My awesome macropad!

I ran some simulations in solidworks to see how strong my top plate is to determine if I could remove some material. I ran a couple tests of both force and pressure and it was able to take much more force than it needed to. I will start removing material soon and running more tests on structural integrity.

I focused on getting my pcb from kicad into solidworks to design a case for it. At first, I thought that kicad wouldn’t let me export my pcb as a .step file because I tried to save a copy of the file and manually select .step from file explorer but that wasn’t an option. After some research, I found out that I had to click export, and I successfully saved it as a .step file. Despite it being a .step file, I still could not get it to open into solidworks and even though the software showed that it was loading all the different parts, the file never opened. I navigated back to the file and realized that this problem was occuring due to the file not having a name. (the file name was saved as .step) After renaming it, it opened in solidworks and I could now look at dimensions much easier. I chose my case type to be a “sandwich case” that sandwiches the top plate between the two haves of the case, and started to design the top plate.

I opened my board in the 3d viewer and it was missing all of its components besides the leds and some regular diodes so I decided to put those on the board. To do this I opened the footprint properties of each object and I went to 3d settings. I downloaded a .step file for each object and then I selected it through the file icon. I then manually changed the offsets and rotation to get it to be flush with the board and line up with the pin holes. I tried to look for a way to populate this to every switch but it kept reverting it to the original blank template. Even though I am done with it, I am curious if anyone else has found out a way to make it automatically populate the 3d model.

So my last lookout recording didn’t save so this devlog is for both of them. [about 4 hours of time of which around an hour was lost :( ] I played around with KiCad for a little and started making my wiring schematic for my hackpad. I chose to go with a 3x3 grid layout for my keys which would each have their own led light underneath. I also decided upon using a screen flanked by a rotary encoder on either side. When i started to make the pcb layout, I tried to import it from the wiring schematic, but i completely forgot to assign footprints to the rotary encoders, diodes, and switches, leading to an error message. After this was resolved, i started to move the components to their respective places. Initially, the XIAO Seeeduino p2040 was placed above the OLED screen, but this led to a lot of unused space, so I decided to move it to underneath the pcb, where the OLED screen would reside. Connecting all of the different electronics was a really difficult task, but after 3 hours of struggle, everything was connected! There are still a couple minor errors to fix, and a couple mounting holes to add, but for the most part, the pcb is done!

I worked on learning how to use KiCad by making the pcb design that the guide showed and eventually succeeded. Some of the problems I faced along the way were finding out how to route the pcb with different layers (I accidently skipped where it told me in the guide) and also how to move the switches so they lined up properly.