Rather, keyboards appeal to me as a playground of design constraints and technical challenges:Įlectrically, keyboards can be wired (drawing power and communicating over USB) or wireless, the latter raising issues of power (selecting batteries, charging and load-sharing circuitry, etc.) and communication (to host devices and between halves of a split keyboard). I first learned of the custom keyboard scene when I convinced a friend to sell his keyboards for $1,668, but personally never developed any burning desire to acquire (or bring into existence) a keyboard the way my friend and his fans did.
Most of my typing is on an 11" Macbook Air from 2013, though my fingers sometimes grace client-provided hardware like Dell laptops, IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads, and newer Macs with those butterfly keyboards that Twitter/HN people got real mad about. I’ll start with a little secret: I don’t care much about keyboards. If you have ideas, questions, or think I can help with your creative explorations, feel free to send me an email. you’ll discover at least one weird trick that you can apply to your own projects.it gives you a flavor of the overall experience and demystifies the work between “idea” and “functioning prototype”.Rather, it’s a rough diary and reflection on the process. This page isn’t a tutorial or comprehensive reference on any particular technical topic (though I’ll link to my favorites below). I’ve designed a dozen PCBs, written bare-metal microcontroller firmware in three languages, and commissioned or fabricated myself a ton of parts from aluminum, acrylic, Corian, resin, and fabric:
I’ve spent the last year exploring this frontier by building wireless mechanical keyboards. The electronics design and fabrication technologies available to motivated individuals today is incredible.Ĭompared to even just 6 years ago when I made a cell phone, we amateurs now have access to powerful CAD/CAM, low-cost/qty PCB assembly, sorta-usable free EDA software, powerful new embedded languages, and a huge corpus of tacit knowledge on YouTube. Notes from a year of building keyboards ← Back to Kevin's homepage Published: 2021 March 7
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