MacPad

PCB Design

After a grueling 2 hours of figuring out how to use KiCad’s designing system, I finally completed the PCB. The hardest part was definitely figuring out the wiring… and getting familiar with the tools of the app.
I tried to place the XIAO 2040 on the bottom of the board… but I ran into way too many problems. I figured I’d rather just move it to the side and have a nice place to add art / rest my hand :)

As for the use cases of this macropad, I plan on using it for three main things: a: shortcuts on my computer (obvi), b: CONTROLLING MY KINDLE! You can set up an HTTP server on your kindle if its jailbroken, using koreader. I plan on connecting the MacPad to a Rasberry Pi, which will sort of be the control hub, and that PI will send the signals to my kindle.

Finished the first step.

After learning the basics of KiCad and watching some tutorials, I finally completed the PCB schematic.
I managed to fit all my components in – an LCD, 9 switches and a rotary encoder WITH the switch – into the 11 GPIO pins the Xiao board offers.

Excited to complete this build!

First Entry - The Tutorial

My goal is to make a sleek, and minimal keypad that captures the design of apple products while still maintaining the customizability of custom keyboards.

Today, I focused on setting up KiCad (which was way harder than I anticipated) and completing the tutorial. I now have a pretty decent understanding of how to wire everything together.