Ergonomic Gaming Keyboard

Finished Firmware!

After following all the steps on the QMK website, I ran into errors when compiling. It took a lot of troubleshooting, and it was mainly all caused by my irregular keypad (it’s not a 4 x 4 keypad but had 16 keys)

I’m very happy once it finally compiled. Hopefully, I wrote the firmware in the correct order, but I can only test that out once I get all the parts and build it.

Last step is compiling everything into a github repo!

Finally finished case!

A part of this time I spent rerouting parts of the PCB board since I realised the USB port needs to point outward. I also discovered you can precisely move each switch location on KiCAD, so I adjusted that alongside the border to be perfect.

For the casing, originally I just wanted 2 pieces. However, I really wanted the screws to be invisible from the top, meaning I needed to screw from the bottom of the case. In order to ensure the 3D printer can print the case, I cut the case into 3 pieces where each piece can be oriented so tht there are more material on the bottom layer compared to the top (No hanging pieces that need scaffolding)

I’m really liking how this turned out, I haven’t decided on the colors of the casing yet, but that also depends on what filaments the 3D printer has, so that’s a decision for future me.

(I made the top layer of casing transparent so that you can see the PCB board)

I finished the schematics and PCB Board layout!

I ended up slightly tweaking my plan for the layout. On the top left corner, I am adding the ESC button, so I will only have one key for space.

The matrix wiring for the schematic wasn’t too difficult, but the main issue for me was the PCB copper routing. It was easy to connect between the keys, but when connecting the rows and the columns to the microcontroller, I ran into trouble making it work with only 2 layers. I went back to the schematic multiple times to switch connections so that the copper routing wouldn’t intersect.

The final PCB board looks so cool! Designing the case will be fun as I have a good deal of CAD experience.

Preliminary Plan for Layout

Hi I’m Joyce, and I’m following the Hackpad tutorial to make a little gaming keyboard that can be used for most computer games.

Since I also want to make it ergonomic, the layout below also curves like how fingers usually relaxed when in a curled, comfortable position. I’m not 100% sure about where the space bar should be and whether I should have a “V” key, but we will see.

As my first ever hardware project, I’ve been figuring out KiCAD. So far, I have the schematics down, so now I need to figure out the routing for the PCB board.