geekhack
geekhack Projects => Making Stuff Together! => Topic started by: KTKM on Tue, 07 July 2015, 14:37:53
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I want to build a 6 key keyboard (in the CM storm tester).
What is the recommended microcontroller for this?
There's a difference between the chips on the teensy 2 and pro trinket but is the difference in performance even noticeable?
Is there a better microcontroller than these two?
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No difference in performance - for a keyboard even much much weaker chips are sufficient.
The difference between teensy 2.0 (has atmega32u4) and pro trinket (has atmega328p) is that the former has hardware support for USB, whereas the latter only bit-banging in firmware. There is one library (vusb) that you have to use with the latter setup, whereas there's a couple better (=more friendly and versatile) libraries for the 32u4.
Also atmega32u4 is used much more often in these circles, so some firmwares that can be used are already around (e.g. TMK).
Anyway - between those two I would go for teensy. If you're a programmer skilled with AVR chips, and really want to save a couple of dollars, you can do slightly cheaper (e.g. with trinket (not pro) or a chinese knockoff of these; or a chinese knockoff of arduino pro micro) - but IMO it's not worth the trouble.
EDIT: just go with bpiphany's PCB.
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Well more friendly libraries are worth about ~6 USD more.
Do they use a different IDE's as well?
Adafruit's site is so friendly that I assumed that their chips are as well, PJRC's is pretty dull in comparison.
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You can use arduino ide with both, but firmware for keyboards is rarely written in that - people just use straight C.
The chips are made by ATMEL, and have nothing to do with adafruit or pjrc. Adafruit also has a board with the same chip as teensy 2.0 (it's called atmega32u4 breakout). I think that pro trinket uses 328p because it's cheaper and equally good for the projects that adafruit focuses on more (blinky and moving stuff, not really USB devices).