geekhack
geekhack Projects => Making Stuff Together! => Topic started by: LifeIsOnTheWire on Fri, 06 January 2017, 13:58:45
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https://www.adafruit.com/products/2829
Its a bluetooth Teeny-like device, and has an ATmega32u4. Does anyone have any experience with it? Can it run TMK or QMK things?
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QMK supports those. I'm typing on a handwired using Feather 32u4 BLE right now. Amount of pins is a little too short, though, only 17 are available. You will need an IO expander or some creativity with your matrix, even with a 60% keyboard.
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Is it possible to load Soarer's Converter firmware on one of these? Sounds too simple to me, but hey, won't know if I don't ask. I am guessing that the problem is that if used like a regular Soarer's Converter instead of a controller, it would require a lot of power to run the original keyboard's controller basically making the low energy part kind of useless. I can imagine a project enclosure that basically just has a large battery inside plus the Feather 32u4 that you could plug an old model M into so as to use it with an iPad or whatever device wirelessly. Not sure the latency would be very good though with BT LE. Thoughts?
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Is it possible to load Soarer's Converter firmware on one of these? Sounds too simple to me, but hey, won't know if I don't ask. I am guessing that the problem is that if used like a regular Soarer's Converter instead of a controller, it would require a lot of power to run the original keyboard's controller basically making the low energy part kind of useless. I can imagine a project enclosure that basically just has a large battery inside plus the Feather 32u4 that you could plug an old model M into so as to use it with an iPad or whatever device wirelessly. Not sure the latency would be very good though with BT LE. Thoughts?
As a matter of fact, I ported TMK's terminal_usb code to QMK to revive several old 122 keys Model Ms. I'm using Teensies, but it should be trivial to use it with the Adafruit controller.
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QMK supports those. I'm typing on a handwired using Feather 32u4 BLE right now. Amount of pins is a little too short, though, only 17 are available. You will need an IO expander or some creativity with your matrix, even with a 60% keyboard.
Thanks for the reply, that is great to hear.
I'm considering using one for a 30% keyboard, so the 17 pins is more than enough.
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QMK supports those. I'm typing on a handwired using Feather 32u4 BLE right now. Amount of pins is a little too short, though, only 17 are available. You will need an IO expander or some creativity with your matrix, even with a 60% keyboard.
Will there be a noticeable lag when you use it?
And how long could the battery lasts?
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@priyadi was there anything special you had to do to get qmk working on the feather?
I have the same one and i am struggling to get it working . I'm only using 14 keys ( gamepad) so I have plenty of pins left.
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Dont want to open new thread for the same question :) As I'm also interested in this. So can I use I2C I/O expander for the Bluefruit? I have one of those lying around http://wearableelectronicsforfashion.com/en/shop/sparkfun-16-output-io-expander-breakout-sx1509/
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Dont want to open new thread for the same question :) As I'm also interested in this. So can I use I2C I/O expander for the Bluefruit? I have one of those lying around http://wearableelectronicsforfashion.com/en/shop/sparkfun-16-output-io-expander-breakout-sx1509/
Did you ever get anywhere with this? I'd love to see a "For Dummies" guide to using these.
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I have been using smaller I/O expander with arduino and some servo motors :D I will dig up my code for the expander and post it here if you want :)
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I have been using smaller I/O expander with arduino and some servo motors :D I will dig up my code for the expander and post it here if you want :)
So the I/O expander is not something that "just works" with QMK / TMK? Sounds difficult for me, with basically zero electronics knowledge :(
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Product page states it has 20 GPIO pins. Does that take into account the I/O pins required for Bluetooth?
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Basically, the bluefruit lacks enough pins for 60% keyboard. As someone said above can make it but we have to play with the wiring matrix. What I/O expander do is that via the I2C gives you more pins for the wiring. Regarding the QMK/TMK still to investigate this, but there should not be a problem if you address the right pins configuration
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Regarding the QMK/TMK still to investigate this, but there should not be a problem if you address the right pins configuration
bpiphany uses a modified TMK firmware (https://github.com/BathroomEpiphanies/costar_keyboard) with his Costar replacament controllers which use 74HC42 shift registers. It might ease the process of writing some code for this purpose.