my homemade 44-key keyboard (so far)

[Aran.E99]

hi guys,

I thought i'd share my first homemade keyboard (well, i didn't make the switches  , or the material for that matter )

This post will be a couple pictures going through the steps of what i did to make it to the current stage its at now. so far though i have not actually installed the teensy of loaded the firmware yet.

At first i came up with a design that i found on the internet. I actually hated it but if i was going to do this it had to be with less then 48 switches and had to fit on A4 (thats all the acrylic sheets i had). I wanted to make a keyboard about a year ago but i couldn't find any switches and did not know much at the time. I put the design in to the amazing inkscape free vector design software. i spent hour after hour between school and missing homework just to get my design completed. i changed things like the full-size space bar to the standard shift key size. i needed it done before i left school as i was told i cannot enter the campus after my exams  .luckily with the help of my amazing tech teacher, he got some test plates cut out. we tried 2mm and 1.3mm. sadly the 2mm was too thick and the 1.3mm was too thin. i went with the 1.3mm but it is very flimsy these are the test cutouts:
 
we finally got it done and the top and bottom plate cut with the trusty school laser cutter that broke more times than i had detentions (i had a lot of detentions  )
 
this is the design with the keyswitches installed and beginning of the matrix. i actually found out that if you take the top of the mx switch off, there are 2 spaced out holes that you can fit a diode into, so i did that. sadly the orientation of the diodes meant that i had to do solder the matrix in a weird way. I fixed it by reversing the pattern.

I had the matrix done and at this point i actually had now left school so i could not collect the side plates. they were supposed to be done weeks earlier but as i mentioned, the laser cutter actually broke so i either had to sneak into school or get my younger brother to collect them after i'd gone. after testing to see if everything fits together, i no longer have anymore done because i am using my teensy for my apple IIgs keyboard. if that sells, i will take it out and then use it.

the current height without the switches or bolts is 21.3mm and about 33.8mm from the top of the stem to the bottom of the bolts

I also made some mistakes. firstly NEVER solder over the back plate or any acrylic that will be used for that matter. whilst I was in the process of making a mini pcb for the teensy, i was soldering some leads into stripboard to hold the teensy in. the heat melted the leads straight through the acrylic    . another massive mistake i made was soldering the whole design backwards. you may notice that the finished design and the making of the matrix photo are the same way round but one is upside down. this is because out of my excitement i soldered the switches in as soon as possible and not realizing that the plate was flipped. i ended up cutting each row and column and resoldering the whole thing  . as per usual, it took hours but luckily was watching a good Nicholas Cage film to keep me motivated

I will update when i get: the teensy installed, the firmware loaded and the working thing with keycaps (not arrived yet)

thanks for taking the time to read it. I hope you guys enjoyed my life story  . I will also be making some keycaps for cherry mx and alps (i do not have any spare alps keycaps though) and if i get a dell at101w, i will be doing a paint job on it for future projects .

-Aran

[suicidal_orange]

I like the look of this, no denying it's handwired when you can see the wires!  Do you have your keymap worked out yet?

Thanks for the write up, some good advice for beginners in there

[Aran.E99]

thanks for the reply!

for the keymap, i know what i want but i have not really done much about the firmware. i'm going to use TMK. the layout i'd like is standard bottom row e.g. fn, ctrl, alt. the other 3 rows will also be standard. the fn key will make the top row f-keys and the rest will be things like number keys, arrow keys etc.

[Aran.E99]

UPDATE:

the teensy is now installed! firstly, i began by drilling 2 holes in the stripboard and corresponding holes in the acrylic. i then counter-sunk the holes as the m4 bolts were too short.

then i got the teensy soldered to the stripboard mounting plate. some of the pins were not used as they would cause shorts from the metal m4 nut.

i proceeded to solder the rows and columns to the teensy. this was tricky as the wire i used just reached. the other problem was i used some very thick core wire which was hard to solder to the tiny teensy pins.

it was finally done. all i needed to do was to put the side plates on by maneuvering it over the top plate. i also forgot that once assembled i would have to take it apart so that i could press the teensy
button. i fixed this by making a pin-sized hole over it so i can press it with a drill bit.

this is what it looks like completed (well, so far)



once again, when i get to the firmware i will take some pictures etc.

thanks for reading,
-Aran

[QuincyJones]

I like the look of this, no denying it's handwired when you can see the wires! 

Yeah, I love seeing stuff like this - it shows what it's really made of! Good stuff!

[Aran.E99]

thanks!

just wondering if anyone can help though? i feel somewhat confident after reading up on defining keymaps etc but i just dont know where to start. TMK has a 60 keyboard but i just can't figure out what to change to make it to my design...

-Aran

[QuincyJones]

because your layout is rather 'interesting' isn't it simply a case of figuring out the codes for each key, then mapping in tmk in a config file

[Aran.E99]

yeah, i got the first part done (the matrix). I am on the keymap. i have a problem to do with my soldering. lets say i connect all 4 switches to a column, thats easy. if i only connect 3 because of a gap, what do i put? do i simply jump the code e.g K20, K21, K23...? also, is the keymap a bottom view or top view of the keyboard?

-Aran

[Aran.E99]

code done but i am having trouble compiling. im in the correct directory and i'm using make -f makefile but it is giving me the command not found error. any ideas?

[QuincyJones]

i'm guessing:

1/ ensure you're root (sudo su)
2/ the command will probably be "./make -f makefile" ?

try 1/ first

[Aran.E99]

Thanks, my computer is off now but I will try tomorrow and update the progress.

-Aran

[Aran.E99]

ok, i've tried both ways and nothing works. Does TMK need to be in a certain directory? i have it in C: / users / custom / desktop / converter / tmk_... / tmk_... / keyboard / gh60. pretty sure i need to move it but im not entirely sure where however when I used my teensy for my ADB converter in the same directory it worked first time. if im right i can change the makefile directory but that might not do anything and i'm not risking messing up my codes. i know it is a simple mistake.

Also for my keymap, what is windows key and hashtag? would it be WIN and HSTG?
thanks,
-Aran

[Aran.E99]

UPDATE:

Diodes were soldered backwards, resoldered them and the keyboard works to some extent. Pessing R = run, pressing E = explorer etc. luckily stuff like enter, delete and non-shortcut keys work fine. Probably because I could've coded the windows key wrong. Will report if working.

-Aran

[Aran.E99]

I am so sorry to bump this but this is a build overview on my journey to complete a hand wired keyboard and i have not completed it so i am going to update:

the keyboard now works! don't get too excited though as it does not fully work. to begin with, when i press a key after plugging it in, it spams 3 keys repetitively. an example of what i mean: "zxwzxwzxwzxwzxw" or something similar. after, i have most keys working. currently the keys that do not work are: w, tab (spams random letters), a, s, z, shift, control, app (i don't even know what it does xD), function and alt. to explain what happens with the bottom keys: if i press control, it activates control and shift, and vice versa. function is the worst as when i press it most keys glitch out. guessing keys that dont register are soldering errors and keys that glitch is software error.

[a-c]

Your nuts are probably shorting the pins together on the teensy.

If you are modifying the gh60 code then remove led.c from the makefile. It uses B2 for capslock LED.

[Aran.E99]

Your nuts are probably shorting the pins together on the teensy.

If you are modifying the gh60 code then remove led.c from the makefile. It uses B2 for capslock LED.

Thanks, I never thought about the pins shorting out. I will take a look later, as for the caps light, I will also check but I changed the code so it should work. Does it have to be on B2 no matter what?

[suicidal_orange]

Your nuts are probably shorting the pins together on the teensy.

If you are modifying the gh60 code then remove led.c from the makefile. It uses B2 for capslock LED.

Thanks, I never thought about the pins shorting out. I will take a look later, as for the caps light, I will also check but I changed the code so it should work. Does it have to be on B2 no matter what?

LEDs, like switches, can be on any pin, but if you say the pin is an LED as well as part of the switch matrix it will cuase issues.  Move it to an empty pin or remove led.c from the makefile if you don't have any LEDs at all.

[Aran.E99]

Your nuts are probably shorting the pins together on the teensy.

If you are modifying the gh60 code then remove led.c from the makefile. It uses B2 for capslock LED.

Thanks, I never thought about the pins shorting out. I will take a look later, as for the caps light, I will also check but I changed the code so it should work. Does it have to be on B2 no matter what?

LEDs, like switches, can be on any pin, but if you say the pin is an LED as well as part of the switch matrix it will cuase issues.  Move it to an empty pin or remove led.c from the makefile if you don't have any LEDs at all.

i used b2 in the matrix so i changed it to pin b5 and then changed the led file. not sure why it doesn't work.