Owning a mechanical keyboard makes you a better person. It puts you above everyone else. Of course, owning a mechanical keyboard does come with some downsides. Carrying a mechanical keyboard around all the time to tell everyone else you’re better than them is usually impractical, but [cahbtexhuk Joric] has come up with a solution. It’s a miniature Bluetooth mechanical keyboard that’s also a keychain.
Mechanical keyboard keychains are nothing new – they’re really just a piece of injection molded plastic meant to fit a single Cherry MX keyswitch. Usually, though, these are just trinkets — think of them as a fidget spinner for someone who types. The real trick here is putting electronics and a battery in this piece of plastic to turn it into a working keyboard.
The solution to this problem comes in the form of a TI CC2540 module [cahbtexhuk Joric] found on AliExpress. This is a complete low-power microcontroller with Bluetooth in a tiny, tiny package. Add a small coin cell and you have the tiniest Internet of Things thing you can build for less than five dollars.
[cahbtexhuk Joric] programmed this tiny Bluetooth module with the relevant TI tools, an Arduino, and a neat programming clip. After that, it was just a matter of soldering the keyswitch to the module and wiring up a battery. The result is the cutest mechanical keyboard ever. Right now, [cahbtexhuk] has this keyboard programmed to map to his Windows key. That makes for a great demonstration (video below), but this mini keyboard could be programmed to type anything when it’s pressed.
Thanks [cahbtexhuk] for the tip!
So how do you type anything? Binary coding?
I’ve been told that’s what I’m just a figment of :P
You spelled it wrong
You type nothing.
Brian – writing another great Hamvention summary article would make you a better person! ;-)
When do we get this year’s installment?
Well, I’m not there, but you might get *next* year’s installment.
Too much shit is going on this weekend. Between Maker Faire, Hamvention and Moogfest, this is actually a *crappy* weekend. You’re guaranteed to miss out on something.
Sorry to hear. Really enjoyed your Hamvention coverage last year. This year, the flea market was held in a grassy area, and Friday’s storms had all the attendees referring to the flea market as “The Mud Pit”!
Pffft I heard about a guy who put an MPXM2202AS into a butt-plug, and I mean pffft literally.
Maybe have the firmware decode Morse code to ASCII? Letting the host do that would require an app, but increases flexibility.
Now build it with Cherry ML (or compatible) switches. Make sure you use a low profile key cap, like DSA.
Those Cherry ML switches are perfect for miniature arcade cabinets. They are much better than those hard-to-press PCB push buttons that people usually use in their projects.
It’s a neat little gadget but it’s not a keyboard, it’s a momentary switch. Put two together and then I’ll call it a keyboard.
You could just nail it to a plank, you could not deny it then.
Maybe a chording keyboard would be a better fit?
Oh man – GREAT Earings….!!! Push my button – I’m sync’d.
So you can do what…click? Why call it a keyboard?
Because it’s a board with a key.
It would seem that this “open source” project has a few short comings.
Unless you already have the IAR compiler, you will not be able to duplicate this project.
The BLE stack is too large to fit in the limited code version of the compiler.
Sort of a waste.
The CC2540 uses an 8051 MCU
SDCC have you covered: http://sdcc.sourceforge.net/
With the added bonus of supporting STM8 microcontrollers and Gameboys.
@Anton:
Have you used this 8051 compiler yourself ?
Does it compile the BT4 stack mentioned in the article ?
Does it compile any of the code from links i the article ?
Will you spend the effort to get this “open source” project running on SDCC ?
Yeah, last I heard you couldn’t use the TI Bluetooth stack with SDCC because the calling convention it uses wasn’t compatible with the one used by their libraries.
@makomk
Thank You for that information.
Looks like there is a fully working 30-day trial version, though
It’s Bluetooth that negates anything elite.
What would you use? IR, WIFI, wired?
Atomic. Press the button and it will explode.
Had me worried… thought the article applied to making a full keyboad even smaller. The tiny slide out keyboard on my candy bar phone is bad enough to use with my fat thumbs!
Someone should add scripting and turn this into a wireless rubber ducky. And call it the Burton Button.
Peeps, I’m not the author, Joric is the author of this keyboard. I’ve just shared the link.
Would you be so kind to update the post, so it doesn’t look like I stole the glory, please?
I would gleefully code in ENTER. For some bizarre reason, game designers think ENTER is a convenient key when trans-coding from a controller to keyboard/mouse. Or hell…any one of those weird keys that you need to play that CANNOT be remapped because they SAID SO!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGGOn-H7s3Q
Where did you bought that clip in the picture?