geekhack
geekhack Projects => Making Stuff Together! => Topic started by: DonnyD on Tue, 06 February 2018, 04:53:55
-
I am planning to build custom hand-wired keyboard. I need advice on which firmware to use with teensy 2.0. Tmk, qmk or other ? ( I am new to this stuff). Also, are there any firmware there i can customize it with UI, like on website or something like that.
What abou this video: Can i use this guide with my hand-wire keyboard ? If i understand correctly, i can choose whatever layout, and just change wiring, right ? Change pins etc.
-
Welcome to GH :)
As long as you don't want RGB backlighting EasyAVR (https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=51252.0) is an option with a GUI - we're still waiting for someone inexperienced to try out the 'add a board' feature as it's hard to write documentation when you know how it's supposed to work.
Alternately the video has a GH60 option and that board uses the same controller so that guide will work, assuming it has a Teensy option somewhere (Teensys use a smaller bootloader than the standard one)
-
What if i use TMK firmware ? As shown in this video ( https://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/how-to-build-your-very-own-keyboard-firmware-t7177.html#p141386 ), i can basically use any of the given boards code and just tailor to my custom hand-wired board ? And what about backlighting; i am talking about static white color, no RBG etc.
Huge thanks in advance for answer/-es !!!
-
Yes you can use TMK, I've only used it by editing text files so can't comment on the website.
Any firmware can cope with single colour backlighting and there's no reason not to try one and then change to another later if you want, just keep a note of your pins.
-
I'm going to use QMK on my Teensy++2.0 handwire. Making handwire compatible with online GUI compilers can be finicky as you're not locked to a certain pin layout on the controller. Either you need to first design the firmware on the GUI and then do soldering or then you need to make sure the GUI supports picking the pins you've soldered.
-
What if i use TMK firmware ? As shown in this video ( LINK ), i can basically use any of the given boards code and just tailor to my custom hand-wired board ? And what about backlighting; i am talking about static white color, no RBG etc.
Huge thanks in advance for answer/-es !!!
kbfirmware is super easy to use - I did and I recommend it. In answer to your first question: yes, you draw out your matrix in the GUI, assign the right pins, select the right options, hit the right buttons, get the loader from https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/loader.html, test on http://www.keyboardtester.com/
For static lighting I went the ghetto route and connected straight to the 5V pin with a variable resistor for brightness control for per-key lighting - there are ways to have QMK (on which kbfirmware is based) do the light control but I didn't bother. I should have, but I didn't. Hand wired get messy with per-key lighting and I don't see it done very often.
SOURCE: I made a custom kb with a teensy++, I have programmed quite a bit but a long time ago and swore off coding for life, kbfirmware worked first time and does all I need it to do - I didn't touch a single line of code.
NOTE: do not use pin D6 unless you desolder the associated LED or resistor off the teensy.