Minimalistic HackPad

Created the firmware, i used the Arduino IDE with the keyboard library as i was familiar with it and thought it would be more simple.

In order for parts to fit comfortably, i opted to using compliant mechanisms to suit most or all tolerances, this fixes most problems i could of had in the future with parts not fitting together. As seen in the pictures theres slots in between the model, this allows the plastic to adapt to the different sizes

Created the basic bottom for the enclosure

Fixed some tolerance issues, and made sure parts fit together as expected.

Started the Enclosure, i used Fusion360 to design my enclosure around the PCB, As seen i the picture the goal of this enclosure is to keep the same small form factor as with the PCB. initially i was going to slant the whole enclosure by around 6 degrees to create a more ergonomic design, but found that this would create much more extra work when creating the holes for the switches and encoder so i scrapped that idea.

Finishing the actual PCB and updated the schematic, In this 2h session i had to slightly change the initial schematic to reduce dead space within my PCB by adding another switch, this also adds extra functionality. I wanted my design to be as compact as possible to make the PCB design sleek and minimalistic, i achieved this by careful placement with consideration of PCB traces. - adding to the minimalistic look i changed the mask colour to black, this took alot of googling as you can’t just select what colour you want - i had to go to file > Board setup > Physical Stackup > F.Mask > Black

Finished my PCB schematic, i slightly deviated from the tutorial to add a rotary encoder