First post! I designed and built a very small keyboard from scratch.

[wyager]

I wanted to make a very small mechanical keyboard that I could program myself.







Full album at http://imgur.com/a/4R8n8

Not bad for a first attempt, I think!

Source code and EAGLE files at https://github.com/wyager/MicroMechBoard

I'm not finished with the code yet, but that code works just fine!

[esoomenona]

Very cool. May I ask why each board has a Teensy when they're TRRS connected? Oversight? Or do they work independently as well as together?

Good job!

[Thimplum]

I wanted to make a very small mechanical keyboard that I could program myself.

Show Image

Show Image

Show Image

Full album at http://imgur.com/a/4R8n8

Not bad for a first attempt, I think!

Source code and EAGLE files at https://github.com/wyager/MicroMechBoard

I'm not finished with the code yet, but that code works just fine!

I was partway through taking off my headphones when I saw these images. I sat and stared for a little while. NICE.

[jdcarpe]

Great work! This is how you introduce yourself on Geekhack.

Welcome to Geekhack! Nice to have another person making keyboards around.

[esoomenona]

Great work! This is how you introduce yourself on Geekhack.

Way to bring me down, jd... ;_;

[jdcarpe]

Great work! This is how you introduce yourself on Geekhack.

Way to bring me down, jd... ;_;

This post made me feel some type of way.

[lcs]

[esoomenona]

Great work! This is how you introduce yourself on Geekhack.

Way to bring me down, jd... ;_;

This post made me feel some type of way.

[wyager]

Very cool. May I ask why each board has a Teensy when they're TRRS connected? Oversight? Or do they work independently as well as together?

Good job!

They do work independently! Each keyboard will auto-detect if it is a "master" or a "slave" and behave accordingly. In the pictures, I have the green LED light up if the keyboard is in master (USB) mode.

So if you wanted, you could just build one and use it as a gamepad or something. I was going to do that, but my one of the three boards from my PCB fabricator was all jacked up 

On the jacked up PCB, I had to manually scrape some shorts away with a knife, and there might be more that I haven't seen yet. However, since you order in batches of 3, I still had enough PCBs to make a working keyboard 

[Thimplum]

Where'd ya get the caps from?

[wyager]

Where'd ya get the caps from?

Signature plastics. They look nice, but some are WAY too tight. I tested them on a smaller prototype board, and one of the caps was so tight that it ripped the key in half when I tried to remove it. I get that this line of keys is supposed to be fairly tight, but some of them are ridiculous. Probably 1/8 or so of them take a significant amount of force just to get on the key.

I considered just waiting for Signature Plastics to send me more (they offered to replace the ones that were too tight), but I didn't really have any way to test which ones were too tight in the first place and I didn't want to wait (I move for college in 2 days), so I just screwed it and put them all on. If I need to replace the keycaps, I may have to break a few keys 

[Thimplum]

Where'd ya get the caps from?

Signature plastics. They look nice, but some are WAY too tight. I tested them on a smaller prototype board, and one of the caps was so tight that it ripped the key in half when I tried to remove it. I get that this line of keys is supposed to be fairly tight, but some of them are ridiculous. Probably 1/8 or so of them take a significant amount of force just to get on the key.

I considered just waiting for Signature Plastics to send me more (they offered to replace the ones that were too tight), but I didn't really have any way to test which ones were too tight in the first place and I didn't want to wait (I move for college in 2 days), so I just screwed it and put them all on. If I need to replace the keycaps, I may have to break a few keys 

http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=45795.0

[wyager]

Where'd ya get the caps from?

Signature plastics. They look nice, but some are WAY too tight. I tested them on a smaller prototype board, and one of the caps was so tight that it ripped the key in half when I tried to remove it. I get that this line of keys is supposed to be fairly tight, but some of them are ridiculous. Probably 1/8 or so of them take a significant amount of force just to get on the key.

I considered just waiting for Signature Plastics to send me more (they offered to replace the ones that were too tight), but I didn't really have any way to test which ones were too tight in the first place and I didn't want to wait (I move for college in 2 days), so I just screwed it and put them all on. If I need to replace the keycaps, I may have to break a few keys 

http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=45795.0

Yeah, I saw that. According to SP, that's not actually a reliable indicator of which switches are bad, and I tend to agree with them. Some of my "flat" stem switches are fine. According to SP, that is simply based on the kind of tooling they use; not all flat stems are bad.

Plus, like I said, I wanted to have this finished before school starts up.

[SpAmRaY]

Very cool project!

[hashbaz]

Welcome to the forum!  You're already a total boss I see.

[bueller]

Nice work sir! I want to do a PCB for my next custom but I have no idea where to start  )

[wyager]

Nice work sir! I want to do a PCB for my next custom but I have no idea where to start  )

PCB fabrication has gotten way easier recently! I remember just a few years ago I would make my own PCBs because having them done was so expensive.

Making these PCBs was pretty expensive ($105 for 3, and one was broken), but that's way less than the last time I checked.

If you want to get started, and you already know about basic EE stuff, you should check out KiCad (free, open source, no limits) or EAGLE (paid, closed source, limited free trial). I used EAGLE (although I wish I'd used KiCad, because I had to use my friend's computer as he has EAGLE pro and I don't, and EAGLE free can only do very small boards). I used OSHPark to print the PCB. They are very nice and easy (and extremely cheap for small boards), but I still haven't heard back from customer service about my messed up PCB.

[bueller]

Nice work sir! I want to do a PCB for my next custom but I have no idea where to start  )

PCB fabrication has gotten way easier recently! I remember just a few years ago I would make my own PCBs because having them done was so expensive.

Making these PCBs was pretty expensive ($105 for 3, and one was broken), but that's way less than the last time I checked.

If you want to get started, and you already know about basic EE stuff, you should check out KiCad (free, open source, no limits) or EAGLE (paid, closed source, limited free trial). I used EAGLE (although I wish I'd used KiCad, because I had to use my friend's computer as he has EAGLE pro and I don't, and EAGLE free can only do very small boards). I used OSHPark to print the PCB. They are very nice and easy (and extremely cheap for small boards), but I still haven't heard back from customer service about my messed up PCB.

Cheers! I know very BASIC EE for getting around projects but I think I'll need to do some reading before I start tackling my own PCB

[hoggy]

Welcome to geekhack. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with in the future.