Another single-switch circuit board

[ping]

What is the purpose of the solder-jumpers on the amoeba?

I am no expert, but I believe it has to do with the LED matrix. There are 4 pads on the LEDs, so I assume it's to make sure the Data line is going the right direction.

Pink being the Data line in the crude wiring diagram I shared previously.

Screenshot_20210801-153107.jpg (323.58 KiB) Viewed 12294 times

In at the top, out at the right. Jumper points in the direction out.

[Real_ET]

Ah, very true! that makes sense. I wonder if those could be moved closer to the edge pads so when you solder the wire you could just pick a hole to reduce the overall number of soldering operations.

[ping]

Ah, very true! that makes sense. I wonder if those could be moved closer to the edge pads so when you solder the wire you could just pick a hole to reduce the overall number of soldering operations.

That's a pretty good idea. I wouldn't know how to do that (I'd like to learn, but I've got too many projects going on right now ). But will echo that the solder jumpers are sometimes unreliable, and even worse if you happen to solder some, or the entire board in the wrong direction and have to flip it. (don't ask me how I know...)

Perhaps one of the other designs already has it?, I honestly haven't compared them much since I ordered the King. Maybe another project would be to take the different models and compare the differences for people who find this thread (another project I'll probably never get to ) . I also wasn't too sure which to order, but decided on the King because it seemed like the "newest" or most recently updated git repo at the time.

[StarlitUniverse]

Hi, I'm looking to build a keyboard with the King amoebas, but I don't quite understand the wiring/pinout and am slightly afraid of committing as this is the first time I'm building something like this (using amoebas + hopefully using RGB with it as well).

My understanding is that R denotes Switch Row and C denotes Switch Column like usual handwiring, and that only one of the two provided column pins on each side have to be used, but there are a few things I don't understand as I don't know much about PCBs, so I would like to ask the following questions:

1) In the 2x3 ortho board example provided by superami, why are G and V connecting both pcbs in the outermost columns, but the middle column doesn't have that?

2) I'm guessing that D1 and D2 are for data in and data out? (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) If I were to connect a third row to this, do I do D2 to D2 on the left column or the right column?

3) Does the closed off end of the diode silkscreen mark the cathode or the anode? (I'm guessing it's the cathode because of the line on the diode, but I could be very wrong.)

4) What are the pads marked in yellow and purple in the wiring diagram for, and do I have to do anything about it?

Thank you all for your time and patience!

[sativ01]

Hi guys, I'm looking into building dactyl mini as in the guide by Dan Ford
I believe the current version of Amoeba PCB has no support for Choc low profile switches.
Googling didn't help so thought maybe here I could get an answer:
- is there similar project supporting choc switches?
- I haven't done any PCB design, but willing to try if this is something that doesn't require a degree in electrical engineering. So is it worth trying?

Thanks!

[ping]

Hi, I'm looking to build a keyboard with the King amoebas, but I don't quite understand the wiring/pinout and am slightly afraid of committing as this is the first time I'm building something like this (using amoebas + hopefully using RGB with it as well).

My understanding is that R denotes Switch Row and C denotes Switch Column like usual handwiring, and that only one of the two provided column pins on each side have to be used, but there are a few things I don't understand as I don't know much about PCBs, so I would like to ask the following questions:

1) In the 2x3 ortho board example provided by superami, why are G and V connecting both pcbs in the outermost columns, but the middle column doesn't have that?

I like to think of the keyswitches as a separate circuit as the RGB. G, V, and D are all part of the LED lighting.
The G and V and D lines only need to snake(or alternate) around the keyboard, like so:

IMG_20201212_011821~2.jpg (467.19 KiB) Viewed 11489 times

2) I'm guessing that D1 and D2 are for data in and data out? (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) If I were to connect a third row to this, do I do D2 to D2 on the left column or the right column?

Basically, the solder pads indicates the direction of the data. Data goes from your microcontroller, into the D1 port, (then stops at the first set of solder pads.) You bridge D1 and Di to mean Line D1 is the Data-in line. Next you bridge middle and right-most pad on the right set of pads to mean D2 is the Data-Out. Hope that makes sense. So you would just make sure whichever pad you connect it to, is following the same data-line direction.

3) Does the closed off end of the diode silkscreen mark the cathode or the anode? (I'm guessing it's the cathode because of the line on the diode, but I could be very wrong.)

Cathode is correct.
Here are a couple pics I thought might help:

IMG_20220126_001448.jpg (958.95 KiB) Viewed 11489 times

diode_1244.jpg (34.27 KiB) Viewed 11489 times

4) What are the pads marked in yellow and purple in the wiring diagram for, and do I have to do anything about it?
Thank you all for your time and patience!

I believe this was answered in question 2. Let me know if you have any other questions.

[ping]

Hi guys, I'm looking into building dactyl mini as in the guide by Dan Ford
I believe the current version of Amoeba PCB has no support for Choc low profile switches.
Googling didn't help so thought maybe here I could get an answer:
- is there similar project supporting choc switches?
- I haven't done any PCB design, but willing to try if this is something that doesn't require a degree in electrical engineering. So is it worth trying?

Thanks!

I'm also somewhat interested in this. I have been researching pcb design. Maybe we can work on one, or at the very least, split the costs on some panels. I'll try to poke around tomorrow with the gerbers to see if I can change the footprint.

[ping]

Hi guys, I'm looking into building dactyl mini as in the guide by Dan Ford
I believe the current version of Amoeba PCB has no support for Choc low profile switches.
Googling didn't help so thought maybe here I could get an answer:
- is there similar project supporting choc switches?
- I haven't done any PCB design, but willing to try if this is something that doesn't require a degree in electrical engineering. So is it worth trying?

Thanks!

After attempting to re-route everything, I gave up and googled harder. Found this for sale (as well as their github repo):
https://keycapsss.com/keyboard-parts/pc ... KC10133_CO

repo: https://github.com/swanmatch/MxLEDBitPCB (check out the choc folder for gerbers.)

[jak0lantash]

Hi everyone,
I've been lurking in this thread for about two years now. I never posted before since I didn't have a useful contribution to make, but very much enjoy using the original Amoeba PCBs to build custom boards, and will continue using them in my future projects. Thank you to @mtl for your incredibly inspiring work!!

If anyone's interested by this version, I made some jig to help bending resistors, diodes and jumpers: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4736219

I would like to give @SuperAmi's King version a try. It seems a little easier to solder the RGB LED than on the @mtl's Royale. However, there's THT and SMT options for the diode on the Royale and only SMT on the King. I have never tried SMT before, so not sure if I'd be able to achieve it.
Looking at order a batch from JLCPCB, I noticed that they offered SMT soldering as an option (although not with "Panel By JLCPCB"), so I was wondering: Did anybody here ordered Amoeba batches with SMT already soldered on?

[jcliment]

Hi

After taking a look at the Amoeba King single switch PCBs, I decided to change the soldering pads (the jumpers) to make it more versatile. The goal is to, at some point, move the pads to the edges so that they can be connected from the manufacturer, and they do not have to be soldered individually (well, some will have to be soldered, but not the ones that come in the 5x10 grid, or whatever number you decide to manufacture).

For that purpose the digital inputs and outputs need to be selectable, so i changed the 3-pad jumper and turned into a 5-pad cross, one per Digital I/O. Now the digital I/O goes in the middle, and one has to solder the pad that is in the direction to/from the signal goes.

Picture:



The code is available https://github.com/climent/keyboard-pcb ... moeba-king and a PR has been created upstream.

[Bugmage]

(removed because I posted more detail below)

[Bugmage]

Hi Everyone,

I wired the right half of the keyboard and set it as the master in the firmware in QMK. I'm doing some testing but I can't get any keys to register. I'm trying to figure out if its a software or wiriing issue or how to better debug other than checking all the traces with a multimeter.

The pro-micro shows up in device manager but just won't type any keys. Does anything on my attached sample wire diagram look wrong? I Joined the G and V lines for simplicity. The Row and Columns on the ends don't need to connect to anything right?

Maybe it won't work without the left controller hooked in? I am hoping to get one side working before starting the other.

Thank you for the help!

[jcliment]

I just completed a new board with the v1.2 of the King PCBs and they are working as expected.

I also modified the v1.3 to include a row port on each module, so that wiring the rows is easier when doing a large keyboard.

PXL_20221001_172159008.jpg (2.01 MiB) Viewed 8815 times

[crunjia]

Is it possible to design one that has the wire pads more spaced out? I keep shorting the adjacent wires ((((

[jcliment]

The lack of real state on the PCB makes it very hard to increase the spacing, but I will try to release a new option with a bit more spacing between the pads. Will update when it is ready.