Hi All & Season's greetings !
Let me present you mec.Numpad, a small clicky keypad of my creation.
Features list:- 22 programmable key switches
- Cherry MX switches (blue on mine)
- clickyprogrammable rotary encoder from Alps with a huge knob (can be pushed down too)
- anodized aluminum enclosure
- 1.5mm steel support plate
- mini-usb connector
- two very small feets to raise it by 10° (if you feel like)
- pwm backlit, but poorly - should've used better LEDs or a different circuit to drive it
- designed and assembled in Switzerland
Decided to build a numpad to get back to electronic development, didn't want to program anything so I built it around a
SK5126445 chip from Sprintek, quite a good chip but a bit tedious to solder without proper equipment (QFN44+1 - 0.5mm pitch) - still managed to get it to work using an industrial heat blower (and a lot of patience) to solder it
.
Nothing crazy in the numpad department, splitted numpad-0 in two to have a
fn instead, with
numlock this enables four layers of programmation on the keypad - complete overkill for a numpad.
On the right side of the keypad, things are a more interesting, four switches ( initially intended for media control ) and a rotary encoder, I use it for volume control purposes - I designed to get a nice clicky feedback :
Video rotary encoder[chttps://youtu.be/bEPTY0YaYSE
Video back lighthttps://youtu.be/ew9GCYcXM5g
The PCB is "hanged" on the steel support plate by the switches and LEDs' solder joints since I didn't put support on the bottom of the enclosure, the top part is screwed from the bottom of the unit. I also designed some tiny feet to screw on the bottom of the enclosure to raise the keypad a bit.
Of course, It wasn't a perfect run - I had my lot of fails and lessons learned:
- I always wondered why people would orient the switches with LEDs towards the top... now I know/li]
Note: I designed mec.Numpad using the following softwares:
- pcb: Kicad - awesome 3d viewer
- drawings: librecad & Draftsight
- solids: Freecad
What I would change in my future builds :
- use supports below the PCB
- use a fully programmable chip
- orient the switches towards the top
- maybe do something more fancy with the enclosure
- use and encoder with less steps
Guys, let me know your feedbacks about mec.Numpad! Looking forward!