Author Topic: DIY Mechanical Gaming Keypad - Like the Wolfking Keypads  (Read 6604 times)

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Offline tanin

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DIY Mechanical Gaming Keypad - Like the Wolfking Keypads
« on: Tue, 13 October 2015, 08:37:27 »
' or

Hey everyone,  long time lurker here.  Im looking to build a similar keypad as the picture.  I have found a similar project http://chaozlabs.blogspot.de/2013/09/keypad.html

They don't' specify where they got the PCB's from so im really looking to get some help.

I have to say that im not very electronic capable but i am computer savvy.  I have some friends that are handy with a soldering iron.

Please please please I need help.
« Last Edit: Tue, 13 October 2015, 09:28:16 by tanin »

Offline t8c

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Re: DIY Mechanical Gaming Keypad - Like the Wolfking Keypads
« Reply #1 on: Tue, 13 October 2015, 09:05:48 »
Interesting! Never seen the Wolfking keypad before.

Have you taken a look at the Razer Orbweaver? It's not very similar but has great ergonomic features but only 24 buttons and 1 half-decent analog stick. If you can, get one with genuine cherry switches.

There are many challenges with the wolfking design. Some quick thoughts


* I haven't seen circular caps like this for mechanical switches. A option would be 3d printing them and or buy arcade buttons.
* In case you would go for cylindrical and spherical caps, you can place the mx switches in a circular fashion in a 3d printed case.
* If you don't want to place the switches in a circle, you pretty much do as in the Chaoszlabs tutorial. 3d print the case, make sure the switches fit snugly and according to your preferences (make big holes for shift and so on)
* Others can speak regarding a PCB design etc. I would handwire it to a teensy. If you choose to handwire you need switches, jumper wire, diodes, solder and a usb controller like teensy.

Offline tanin

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Re: DIY Mechanical Gaming Keypad - Like the Wolfking Keypads
« Reply #2 on: Tue, 13 October 2015, 09:29:42 »
I updated with a better layout.  I just want to have the 6 x 6 layout if anything.

Offline vvp

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Re: DIY Mechanical Gaming Keypad - Like the Wolfking Keypads
« Reply #3 on: Tue, 13 October 2015, 13:02:00 »
Those keyboards look very different. The only significant thing in common is that they are for one hand only. You can as well build only one half of ergodox. That is probably the most easy thing to do.

Offline tanin

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Re: DIY Mechanical Gaming Keypad - Like the Wolfking Keypads
« Reply #4 on: Tue, 13 October 2015, 13:23:33 »
thought that you can't only have 1 half of the ergo dox.. u need to have both sides?

Offline vvp

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Re: DIY Mechanical Gaming Keypad - Like the Wolfking Keypads
« Reply #5 on: Tue, 13 October 2015, 14:07:23 »
You definitely can have one half of ergodox. If it does not work out of the box then the only thing you will need to do is disable the initialization of i2c in firmware and maybe, just maybe, comment out the i2c access code from the matrix scanning part of code (replace any missing output values with logical 1s - i.e. no key pressed on the left side). That is a small change. If you are computer savvy then it is a piece of cake. If in doubt then ask in the ergodox thread  in the "Making Stuff Together" sub-forum and people will help you.

One half of my Katy keyboard works without any modification (and the left side is hot-connectable though I do not recommend doing it, but I did it many times myself :) ). And you can build right side mirrored (so that it is like the left side but with the controller). But Katy it is much harder to build than ergodox.

Maybe some commercially produced split keyboards can be actually separated and used as one half only. But I do not really know.

Offline conmajia

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Re: DIY Mechanical Gaming Keypad - Like the Wolfking Keypads
« Reply #6 on: Tue, 13 October 2015, 20:23:13 »
Looks cool.. hard to imagine how i use this... have to rotate either my palm or the keypad every second...

Offline dndlmx

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Re: DIY Mechanical Gaming Keypad - Like the Wolfking Keypads
« Reply #7 on: Wed, 14 October 2015, 09:12:32 »
There's a thread for this very thing, but it's currently at a standstill.  :(