TS65 - The Split 65% Keyboard

[joey]

Yeah, I couldn't find much reviews as well so I sent them an email, they directed me to this thread, https://easyeda.com/forum/topic/Whos_ordered_PCBs_-L71VduMGY. He gave me a small discount when I enquired about the quality and said 100% refund if the aren't up to the mark.

It's says on the website that they ship in 3-4 days, it's also what I was told by email.

Thanks for the info, I missed that. What did you pay for express shipping?

edit: We can take this to PM if you don't want to clutter the thread!

[MOZ]

I orderd 4 PCBs, total area combined would be about 8*12 inches, 5 boards so 480 sq. inches total.

I ended pay $60 for Express (DHL), which is for the boards and stencil. Stencil has 19*29cm usable area for $19, frameless.

[mrbishop]

i have tinkered with easy EDA but never really gone hard core with them. simplifying my tool chain would be handy. cloud is always nice. and one stop shopping is a triple threat.

[MOZ]

They have free Air Mail shipping for open source projects on their website.

[mrbishop]

hmmm. so how did you design the key placement. script? it doesn't support importing DXF files yet. i'm assuming you probably used the SVG.

[joey]

hmmm. so how did you design the key placement. script? it doesn't support importing DXF files yet. i'm assuming you probably used the SVG.

Pretty sure MOZ is only using the PCB fab service, and importing gerbers from KiCAD.

[mrbishop]

hmmm. so how did you design the key placement. script? it doesn't support importing DXF files yet. i'm assuming you probably used the SVG.

Pretty sure MOZ is only using the PCB fab service, and importing gerbers from KiCAD.

probably right. i was just tinkering with it as ive never really given it a good go.

[MOZ]

hmmm. so how did you design the key placement. script? it doesn't support importing DXF files yet. i'm assuming you probably used the SVG.

Pretty sure MOZ is only using the PCB fab service, and importing gerbers from KiCAD.

probably right. i was just tinkering with it as ive never really given it a good go.

Yes, I used KiCAD for my project, and most likely will continue to do so, irrespective of the attractive offering because I'm used to the interface and hotkeys. They are quite vocal about how they (Easy EDA) provide a streamlined process for creating new products, but aren't restrictive, you can use your own gerbers from some other program for fab, their gerbers with other fabs, etc. Something I was highly impressed by.

/ot, enough about Easy EDA, let's focus on the topic now. I'll create a thread about their service once I have the PCBs and have evaluated them, till then we can continue via PM/Slack.

[SixtyLife]

I've been looking at split boards since VEA hit massdrop and the TS65 looks the most promising so far. VEA turned me off with the 2u left space, ultimate hacking keyboard has multiple issues with all the right-most keys being .5u less than standard, and the new mistel split board somehow splits 6.25u into two which is probably gonna suck for aftermarket caps

Love that the TS65 makes it easy offering 2.25u and 2.75u for the spacebars as well as many other bottom row configurations. Can't wait to see this develop!

[MOZ]

Thanks the idea was to try and make sourcing for the split spacebar easier. I know getting an 2.25U or 2.75U in blanks might be troublesome, but if you're willing to use the shift keys, many sets have at least the 2.75U covered.

You could also do like what I did, order some blank 2.25U and 2.75U blanks in a variety of colors.

[MOZ]

Yeay, PCBs arrived. 3 days for production and 2 days for shipping from Hong Kong to India via DHL. Very fast service, also the quality looks great, vias are more or less perfectly centered, board is routed perfectly and no sharp edges too. I'll try and get a scan done tomorrow. Didn't have to pay any customs fee.

Last Friday I ordered the components from Mouser, shipped same day from US and arrived at my doorstep on Monday. Again DHL and only $20 shipping, although I did have to pay 25% duties.

[joey]

Yeay, PCBs arrived. 3 days for production and 2 days for shipping f4om Hong Kong to India via DHL. Very fast service, also The quality looks great, via are more or less perfectly centered, board is routed perfectly and no charge edges too. I'll try and get a scan done tomorrow.

Great news! I'll be ordering soon then.

[mrbishop]

Yeay, PCBs arrived. 3 days for production and 2 days for shipping from Hong Kong to India via DHL. Very fast service, also the quality looks great, vias are more or less perfectly centered, board is routed perfectly and no sharp edges too. I'll try and get a scan done tomorrow. Didn't have to pay any customs fee.

Last Friday I ordered the components from Mouser, shipped same day from US and arrived at my doorstep on Monday. Again DHL and only $20 shipping, although I did have to pay 25% duties.

thats really awesome. 

hope everything works out as planned

[joey]

MOZ: any time for PCB pics?

[MOZ]

I've been down with a flu since Thursday evening. Haven't gone to work since, but it is looking good. I should be able to make it to work tomorrow.

[mrbishop]

I've been down with a flu since Thursday evening. Haven't gone to work since, but it is looking good. I should be able to make it to work tomorrow.

oh no!

hope you are feeling better soon!

[MOZ]

So, here's my first batch of PCBs. I'll write a proper review of EasyEDA's service and the PCBs this weekend in a separate thread, but as you can see, it's all high quality with everything aligned perfectly.






I also designed a USB hub PCB for my new desk setup that I'm planning with the TS65 and SAMPad. The idea is to have the hub as part of the mousepad, which will also have some RGB LEDs using the other PCB below (Firefly) and also has an incorporated Qi charger.

[mrbishop]

wow thats looking really great!

[joey]

They look great! Waiting for the full writeup.

[MajorKoos]

Wow.  I'm very impressed.
This is coming along nicely.
I can't wait to see the finished product.

[SixtyLife]

MOZ, is this more a personal project / one off or are you planning on making it a group buy? looks fantastic so far!

[Findecanor]

Whoa. Those are a lot of layout options... And all backlit...  Two orientations of backlit ISO Return switch and even 1.25×1u Return?

It looks like the break-away seam at the bottom might be bit too close to a stabiliser mount hole, though.

[MOZ]

MOZ, is this more a personal project / one off or are you planning on making it a group buy? looks fantastic so far!

Personal project for now, I intend to make three for myself (Work, home, travel) and the other two PCBs if functional already have takers.

Whoa. Those are a lot of layout options... And all backlit...  Two orientations of backlit ISO Return switch and even 1.25×1u Return?
It looks like the break-away seam at the bottom might be bit too close to a stabiliser mount hole, though.

There is only one orientation for the ISO return, not sure which is the second one you are seeing. Yes, there is support for 1.25+1U Return.

When I get to building it and snap the two PCBs, I'll have to see if it is too close or just close enough ) Either way for mass production, I would recommend against any tabs between the two halves, rather have two thicker support bars at the top and bottom with the holes/fiducials/etc according to the pick-n-place assembly machine.

Although, the stabiliser thing just made me realise something that I had overlooked, once I get back home, I'll have to check if the overlapping stab holes are in fact overlapping holes or slots. Slots might be problematic I think.

[Findecanor]

There is only one orientation for the ISO return, not sure which is the second one you are seeing.

I was just confused by the pin holes for adjacent switch positions. 

[MOZ]

There is only one orientation for the ISO return, not sure which is the second one you are seeing.

I was just confused by the pin holes for adjacent switch positions. 

Certain parts of the board (Specially the Enter area) are quit confusing with multiple switch positions, LED holes, vertical Enter, stabs, etc.

[mrbishop]

MOZ, is this more a personal project / one off or are you planning on making it a group buy? looks fantastic so far!

Personal project for now, I intend to make three for myself (Work, home, travel) and the other two PCBs if functional already have takers.

Whoa. Those are a lot of layout options... And all backlit...  Two orientations of backlit ISO Return switch and even 1.25×1u Return?
It looks like the break-away seam at the bottom might be bit too close to a stabiliser mount hole, though.

There is only one orientation for the ISO return, not sure which is the second one you are seeing. Yes, there is support for 1.25+1U Return.

When I get to building it and snap the two PCBs, I'll have to see if it is too close or just close enough ) Either way for mass production, I would recommend against any tabs between the two halves, rather have two thicker support bars at the top and bottom with the holes/fiducials/etc according to the pick-n-place assembly machine.

Although, the stabiliser thing just made me realise something that I had overlooked, once I get back home, I'll have to check if the overlapping stab holes are in fact overlapping holes or slots. Slots might be problematic I think.

those look like slots.

[robotmaxtron]

Very cool. I hope this eventually goes into a larger gb.

[MOZ]

X-post from SAMPad thread,

Yeay, first test build was successful! Hot air soldering is so much faster!

I used Easy AVR to program the board, all keys registering, indicator LEDs working as they should. I haven't got my switches yet, so I just shorted the switch pins to test and it's working.

Also, I forgot the backlight LEDs are current controlled from the driver, so to test the LED I just put one in through the holes and it was BRIGHT! In two seconds it died, 200mA going through a single LED can't be good. THis was the 2x3x4mm LED off ebay, rated for 20mA

Will now try to program it using QMK, and test the audio and RGB LEDs (Still waiting to receive the RGB LEDs as well). Already discovered that to use the buzzer, I'll have to swap the buzzer pin (B4) with another pin (C6) as the Timer 3 is used for the buzzer in QMK. Oh well, will get to it soon.

Once that testing is done, I'll move to building the TS65. Two major changes to the QMK configuration will be,
1. Scanning the matrix on the left side via the multiplexer. I'm going through the configuration for bpiphany's controller to see how it's done.
2. Communication over I2C for the right side.

Once these basics are done, I'll move to adding support for the rotary encoder and testing the trackpoint functionality.

[MOZ]

Not much progress this week, my hot air station gave up on me, the heating element/sensor isn't working. It's just blowing cold air at this time.

I received the RGB LEDs and planned to solder them on the SAMPad this weekend and then also solder the TS65. Damn it, at least this weekend and most likely the next are also going to be wasted.

I used the time to go to the laser cutting workshop to get the case cut and my curse continued. Some history, about three years ago I was really into getting cases made out of acrylic, at that time in a span of few months, I was able to damage (In 3 cases misalignment of the laser) 5 lasers. Yesterday, the same thing happened. I was there with the guy, trying to fix it up. The problem occurred when we were cutting the thick middle piece. I came back home at 11 in the night, but the workshop guy continued working late into the night as he had to deliver some goods for other clients tomorrow.

I was however able to get one complete case cut for the SAMPad. Now there was also one more issue, Pune (City I'm staying in right now) is rather small, so I was only able to find the frosted pieces in 10mm and 3mm, rather than 8mm and 2mm. This meant that the flathead screws I had on hand are now not going to work since they are 6mm in height and I need at least 7mm, because 3mm for the bottom piece, 3mm for the diffuser, and then at least 1mm to go into the standoff. Oh well, got to order 8mm screws then. Due to the misalignment problem, there were minor issues in the middle piece, the main problem is that the top surface has a larger kerf compared to the bottom; because of this I'll need to file down some parts of the internal side of the walls of the middle layer to accommodate the diffuser as well as have the screw holes line-up.

[mrbishop]

As soon as some of my projects clear off ill see what I can do on the case front my friend.

[rrrsss]

...
Now the exciting news, I've spent my free time the last 3 days flashing a variant of the LUFA Mass Storage class bootloader and now I've got a ProMicro that runs the user application when plugged in and after grounding the RESET pin shows up as a Mass Storage device on the system. So all you have to do is replace the FLASH.BIN and replug the device. Voila!

I'm really happy about this, as it means if the user has a hex file, they don't need any special software on the system, so a web configurator like MassDrop/Infinity would be great with this solution. For a desktop application like JigOn/EasyAVR, generating the bin file and then sending it to the Mass Storage device shouldn't be an issue either. For the super-efficient, command-line to compile the bin file and copy it to the Mass Storage deivce should be trivial.
...

sorry to bring up an earlier post to the thread, but any chance you could make a tutorial to make this happen? I'm sure a lot of people would benefit from this. Thanks!

[MOZ]

Tutorial on? Mass Storage bootloader?

[mrbishop]

Tutorial on? Mass Storage bootloader?

are you loading the firmware from the internal mass storage??? because if you are thats kind of like keyboard-ception? also pretty damn awesome.

[MOZ]

On the SAMPad I'm testing right now, I am not using Mass Storage bootloader, however I did test it with one of the Pro Micro's.

The real advantage of a Mass Storage bootlaoder is if you have an online configurator where the the user can make their keymap and then just download and copy onto the storage. If you are using TMK/QMK/EasyAVR, the advantage isn't that prominent. With TMK/QMK, when you setup the environment to compile your firmware, you setup DFU as well and can do "make dfu" which builds the firmware and then flashes it via DFU. With EasyAVR, the latest version comes bundled with the tools to upload the firmware directly.

But yes, with a Mass Storage bootloader, there is the advantage that you need one less tool to load the firmware. Flashing the LUFA Mass Storage bootloader however requires an ISP programmer.

[mrbishop]

this is a really cool feature. and it does really simplify the process. 

[rrrsss]

Tutorial on? Mass Storage bootloader?

On the SAMPad I'm testing right now, I am not using Mass Storage bootloader, however I did test it with one of the Pro Micro's.

The real advantage of a Mass Storage bootlaoder is if you have an online configurator where the the user can make their keymap and then just download and copy onto the storage. If you are using TMK/QMK/EasyAVR, the advantage isn't that prominent. With TMK/QMK, when you setup the environment to compile your firmware, you setup DFU as well and can do "make dfu" which builds the firmware and then flashes it via DFU. With EasyAVR, the latest version comes bundled with the tools to upload the firmware directly.

But yes, with a Mass Storage bootloader, there is the advantage that you need one less tool to load the firmware. Flashing the LUFA Mass Storage bootloader however requires an ISP programmer.

Yes, on the Mass Storage bootloader. Do you just flash the LUFA in? or did you customise the LUFA before flashing it?

[MOZ]

I just built the LUFA Mass Storage bootloader and then flashed it with an ISP. I used Arduino as ISP on my Teensy 3.2.

Daniel, has some good information on flashing using an ISP here, https://deskthority.net/wiki/Converting_NerD60_to_TMK.

If you want, I can upload the Mass Storage bootloader when I get back home.

[redbanshee]

Hows dev going on this lately? Very interested in this project.

[MOZ]

Sorry for the lack of updates, there hasn't been much progress, as my hot air station went kaput, replacement should get here by Tuesday. I however will be travelling in August, so things are moving slowly.

[shhky]

It's been more than two months since last update, would love to see more progress on this keyboard.  I really want to replicate a few for myself.

[MOZ]

It's been a busy couple of months, relocating to South Africa and then my laptop died too.

Anyways, I don't think this will be done for a while now as I will again be travelling for a few months due to work in two weeks. Oh well...

[MajorKoos]

It's been a busy couple of months, relocating to South Africa and then my laptop died too.

Anyways, I don't think this will be done for a while now as I will again be travelling for a few months due to work in two weeks. Oh well...

You'll get round to it just now...

[smokemm]

This thread seems to have been dead for a while but I was so interested in the project that I grabbed the gerbers from github and had a few of the PCBs fabricated.

I have the PCBs now but no firmware for the keyboard. I am pretty clueless about how to proceed with building a firmware.

Has any one built a working firmware for this project/keyboard?

[mrbishop]

the community needs this

[xondat]

the community needs this

From what I've seen, 3 split 65s are OTW )

[mrbishop]

the community needs this

From what I've seen, 3 split 65s are OTW )

this one supports ALPs tho.... do the others?
alps=love  

[Eszett]

anyone with a working firmware for this project? If yes, can you share please?

[mrbishop]

i'm getting a quote on a batch. not sure if the schematic is fully functional yet but i'll try and update as i can. been super busy lately. checking with circuithub but there are some components CH doesnt' like so i'm guessing as best i can. any help on this is welcome. may be able to do a mini GB to get it working for the prototype then do a big one if interest is shown.

MOZ if your still out there we miss you!

[MOZ]

I'm alive and so is the project (sorta).

I've been real busy IRL due to work and the travel. Still haven't made any progress on my end, as I had to come back to India for visa renewals. However I do have good news, someone has built the TS65 and they've told me the barebones keyboard works perfectly, that's the most important thing, others are just bells and whistles. I've requested him to update the thread when he finds time.

Thank you and apologies to anyone still interested in the project, it's good to know that people appreciate your work.

-moz

[mrbishop]

Good to know your still doing well Moz.

if anyone has a full BOM that would be great to help out with getting a quote together for PCB+assembly from a manufacturer.
just want to ensure i select all the proper components