Highway Keyboard
June 8th, began designing PCB
(Quick note, I lost all my progress about halfway through, and rebuilt it, so all of these first entries are sparser, pls read to the end for the real journal!)
Created chip, clock, and wiring, will do sd card reader and USB-c tomorrow.
Total time spent: 2.5 Hours
June 9th, WHY WONT SWITCHES APPEAR
Added USB-C, But for some reason the SWITCHES WONT APPEAR. (I found out after this that the switches that show up in the kicad plugin manager are PCB only, your just supposed to use a generic switch symbol...)
Total time spent: 3.5 Hours
June 22nd, Finally fixed the great switch dilemma
I got switches working finally, and got them mapped to the blueprint:
Total time spent: 5 Hours
June 23rd, Added some cool stuff
Playing around with using through holes and hand soldering to give me more flexibility with an OLED Screen and Rotary encoder, will update if there's progress.
I also added a MCP 23017 to give me additional GPIO for fun stuff like the screen and encoder.
Total time spent: 7 Hours
July 21st, Redid a ton of stuff
I reinstalled windows on my computer and lost literally all of my data, including my backups, and the github version was corrupted for some reason, so I decided to rebuild the board from scratch, using a few new tricks I learned from my business card PCB I did as a distraction.
It's a bit (super duper) cursed, but I got most of the wiring done:
FINALLY GOT IT TOGETHER, I'M GONNA LOSE MY MIND
I also added a few more holes for screws, for added stability, these'll be added using heat threaded inserts, as I have a few spare I accidentally stole from my school.
I then did the case, this took a while (3 hours) because I had to manually cut out the holes for each switch, and fiddle with the tolerances on it so it would fit better later on.
I FINISHED THE CASE! (The holes for the switches are there I had to suppress them because of lag :sob:)
Total time spent: 19 hours
August 2nd, the resubmission
I got told I needed to add more detail to the case, so I decided to redesign it to include a chamfered edge around the individual keyholes, and optimizing the geometry of the case to be more 3d printer friendly. I also made the top out of a clear plastic, and I plan on using a SLA printer with clear resin to make it transparent, showing off the PCB and the art I'm adding to the silkscreen. The bottom will be made of orange ABS filament, sanded down. I also fixed the stabilizers so they actually will work physically.
The main board showcase
The rubber feet I put on the bottom:
I also added a cable holder at the back to nestle it into (hard to see here but it'll be printed in SLA and mounted seperately)
Thanks for reading!