Crystalboard
Created by
@aryatajne28
Journal for CrystalBoard
Date 26/07/25 - Total Time Spent: 0.5 hours
- Idea: Make a custom mechanical keyboard with case made up of clear acrylic sheets stacked on top of each other, thus the name crystal board!
- Work done - Finalised the layout, took it from keyboard-layout-editor.com and drawn all the rows and columns on that layout!
- Setup Kicad with all the libraries and footprints.
- Time Spent - 30 mins
Date 27/07/25 - Total Time Spent: 4.5 hours
- I made the complete schematic made the PCB layout but then I noticed that there is no space for Pi Pico. So I deleted the top right 3 keys, thus I had to do changes in the Kicad Schematic and PCB. Thus took some time but I am done with PCB routing. Now I am thinking to add some neopixels and some silkscreen to the PCB.
- The updated keyboard layout looks like this now:
- Kicad Schematic and PCB:
- Things to do next - Put some Neopixels, Stabilizers, Plate, Silkscreen
- Time Spent today till now - 3 hours
Date 27/07/25 (Update 2)
- Done with the Neopixels, I did not add per key LED but a bar on top and on WASD keys (not for gaming obviously :O)
- Time Spent - 1.5 hours
- Done with the Neopixels, I did not add per key LED but a bar on top and on WASD keys (not for gaming obviously :O)
Date 28/07/25 - Total Time Spent: 1.5 hours
- Done with Silkscreen and Stablizers.
- It was pain to convert the images into B&W vectors.
- PCB Looks like this now:
- Time spent - 1.5 hours
Date 31/07/25 - Total Time Spent: 5 hours
- Speedrunning the Case and Code File!
- Case I have designed as layers since I will be laser cutting the acrylic sheets.
- For illustration purposes I have just reduced the opacity of the components in Autocad to make it look like Acrylic, but in real life it will look really good!
- Time spent - 3 hours
- Finalized the repo and collected resources for all the BOM.
- Time Spent - 2 hours
Date 03/08/25 - Total Time Spent: 2 hours
- According to the changes suggested by @Kai Pereira(Slack) I have now added per key RGB Neopixel!
- So I deleted all the tracks because it was a lot of hassle to shift everything and again route.
- Added 83x Neopixels and 83x 0805 Capacitors in the schematic and now searching for good site to order from, because ordering to India is a hassle
- New Schematic and PCB photo:
- Todo: Code change and Update BOM
- Time Spent - 2 hours
Date 06/08/25 - Total Time Spent: 0.5 hours
- I have added the updated items in my BOM and updated the code a bit.
- Refinded the README.md file.
- Another Update, I uploaded the new Kicad Project files and the production .zip folder for the same.
- Time Spent - 0.5 hours