Ethan's-Full-Keyboard
I am making a full mechanical Keyboard
Project IDEA
I want to make my very first full sized key keyboard by my self. The core reason for doing this project is to: learn more about pcb making and second is to understand the highway process works.
Total Time spent: 33h
DAY 1: June 4th, 2025
Finished the schematic and started the pcb!
Time spent: 6h
These hours were filled with me remembering how to use kicad. My big mistake when I went straight into making the schematic without planning out what I wanted. In the end I had to scratch it all and start again. Before I went back to kicad I went into Keyboard Layout Editor to plan my out what I wanted the keyboard to be. This includes the layout and what rows and columns for each key. This made it easier to make the keyboard matrix in the schematic for kicad. I finished the schematic around 4pm. A little later I joined a hackclub call. During the call I started my pcb design. I only got about a third of the way done with the design before I had to stop and leave the call because I left for FRC robotics. Shoutout Plasma Robotics!!
Keyboard Design and Rows/Columns
Keyboard Schematic
Keyboard PCB Design(Unfinished)
DAY 2: June 5th, 2025
FINISHING MY PCB DESIGN
Time spent: 9h
I started with placing the keys dowm to make it look a keyboard. I was having problems placing the keys in the right spot. I later learned that there are different grids i can use, which made it a lot easier. After I had the keys laid out I then mooved on to placing the diodes. They ended up being harder than expected to place where they would nopt intrerfeare with anything else in the pcb. Once I finally placing the diodes, I got to work wiring. This was the longest part by far. The main reason behind it taking so long is because I was using surface-mount hardware. This means i could only connect to them on one side then causing there to be a lot of vias. At last I finished the wiring, it was just touch up in the end. One thing that was a little annoying was I forgot to add stablizers. So i had to re-route a few things, but it wasn't to bad. In the end it was a fun process that took a while but rewarding in the end.
PCB DESIGN
FRONT 3D VIEW
BACK 3D VIEW
DAY 3: June 8th, 2025
Started CAD for my case!!
Time spent: 8h
This day was all about cad. I spent basically the first hour - 2hours planning out what I wanted the keyboard to look like. It was quite a fun process of first creating the basic sketch then slowly adding the that sketch. Sadly you can't see this in the picture becuase I had drawn on one design instead of splitting it up. One big mistake i made was thinking it would be simple to make this case, but by the end of the day I am only half way to the end of this case design. The steps I took to make this case goes as follows. First, I imported my 3d pcb to use as a referance. Second, I desided on the mounting type for the case. I was mainly deciding between a Top Mount Design or a Gasket Mount Design. In the end I chose a Gasket Mount because I thought it could sound better even if it makes the design a little harder. Third, I went through the long and hard process of making the plate. What made it so hard was how I added extra padding on the sides of the pcb with a different size on every side. So I couldn't use those automated plate makers. I ended up making my own plate, which took almost an hour by itself. Lastly for the day was making a rough to part of the case. This didn't end up being to bad to make because of my preemptive planning. Today was I fun test on what knowledge of Fusion 360. I learned a lot in this session about my patience.
Keyboard Desgin Prototyping
Mounting Types
Keyboard Plate
Top Part Of the Case(not event close to done just and outline)
Day 4 Jun 11, 2025
READY TO SUBMIT MY DESIGN!!
Time Spent: 10h
Today was probably my most productive day that I have had after starting this project. Today started out with me cading the bottom part of the case. As I was finishing the cad for the case I relized the usb-c port was covered up, but if I were to cut a hole for the usb it would look really bad. So I made the desision to make the usb-c port on a separate daughter board instead of directally on the pcb. So I spent an hour designing another pcb. After I finished that I added it to my cad file. Once I did that I cut out a hole for the port. Then I added some threads and mounting holes so the parts of the case so thaey can be put together. Lastly, I spent an 4-5 hours improving my design and make it easier to manufacture. This means no fillets so which may make it a little bad in the cad model, but when I put it together I can just sand down the corners.