Updates

QMK/Firmware

It’s pretty much done (other than Raw HID)!! It compiles and passes all QMK Lint checks (which verifies compliance with licenses & QMK standards)

LVGL

Quick story time: Once upon a time I discovered LVGL through the QMK docs. QMK sent me to V8.2 of the LVGL docs. I said nu-uh and started using the newest version of LVGL. Fun twist: QMK uses V8.2 of LVGL :). Conclusion: I spent at least 4ish hours converting the code because some of the features I was using aren’t in LVGL V8.2 TT.

Integration

The actual integration was relatively easy, I basically just update certain variables regularly in QMK

Compiling

The only majorly annoying issue I dealt with while compiling was that LVGL re-defines PRINTF_SUPPORT_LONG_LONG after QMK without checking if it is already defined, so I had to play around with un-defining it in the right spot to fix the warning. There were of course also a plethora of other issues that I ironed out (such as compiling the custom font and images properly) :) !

Next Up!

• Raw HID

Updates

LVGL GUI

The GUI is pretty much all done! The changes are:

• the home screen now has two animated orcas spinning in circles! (I really really love this feature!)
  An RGB screen with:
• an rgb mode indicator/an rgb color indicator
• 3 live information labels with saturation, value (brightness), and hue/animation speed
• resized & repositioned layer & volume indicators from the home screen

The rgb screen will switch between showing the current mode & animation speed, and color & hue. This allows me to use the space more effectively to show useful information.
It took me a little bit of time to get the animation source images compiled properly, and I used Inkscape to make sure the original image downscaled and rotated while staying recognizable (and made a few adjustments in paint).

Next

QMK integration! I also want to properly set up my coding workspace to have autocomplete and all that for QMK.

Updates

LVGL Simulator

It took me at least 2 days to get the lvgl simulator working TT. I settled on Visual Studio (also tried Codeblocks and VSCode) because it worked for demos, but it took me forever to get my own code running.
TLDR I turned of a setting and it broke it… I just needed to add:
lv_delay_ms(lv_timer_handler()); lv_refr_now(NULL);
It worked immediately :) Lets just say it was a very bittersweet moment

GUI Progress

I have the home screen pretty much done, and I’m starting to feel very comfortable coding in LVGL!
So far I have:

• infinite scroll list to show active layer (still need to apply style for the active one)
  -Has circular scrolling, which took quite some trial and error. I was doing a very roundabout way with manual calculations to get nice animated snapping. But I learned about flags and now the active layer’s button is flagged, which made everything much easier!
• volume slider (still deciding on it as I would need to mess with Raw HID for it)

FYI: The buttons in the GIF are just to test out & showcase how I plan to integrate the layer indicator in QMK

Next

• create RGB info screen
• actually integrate into QMK

I have quite a few QMK firmware developments!

First off, I am quite amateur at programming, and I’ve never touched C before. So, there have been a lot of new things to learn, which is really good because I’ve been meaning to get more familiar with programming and different languages. Also, I finally decided that I was going to create the Orcapad to streamline my Onshape workflow by populating it with shortcuts.

Ok, so currently I have:

• 4 keyboard layers (three for shortcuts, one for the lEDs)
• RGB light layers so that I can easily change the LED bar to indicate what layer is on
• 2 custom keycodes (one to cycle through layers, one to cycle through static RBG colors)
• An encoder map to simplify customizing it

Hopefully all that is set and I don’t have to fix anything :) :) :) :)

To be added
I still need to add support for the OLED screen, and on that note, I decided to dive into LVGL so I could create a more sophisticated user experience (over standard quantum painter and the basic functionality), and (again) to really help me get more familiar with C.

Finishing thoughts :)
So far my experience has surprisingly not been too painful, just very time consuming, but for all I know none of what I’ve written so far works TT. Very excited about how its turning out so far though!

Since my last devlog, I realized that I connected part of the keyboard matrix to the 3.3v output pin, so I had to update the PCB once again (and remove one of the keys since I didn’t have enough pins…again). The PCB is finally completely finished!! I also have a good chunk of the CAD for the case done :).

For the case I have 3 printed layers, the bottom that holds the PCB, a middle diffusion layer for the LEDs (just a very thin layer of white PLA that I hope will look nice), and the top layer to make sure everything can be assembled easily.

Up next: add finishing touches to the case, add mounting hardware/interface, introduce myself to QMK for the firmware.

I finished a very rough version of the housing for the planer to sit in & TRIED to print it… instead the filament roll got stuck and it stopped extruding :( Fortunately, it printed just enough for me to check out some of how my measurements played out & moved on to create V2! (calipers for the win, but I really wish I had a 3D scanner for this T-T [I also tried using a picture of the planer, but I just could not get a good head-on picture :( ]) For V2 I cut down the top a lot because I only need the feeding chute coming out. I also added some more support on the bottom for the planer, and added a bottom; changed the feeding chute to have a slope at the bottom to hopefully help feed prints into the blade; and realized the print orientation should be rotated so that the back lays flat on the print bed as this removes almost all supports (with some design tweaks). Oh, I also learned the very basics I needed to get some renders of the prints using Blender which was cool!

Next up:

• Test the shredding (what do the shredded pieces look like, do concurrent passes make them smaller, at what point does it stop, how loud is it, how fast is it, etc…)
• Look into next steps to modify this idea to shred larger parts

Long overdue devlog, but tldr: I finished the schematic for the PCB and just about finished the layout and tracing of the board! I essentially worked on the PCB over two days, so the first day I was getting oriented with general PCB design (this is my first PCB), KiCad, keyboard matrixes, etc… For some reason it took me some time to get used to footprints/symbols/and libraries and how to assign them properly, but I got around to it! I also realized I had to get rid of one of my planned rotary encoders because I didn’t have enough pins for it. Then on the second day, I organized the PCB and completed the tracing. Halfway through I decided to add LEDs to the top of every key switch for aesthetics, and to add some more complexity for me. Overall I enjoyed designing it a lot more than I expected to, which was a pleasant surprise. Next up: touch up the PCB (ground fill, rounded corners, silkscreen decor…), and start on the CAD for the case.