Hello GUYSS, this is my new project called the FlexPad, I am VERY new to CAD and PCB design. I learned a bit of fusion 360 here and there but never a dedicated 3d modelling project as of now. I have a unique-ish idea on the way I want to design the hack-pad, tho it may be VERY difficult for a beginner lol. The idea is: there will be a standard 3 switch single line array, now conjoined to
that will be, at a slight angle, another part whose main focus will be a dial, I plan to use the rotary encoder for the dial, but its not a normal dial, it will have 4 switches at the four cardinal direction as well as the center switch (which is in the rotary encoder itself), This dial will act as a joystick with the 4 buttons to help me navigate CAD software and etc, I have a few uses in mind. I plan to
make either the dial or any major section transparent for showing off my custom PCB. Now this is the bit of a stretch part, but if possible, I want to center the OLED screen on the rotary dial, if not I’ll put it between the 3 switch array (as I have done rn temporarily) and the dial. ALSO, I plan to put a single or 2 RGB LED pointing in the downward direction at both the dial and the keys so it makes an under-glow effect not beneath the case but beneath the dial and keys themselves, if you know what I
mean? the 3 switch array will be for CAD shortcuts. I thought I will run out of pins but when I decided to make the schematic, I used a matrix and it looks so gooood!!!!! I mean its just perfect, just perfect (for me). Anyways, I also made a 3d Model to show off the design in my head. BTW, CAN LOOKOUT GO ____ ITSELF??? I recorded like 2 more hours for the CAD (Im a complete beginner I need that much time guys) and lookout crashed, and because of that my entire progress was gone + the fact that there is no proper step by step guide on how to set up a hardware project so I was VERY confused. Anyways, The main idea of the schematic is the PCB is split into two boards using mouse-bite, there will be a Main Board and a Daughter Board, the daughter board will be for the dial and sit at an angle, the Main board will be at the base, these two will be joined through 12 pin headers and jumper cables. I am mainly doing this instead of hand-wiring to a single Board because then it would be a nightmare if I have to separate the two halves. plus, using jumper cables is much easier, I will buy those cables Myself! That’s it for today guys!! I will upload the schematic to GitHub (you cant click to zoom on images on stardance) Next session I’ll probably make the entire PCB in one go, like 4-5 hours I guess, the biggest challenge will be designing the joystick mechanism and the 3d cases, it requires precision and its very difficult for me.