Protoboard

Version 1 | Version 2 | Version 3

I wanted to be able to try out some different layouts to see what I liked and didn't like. So I came up with this idea for a prototyping board. Something where I can setup a layout, try it out, and make adjustments or change it completely if I don't like it. I like the idea of 75% layouts and thought ortholinear sounded interesting as well. So I came up with this layout as my first thing to try. I think this layout would be doable on an Atomic keyboard. But those don't appear to exist anymore at the moment. I created some individual "backplate" pieces that give me the spacing I need between most of the keys. But I ran out. You can see on the bottom row where some have them and some don't. None of the top row does which is why the spacing between the number keys is a bit off.

Here's the big mess of wires coming from the keys and going into the bread board. Each switch has two wires for the two leads and nothing else. All diodes are placed on the breadboard. The rows are color coded while the columns are just white. All this going into a Teensy 2.

A closeup of the wires where you can see the rows and diodes.

Here's the underside where you can see the wires routed. The tension of the wires is most of what holds the switches in place right now.

This is a close up of the individual backplates. The teeth let you offset the keys by quarters. So if I wanted to, I could line them up in a normal offset layout. Here you can see them lining up with the Matias Quiet Click switches I'm using. I have an old Acer alps clone keyboard that I harvested the keycaps from. The board here was an older version I was testing with. The nice thing about the alps style switches is that they are exactly 1/4" between the rows. So I was able to use 1/4" square wood dowels to make my rows. I wanted to be able to use MX switches as well but those wouldn't fit with my current design. I'm working on that for my new design. The 2U plates don't work well and need to be redesigned.

And here's where I was first putting together my current "case". I used the switches here to make sure the spacing was correct. You can also see the start of my bread board layout with the diodes going to the rows. The jumpers going vertical are the columns.

This is the layout I'm using along with the function layer. I used Easy AVR USB Keyboard Firmware modifying the Handwired file to match my layout.

ProtoboardBackplate1U.dxf
This is the 1U backplate piece that I designed which you can download in DXF format if you are interested. The sides are pretty thin from the alps mounting. A couple of them were broken from delivery and a couple more broke while I was putting things together. Any new version will be adjusted to be a little thicker.

Pulled all the keycaps off to install my new ones. Thought I'd get a shot with them off where you can see the whole thing with all the backplate pieces. Also you can see the two different sets of Matias Quiet Click switches with the white and grey stems. You can also see where I'm missing backplates as I ran out.

Got some new DSA alps mount caps from Phil Hagelberg and the Atreus keyboard kit. He was nice enough to sell me just the key caps without the rest of the kit. Two sets gave me enough 1U keys and I used the 1.5U keys for my enter and space bars. And at $25 per kit is a much better price than PMK and these are actually available. It's much nicer to type on now. Although some keys I don't use often can be hard to hit since I have no legends.

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