el que llora

and so the design process comes to an end!
the readme has been finished and i’m very proud of how it looks - see for yourself in the images :)
now to submit the design for funding!!

renderring complete!
i made 5 renders in blender and i’m really happy with the results, which you can see in the images below.

all thats left is finishing off the repo, then i can ship it!!!

and that’s the base firmware complete!
i made sure all the gpio pins matched their assignment in qmk with the xiao documentation, and now have a (hopefully) functional piece of firmware to test the board with.

the firmware also includes encoder functionality and a basic rgb lighting pattern for the leds - although i will be further testing it once i actually physically build it!

the firmware does NOT include via functionality OR oled functionality YET - and i will be uploading both the non-oled firmware and the oled + via firmware to the repo when i get around to committing all the files to it.

for now - all that’s left is rendering and repo polishing!!

so, pcb art am i right?
i finished off my silkscreen art and im honestly so happy with it and all the little references that i put in :)

also a little aesthetic choice that i tweaked because it’ll end up looking cooler than before - the solder mask and case are now going to be white with the art showing in a black silkscreen (like ulquiorra’s skin in bleach)

next up is making the firmware, which shouldn’t take all that long, rendering the model in blender and updating the repo with all production files and the finalised readme!

the readme is like 70% of the way there already! (all the blank parts are placeholders for art and images )
i really like the designs of some of my other readmes, especially peroxide and pentoxide
(wasted a really cool idea on pentoxide and im still fuming)
so i copied most of the formatting from them and then once i get some batteries for my pen - ill make some art for the readme and the pcb!
next on the agenda is obviously art, but also renders, qmk firmware writing AND making it via compatible are the next courses of action!

downloaded the pcb’s step files and imported into onshape! designed a really low profile case - because i want the bare pcb kinda aesthetic - so its literally an angled plate with standoffs for heat set inserts.

spent a lot of time tweaking and tinkering with the case and also made some really quick of art to engrave in the case and encoder knobs :)

finally downloaded all the 3d models of the parts i will use, then assembled them using mates in my main assembly.

hackpad’s pretty much fully finished, so the next couple of devlogs will be dedicated to making art, a proper github page and firmware using qmk!

i came up with a design that i wanted to use before i began the project thats based off of bleach - so i began with that in mind.

i then looked at the hackpad website for all approved parts in the hackpad kit and placed in all of the components that i wanted in my schematic.

the schematic was easy enough to create as the pinouts for all the components are either widely available or on the hackpad website :)

after that, placed all the things i wanted down in the pcb editor roughly where i wanted to, tweaked a bit, routed traces and voila - bare pcb before i add any art to it!