Ship
Pending review
Been a while since my last devlog but I finished designing the case and a first draft of the firmware. No huge challenges with the case, I’m not super confident in my alignment on everything but I think it should work. Writing firmware was fairly difficult due to limited documentation for circuitpython, but I was able to find some sources and miiight have used a few VScode inline suggestions. While procrastinating on that firmware, I made a nice little render of the hackpad in tinkercad… yes… tinkercad, because onshape doesn’t support STL files in the ways I needed it to. Anyways once I finish uploading everything to the github repo I should be ready to submit!
Finished the PCB yesterday and now I’m just working on the case. Had to reroute traces many times because my circuit is a bit complex. I enjoy electrical/software design more so unfortunately the case has been a bit of a struggle for motivation, but I still got most of the bottom half done. I also spent way more than the hour I logged trying to figure out complex ways to mount the PCB before deciding to just screw it to the bottom. I guess simple is better, and if not it will at least save me some sanity lol
Finished making schematics and started actually designing the PCB (aligned components and started traces.) This was my first time using Kicad so there was a slight learning curve, but not as much as I expected. I decided not to use matrix wiring on the switches as it would only save 1 pin. Also took a while to figure out which symbols and footprints to use, but I think I got them right. Had to do some back-of-napkin math to make sure the board has enough current to power all my LEDS, which hopefully will look pretty cool in a ring around the hackpad!
