My awesome macropad!

Today I finished my complete code for the HackPad!! And tomorrow I´ll hopefully be able to ship my Project!! I will have to do the readme first though and I also think I need to put all of this code into a github project though, but I´ll see!

Alright now I am fully finished with the Lap Dance part and I feel like so close to finishing my HackPad! Today I had to fix some errors and put in the working keyCodes. Even though I did need about an Hour it went pretty flawless… Besides the fact that I had to cut out the Phone Manager because apparently MacOs has not got a Key Shortcut to answering/declining an incoming call. But I added a way cooler and by far more useful screenshot feature anyways! Tomorrow I´ll do the simple key actions such as Focuses, ….

So I actually started with the Tap Dance code for the Keymap of my HackPad!! And after some time trying to understand it I was finally able to code it on my own and after double checking with claude if what I had written was correct I only did need to change some little details such as Keycodes and missing or misplaced brackets. So now I have completed the following: Media Player (TD_AUDIO), Call Manager (TD_PHONE), *Display Menu/ Shutdown * (TD_LOCK). If you see anything wrong or have suggestions of any kind please let me know!! PS: Don´t mind the notes (except you do speak german) because I wrote them in german so I could understand them better.

Worked on the Keyboard.json file and finally completed it (with a little assistance from Claude) - Anyways now I´ll start doing the rules.mk and the keymap file and just hope that everything works out as planned!! Hopefully I´ll be able to do at least the beginigs of the keymap today…

So, after some troubles while installing Homebrew I finally started doing the software… I am currently finished with the base files such as the Keyboard.json, and some more in order for the display to work. I hope i´ll get to starting with the actual functions tomorrow or on thursday!

I finished the Case design 100% now. I cleaned overlapping objects and rounded some edges, now I´ll start programming the software!!

Rest of the time…

First Design of Case Today i finished my first Design for the HackPad case. I am honestly pretty satisfied with the result. Please let me know your opinion and if you have proposals for the case design, I´d be verry happy to read them! Just so you get a better Idea for the Case itself: The Case should be printed in a very clean white with a light blue. It´s this white-ish and dark blue colour because I couldn´t find light blue and a regular white… I think i am finally gonna start coding the software tomorrow! PS: **The Display is just white because the pcb is one object in Fusion and I can´t give it two colours.

Case + 3D Model of PCB So, originally I only wanted to export the PCB 3D Modell to Fusion and then work on the Lid of the Box tommorow and in the end I am going to do so… But I didn´t think I´d be working in the export for 3h or so. I mean who could have even guessed that I would need to redirect all the paths in KiCad to get the 3d models of the key switch etc. But in the End, and after many many conversations with Claude, I did direct all the Paths to the right 3D Models. And now the easy part - at least thats what I thought… Turns out it is indeed pretty Hard and not that easy for my computer to import all the things from my PCB to Fusion. So 30 minutes and about 3 crashes later I merged parts of the PCB into one larger object which was now easier to move and copy into the case file. One tiny problem that I still haven´t been able to solve is my OLED Display Model because its made out of more than 1000 different little bodies. So I guess I´ll have to download a new one tomorrow. And besides my first tries to cut out holes for keyswitches, display and more that´s pretty much it for today. Thanks for reading!

Turns out: it is not that hard to install Fusion! I just did the lower part and I think I will do the lower part tomorrow or so… Didn´t do much other thing than designing the case.

Today I Re-Built my PCB because I put the port of the Xiao-Controller facing inwards the first time but I only did notice that after I tried to install Fusion to design the case. I still have not been able to install Fusion, so if somebody knows how to please let me know! But back to Rebuilding the PCB. After I had figured out that i needed to turn the Xiao-Controller I also thought that it might be helpful to put the diodes on the backside of the PCB. So I did all of that and rewired the whole thing. I´ll attach a picture of the final result to this devlog. Also I tried to link two timelapses I recorded with Lookout to my Hackatime projects, because I closed the recording tab on accident while I was still recording, but I have not been able to figure out how to do that. So I guess thats almost 4h lost :( . The next step would be to design the case and maybe I will do that today, after I hopefully figured out how to install Fusion. Will definitely post another devlog as soon as I started to design the case!

HackPad Part 1 - I think I downloaded an old version of KiCad so I might have to re install. But at least I’ve managed to get all the footprints and symbols into the library… My plan for Tommorrow is to finish the schematic and start working on the actual pcb. Might be a little too confident but who knows.