Filco tenkeyless custom ATmega32u4 controller

[bpiphany]

I'm sending out a couple of PMs every day now, working my way down the list. Answer quick or have someone behind skip you in the line ;) But don't worry, there is enough material to supply all interest so far, eventually. Pin headers still aren't in from China. It's been a long time since I ordered, and it usually can be. So either they are in any day now (I hope), or they are lost forever..

[tinkeringtechie]

If you have any left I'd like to buy one also. Thanks!

[fossala]

Just thought I would let everyone know, mine turned up. Well packaged. Now I just need a filco.

[zoidbergslo]

got mine today as well.

[fossala]

Anyone used them? Anyone managed to implement fn keys?

[Daemon Raccoon]

I'm still waiting over on the other side of the pond for mine...

[fossala]

Just want to confirm that this will work with JP layout TKL filco's as well?

[HzFaq]

Another question in a similar vein; do we know if this would work on a Filco Zero and do I risk breaking anything by trying it in one?

[fossala]

I know the filco zero has a different controller than a normal filco. Don't know if has a different matrix though, wouldn't that be all that matters?

[HzFaq]

That's what I'm thinking, but I don't know if there are any other additional controllers or anything on there that could get damaged. To be honest, I've never opened either of my Zero's up to have a look, I guess I'll check them tonight.

[bpiphany]

There are switch mount locations for the Japanese extra keys on the main board, and the original controller sends them if the correct pins of it are shorted. I am almost 100% certain that it will work. It would be very strange if they went through all that trouble just to use other parts for the Japanese boards...

What I haven't done though is to add the keys to the firmware. This should be easy. I think there are a few different jumper configurations on the main board between the different layouts. But now that I give it some more thought I realise that is because the firmware on the controller is fixed and they need to shove some keys around by "programming" through hardware changes.

[fossala]

Thank you, when my JP board turns up can you please give me a hand? Can I just plug it in and use to test, or will I need to make changes? Not bothered about the extra keys, just want to see if it works before I start playing around.

[blighty]

Got mine DIY kit in the mail today. Looking at the board makes me realize I need a smaller tip for my torch...

[bpiphany]

Actually I tried my wider tip, and I would say the most important thing is that it is properly chisel tipped. If it is, you can use the tip of it when you need accuracy. For most of the soldering that should be no problem though. The controller legs for example can easily be done a few at a time with a wider tip. Add flux and not too much solder (this is probably the hard part with a larger tip). If the tip is rounded though, it is hard to get in contact with pads and component legs at the same time.

[Daemon Raccoon]

Mine showed up today. Got it installed and tested it briefly. Now I just need a soldering iron to replace the brown switches with something more comfortable to type on.

[litster]

Daemon Raccoon, I will buy your used brown switches if you want to get rid of them. I love brown switches

[hoggy]

Got mine today, thanks!

My Filco's at work at the moment, so I'll try to fit it during the week.

[xbb]

have you got any spare kits?

[graboy]

Got it yesterday, excited to start fooling around with it. Had a little bit of trouble placing the pins in their sockets, it looked like the pins were a few degrees inwards. Not warped, but it seems like when it was soldered they were a little off, and then were stuck there. (No offence to your soldering ability, however, I can barely remove a switch from a plate mount ). The sockets on the main PCB had a bit of wiggle-room, so I was still able to get it in, but not as easily as I can slide in/out the regular one. I'm working on getting source code set up as of now, I'll update the wiki tutorial page for windows users as soon as I've figured it all out.

EDIT: Nevermind, I thought it would be far simpler, I have no idea what I'm doing. Apparently there's already a tutorial on GH... I probably should have check that first.

[bpiphany]

I don't know if I've seen a tutorial on GH. Someone may have started one but I couldn't find it.. I only check my bookmarked threads mostly =)

There are wiki pages for the controller itself here on the DT wiki. I'm just going to start this one as well. So at the moment it is just fresh, clean, and emtpy.. http://deskthority.net/wiki/AVR-Keyboard

[HzFaq]

I've got the Windows tutorial saved on my home PC, I can repost it here/on the wiki when I get home.

edit - it's here, it wasn't as far back as I thought it was.

[bpiphany]

Had a little bit of trouble placing the pins in their sockets, it looked like the pins were a few degrees inwards. Not warped, but it seems like when it was soldered they were a little off, and then were stuck there. (No offence to your soldering ability, however, I can barely remove a switch from a plate mount :oops: ). The sockets on the main PCB had a bit of wiggle-room, so I was still able to get it in, but not as easily as I can slide in/out the regular one.

I noticed this as well. I think I may have made the distance between the rows of header pins a bit wide. I have the controller with pins mounted in the sockets from a slaughtered Filco while soldering them. But I have also inserted and pulled every single controller out of the socket on my new intact tenkeyless. So I know they fit that one at least. And I never had any real problem inserting any of the controllers yet =)

[bnitch]

Both my Ducky and QFR have double rows of pins, is there any thought of a future group buy with that setup? And can this be programed to switch over to Colemak at board level instead of useing software to do it.

[fossala]

Both my Ducky and QFR have double rows of pins, is there any thought of a future group buy with that setup? And can this be programed to switch over to Colemak at board level instead of useing software to do it.

From what I understand anything is possible if you can program.

[bpiphany]

I have some lose plans to expand the range of controllers to include the QFR and the full size Filco, as well as converting the current tenkeyless controller to using an AT90USB1286. This would mean enough IO-ports to skip the pull-down resistors, and the decoder. It would also require me to learn how to order with pick-and-place reflow assembly. Which may all have to wait for a while until I have time to get into all that..

[fossala]

Just thought that I would say that the controller works with jis keyboards. Obviously the jp keys don't work with the stock firmware because nothing has been programed but will give it a look later. Thanks bpiphany for getting these out and making it such a good price.

[bpiphany]

I actually did an experiment shorting out pins directly on the stock controller to see what signals were sent. I have that written down on paper for sure. I will have that in my hand on Saturday. I may have written them down in a spreadsheet somewhere as well. There is a debug-print in the code as well to print the row and column numbers in hex through the HID debug channel. With that info it should be relatively easy to insert the keys in the correct matrix locations.

Code: Select all

if(this && !previous[key]){
  print("Press: "); phex(row); print(" "); phex(col); print("\n");

[fossala]

I will leave it as is until someone works out how to use fn layers.

[fossala]

Just thought I would add it has crashed 2 times. Once when swapping keycaps, once when putting the cover back on.

[Index]

I'm interested in one also. Is it too late?