My awesome macropad!
Hardware- 2 Devlogs
- 4 Total hours
A macropad with help of the docs and other items
2026-06-28 — session end — Day 2
- Stopped with DRC at 109 errors / 6 unconnected (was 188 / 15)
- Matrix + RGB chain + power zones mostly routed; diode-to-switch fixes landed
- Blockers: +3V3/GND B.Cu pour islands (hotswap holes split copper); GND stub ~91,90 at D18; U1 pin13 GND
- DRC (68,29) is zone anchor, not island location — use Zone Manager preview + jump to 91,90 for GND trace
- Next: stitch traces, fix D18 GND, U1 GND, Edge.Cuts, M2 holes, hole clearance 0mm, Gerbers
Day 1 in KiCad. Never used it before so everything felt chaotic. Took about 45 minutes to figure out labels. ROW and COL only count if they’re on a wire. Floating in space does nothing. Got all 9 keys wired in the matrix. RGB chain is started too.
ROW0 was wrong at first. I put it on the switches instead of the diode bar side. Fixed it. Next session: encoder, OLED, then ERC. Really want to solder this already ❤️
