keys and mods - clearly such a board would be aimed at writers and such, not programmers, but it would be awesome to see, at the very least.

Although what would be even better is a single latching and dual regulars so you can use akin to shift/caps.

Edit: do you know any keyboards with locking caps?

[Muirium]

IBM beam springs have latching caps lock. A lot of old Alps boards including all my Apple mechanicals have latching caps lock, too. But the Honeywell takes the biscuit with 3 latching switches, if I remember rightly.

They were once the height of fashion! Fortunately, Cherry at least still makes them.

As for my custom sub-60%, I'm a writer but I use Markdown and BBCode enough to need brackets and backslashes as much as the next guy. Anyway, I'm good with layers, so I'll figure something out.

[jacobolus]

The Apple IIc has 3 locking switches.

[jacobolus]

Not quite what you folks are after here, but I lasered this fun piece of 60%-size acrylic a few days ago.