Project Idea/Inspo

I really wanted to make a keyboard to just gain insights on how electronics like keyboards work. After doing the hackpad, I got inspired to make a full keyboard looking at the keyboards other members made. Welp how hard can it be :smile:

Inspo- https://www.montechpc.com/mkey-tkl

Total time spent: 29h

Day 1: June 12th, 2025

Time Spent: 2h

Started the schematic and spent time deciding my keyboard schematic. It will be a TKL keyboard with a rotary encoder. Made a matrix on MS Paint to understand how the basic structure of my PCB and firmware will be. Watched some videos on how keyboards work.

Day 2: June 13th, 2025

Time Spent: 1h+7h

Literally spent the entire day researching, asking people questions in slack (i love everyone is so helpful) and I basically completed the entire schematic and assigned all footprints. Made a basic draft of my BOM and thats about it. I did struggle so much on figuring out how microcontrollers work and which one will I need. I also had a hard time assigning footprints but I pulled through. My goal for tomorrow will definitly be to make the PCB and start the 3D modeling.

Day 3: June 14th, 2025

Time Spent: 1h+8h

Ok so I made the entire PCB, which took the entirety of the 8h of the day. I forgot one crucial thing, which was to add a 0.1uf capacitor after every rgb. Hope my entire project doesn't get rejected for this, I burnt 8 hours into this and forgot something :sob:. Anyways, I am pretty sure I won't be running the craziest animations out there, so I hope it won't be an issue. Here's the 3d view and the PCB.

Day 4: June 15th, 2025

Time Spent: 1h+7h

I have completed the schematic, I realized I didn't have a USB C for my RP2040 stamp so I added that in the PCB. Researched more about resistors, microcontrollers and had trouble doing the firmware. The Firmware took around 2 hours, quite less than I expected. Thanks to cyao's hackpad tutorial the 3D modeling was a breeze, even though I am not that experienced with onshape. Onshape was a breeze but still felt really long.

Day 5: June 16th, 2025 (from midnight)

Time Spent: 2h

It's currently 2am or so But I have made an entire BOM, Got all my CAD Files here, double checked my firmware & I don't think I can't do much if I messed up my PCB :sob:. Fingers are crossed if I didn't mess up anything. I really wanna start my 3rd project soon which will take so long to research. I am aware that I don't have capacitators for my rgb light setup, but it won't be an issue. My brightness wouldn't be set to too high. Idk if I should have any pictures here because all I did was the BOM and doomscrolled a bit in between. (only worked on it 12am-2am). no journal picture :sob:

Day 6: June 17th, 2025

Time Spent: 5h

Since it's still getting reviewed, I decided to completely redesign my rgb part of the pcb, recommeneded by @Kai Pereira. He said to add capacitators after each rgb. I decided to do that which took the majority of the day and alot of frustration. I also had a really bad time rewiring everything, but I completed this and slept peacefully. ofc this took 10 hours (extended till tmrw). Journal pic got lost :(

Day 7: June 18th, 2025

Time spent: 2h+2h+1h

Still didn't get reviewed, I decided to also polish the CAD in the hope of 1 extra point. Working on it, might take a bit of my sanity but atleast my onshape is better than KiCAD. Forgot to mention this before but I switched my RP2040 stamp to a RP2035 stamp because RP2040 stamps aren't available in the market.

Ok I went crazy on polishing the CAD and I decided to add some art! My 2 favourite albums, well not really I have one more, Alone At Prom but I couldn't generate a good enough silkscreen art for it :( .

Day 8: June 19th, 2025

Time spent: 2h+4h

2am right now, yeah I was just polishing CAD. Decided to add some keyswitches, but they are the wrong ones. But frick it, we ball! (CAD doesn't matter anyways since it wont be 3D printed ;)

BRUHHH I forgot to add stabilizers. JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I WAS DONE WITH THE PCB. took like 2 seconds but the frustration was insane. I don't feel like updating my step file for the PCB LOL DEAL WITH IT AHAH.

COMPLETED CAD!!!!!!!!! YIPPPPEEEEEEE!!!!! PROJECT IS DONE PLEASE REVIEW!!!!! will put the stl files in a bit after the splits.

Day 9: June 20th, 2025

Time spent: 2h

Decided to redo the LEDs cause I messed up. Thanks Kai for pointing that out again ;). Also put stl split files & step files because alexren forced me to. I am officially 100% done with non hardware work for this project!