Hi all,
I am working on my first hand wired keyboard and am super excited about it
!
Thanks to GeekHack and community on reddit I have already found a lot of information that I need (maybe even too much! choices choices), but one thing I did not find anywhere is how to make sure that MCU (controller) is fixed nicely, and where to put it actually.
So I am going with sandwich case: one switch plate and one bottom plate with standoffs connecting them / keeping distance, no mid plates.
Switches are Alps (Matias) and are going to be handwired.
I was looking at different MCUs and am looking now at: Teensy 2.0, Teensy 3.2, Proton C, Postage Board.
However, what I don't have good idea about is: where should I position my MCU and how do I make sure it holds strongly? Since USB cable gets plugged into it and it will sometimes be plugged out (during travel), I am expecting some amount of stress to be present there, and I am assuming if MCU is not fastened securely it might wobble or fall off.
I think I noticed some people saying that they glue MCU to the plate, but that seems a shame to me since everything so far in my build is snap on (switches) or screws (plates) and I would rather avoid gluing, since that makes it also hard to later change MCU if I wish.
Since I am getting my plate laser cut anyway, I was thinking about adding some extra holes so I can screw in the MCU, but I am not sure how would that go actually hm.
Btw. my keyboard layout is packed so there is no space really for the MCU in between the switches.
There is also this Postage Board that I mentioned, which is especially made for handwiring and is intended to be soldered directly onto three switches. That seemed cool to me, since it could reduce thickness of the keyboard. Looking at it, I figured out that it gets its stability from being soldered to switches + from those extruded parts in MX switches that go through this board. However, Alps (Matias) don't have those extruded parts which means only solder is holding it, and that sounds too weak to me, with USB plugging/unplugging?
Thanks a bunch!