MODE keyboard

An hand-wired RGB mechanical keyboard.

Imgur album

Hardware

• The case design can be found in the folder case. It is composed of layers of 3mm acrylic sheets. This is typically how homemade keyboard cases are made and I tried to follow the recipe as closely as possible, using tools from the community.
• The LibreOffice Draw file case.odg is a conceptual view of the case and is easier to read.
• The electronic circuitry can be found in mk.fzz, which is a Fritzing file.

Parts

• Switches & LEDs: Purple Zealio + mountable RGB LEDs from ZealPC
• Case: custom made with 3mm acrylic sheets, M2 screws and M2 spacers
• Micro-controller: Teensy 3.2
• LED drivers: TLC5940
• Connectors LED drivers <-> LEDs: 30AWG wires and machine screws pin headers
• Connectors Teensy 3.2 <-> LED drivers <-> LED drivers: 24AWG wires
• Others: cheapest double-sided perfboards (the green boards) from eBay, 100pF capacitors (as stated in the TLC5940 datasheets) and a 2SD734 transistor.

The firmware

• The code is developped for the Teensy 3.2 using the Teensyduino software addon for Arduino. It can be found in the folder code.
• In the folder code, type ./make.sh to compile and send the firmware to the Teensy.

What's next?

In an ideal V2, I want:

• [hardware] PCB with surface-mounted components.
• [hardware] Wireless over Bluetooth.
• [hardware] Additional USB port to plug my mouse.
• [hardware] Add underglow, maybe a backlit logo.
• [hardware] Another kind of switches, maybe Matias Quiet Click switches.
• [firmware] Programmable layout over wireless.
• [firmware] Animation system for lightning effects.
• [firmware] I want my window manager in Linux (i3) to send context information to the keyboard so I can load contextual layouts.