an average macropad
Hardware- 6 Devlogs
- 6 Total hours
a macropad with 8 mechanical switches and a single encoder
Got some qmk firmware for my macropad to compile
I spent a lot of time messing around until I finally got the firmware to compile at all. I have no idea whether this will actually work as I don’t have the macropad (yet) manufactured.
As always, I did do something a bit sketchy. As it turns out qmk doesn’t support diode and direct matrix usage alongside each other, and I had the encoder switch pins drawn in a direct connection… Therefore I added that pin(GP7) as another row in hopes it will work fine which it should… i think
partially redesigned the pcb again
As it turns out, there pcb size constraints which I somehow missed.
I had to make it somehow smaller… As suggested in the guide I had finally read, I placed the mcu on the back side. At first the routing seemed like it would be next to impossible given my not so simple layout, though in less than half an hour I managed to route everything. Now the pcb is 99.06 x 41.91 mm small
Finally, when I ran the DRC I actually found there was actually a clearance violation at the 11th pin of the mcu(1.7mm); I think I already lowered the clearance once so I might be cooked… i’ll take my chances!
I suspect there might be a problem with encoder’s pins and the mcu clearance, will see about that when I hopefully get the pcb
Until then it’s just the case and firmware I have to make
Had to fix the spacing between the switches.
Designing the PCB yesterday I had somehow overlooked the switch spacing specification(19.05mm center-to-center) and positioned the switches with an odd spacing.
The process took me about 1h 10m of which for 20 minutes I had the recording paused
NOW I can finally work on the case! I sure hope I record everything this time
I designed the PCB layout for my macropad “an average macropad”, it is my first ever pcb design!
I drew the schematic in about an hour which I have no recording of
Along the way I did make some decisions without full certainty. Like, have you ever seen someone wire rotary encoders in a matrix? now you have ! Other than that goofy wiring which imo should work, there is the backlight LED placement. I’ve just seen the LEDs being in a place which appears to be bellow the switches in images of mechanical keyboard PCBs, so I’m hoping my skillful placement of the LEDs won’t interfere with the switches ‘cause otherwise I’ll have no backlight which would be very sad :((
The next for me now is actually adding the holes in pcb so I can actually mount it to the case the design of which I wanted to call my next step, but oh, well…
