Illustrated Kristina with an IBM Model M keyboard floating between her hands.

Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Death Metal Macro Pad

September 14, 2023 by Kristina Panos 7 Comments

At “the size of three 60% keyboards (put together)” or approximately one Cannibal Corpse record on vinyl, this beautifully-executed death metal font-inspired macro pad by [zyumbik] may be better off hanging on the wall than hanging out on the desktop.

But let’s say you did have room for the 9-key Deathpad on your desktop. Wouldn’t you just play with the tentacles (?) all the time like I would? Yeah, that’s what I thought. They’re pretty inviting.

So why does this look so fantastic? It’s an SLA print, for one thing. For another, [zyumbik] spent over 1,000 hours designing the thing. Unfortunately it’s not open-source, but you can buy the only other one in existence for a cool $1,000.

Rubik’s Cube Keyboard

Although it doesn’t rotate (yet), creator [_Rudeism] is calling this the Rubik’s Cube Keyboard. Fine with me, though any type of actual rotation would be insanely difficult to pull off. The plan is to do it with RGB LEDs.

The layout is QWERTY-adjacent — the white side is the num pad, yellow has the modifiers, and the other four sides house all the letters. As you might imagine, this uses a custom frame and PCBs. The switches are Glorious Gateron Clears, which definitely supports the blinkenlights planned for V2.

This thing reminds me a bit of of the SafeType™ vertical keyboard, or even [Aaron Rasmussen]’s spherical keyboard. Be sure to check it out in Monkeytype action, where [_Rudeism] manages to pull off about 20WPM. Continue reading “Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Death Metal Macro Pad” →

Open Deck Is Your Window To Shortcuts

September 10, 2023 by Kristina Panos 11 Comments

Once in a while, we see projects that could easily pass for commercial products. This is one of those projects: a (surprisingly) low-cost DIY macro pad from [Josh R] that was designed to be a cheaper alternative to the various stream decks out there. Between the carbon fiber top plate and the crystal-clear acrylic keycaps, this is quite the elegant solution.

This lovely little macro pad is built around the ESP8266, specifically the WEMOS D1 Mini V4. However, the most vital part to get right is the screen, which must be a 128 x 160 TFT display in order to line up with the 3D printed frame that divides it into fourths. Custom parts like the acrylic keycaps and the carbon fiber top plate are available on Tindie if you don’t have access to a CNC.

Operationally, Open Deck has a nice-looking GUI. Once programmed, each shortcut is capable of having three beneath it, with the fourth button reserved for Home. Be sure to check out the extremely satisfying build video after the break.

Want a stream deck, but don’t want to build it? Just dig up an old phone or tablet.

Continue reading “Open Deck Is Your Window To Shortcuts” →

Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Mouse-cropad

June 19, 2023 by Kristina Panos 12 Comments

Okay, so you built a macropad or even a keyboard. What now? Well, most people use some kind of mouse to go along with it, but no one uses a mouse like this creation by [Joe_Scotto].

This is the mouse no one asked for, and yet I think it’s pretty awesome for something that’s supposed to be a joke. Maybe it’s in the great execution, I don’t know. I will ignore the suggestion that MX Browns are part of the joke, however. *cries in OG tactility*

Essentially, this is a macropad that uses QMK mouse keys to emulate a mouse. The build itself couldn’t be more straightforward — it’s six MX browns wired up to six pins on a Pico, and they all share a common ground. Keep the joke going by commissioning one from [Joe] or building it yourself.

Via [r/cyberdeck]

News: Microsoft Discontinues Natural Keyboard

It’s often people’s first ergonomic keyboard — some variation of Microsoft’s Natural keyboard, that 90s split that took up so much real estate on the desk with it’s built-in wrist rest.

I’ll admit that despite using one for years at the office, I went back to whatever clicky rectangles I could get from the IT department. Then came the pain, and I got a Logitech Wave. Then came the surgery, and the Kinesis Advantage.

Well, now it seems that after 30 years and several ergonomic models, Microsoft are exiting the keyboard game. While I don’t personally understand why when there are so many fans, [Jeff Atwood] believes it’s because keyboards are exploding in popularity and tons of people are building their own. While that may be true, there are legions of normies trying to stave off carpal and cubital tunnel syndrome and have absolutely no interest in building anything, much less a keyboard. So, get these things while they’re hot, I guess.

Continue reading “Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The Mouse-cropad” →

Compose Any Song With Twelve Buttons

March 29, 2023 by Bryan Cockfield 14 Comments

Limitations placed on any creative process often paradoxically create an environment in which creativity flourishes. A simple overview of modern pop, rock, or country music illustrates this principle quite readily. A bulk of these songs are built around a very small subset of music theory, often varying no more than the key or the lyrics. Somehow, almost all modern popular music exists within this tiny realm. [DeckerEgo] may have had this idea in mind when he created this tiny MIDI device which allows the creation of complex musical scores using a keyboard with only 12 buttons.

The instrument is based around the Adafruit MacroPad, which is itself built on the RP2040 chip. As a MIDI device, it needs to be connected to a computer running software which can support MIDI instruments, but once its assembled and given its firmware, it’s ready to rock. A musician can select one of any number of musical scales to operate within, and the 12 keys on the pad are mapped to the 12 chromatic notes within that scale. It can also be used to generate drum tracks or other backing tracks to loop before being used to create melodies as well.

[DeckerEgo] took a bit of inspiration from an even simpler macro pad we featured before which is based around the idea that a shockingly high number of songs use the same four chords. His macro pad includes creation of chord progressions as well, but expands on that idea to make more complete compositions possible. And, for those looking to build their own or expand on this project, he has also made all of the source code available on his GitHub page.

Continue reading “Compose Any Song With Twelve Buttons” →

Gorgeous Sunflower Macropad Will Grow On You

January 7, 2023 by Kristina Panos 3 Comments

Once [Hide-key] saw the likes of the banana and corn macro pads, they knew they had to throw their hat in this strange and wonderful ring. Some family members suggested a sunflower, and off they went looking for inspiring images, finally settling on a more iconic and less realistic design which we think is quite beautiful.

This lovely little macro pad has seven keys hiding under those petals, with the eighth major petal concealing a XIAO RP2040 microcontroller. The rest of the major petals actuate a low-profile Kailh choc in — what else? — brown. Don’t worry, the middle isn’t a wasteland — there’s a low-profile rotary encoder underneath. Part of the reason this flower looks so great is that [Hide-key] started with SLA prints, but the paint choices are aces as well. If you’d like to grow your own sunflower, everything about this garden is open-source.

Oh yes, we totally covered the banana and the banana split, though we must have missed out on the corn. We hear that when you try it with butter, everything changes.

Via KBD #109

The macropad PCB panel next to an assembled macropad

A Fun Low-Cost Start For Your Macropad Hobby

December 30, 2022 by Arya Voronova 7 Comments

If you were ever looking for a small relaxing evening project that you could then use day-to-day, you gotta consider the Pico Hat Pad kit by [Natalie the Nerd]. It fits squarely within the Pi Pico form-factor, giving you two buttons, one rotary encoder and two individually addressable LEDs to play with. Initially, this macropad was intended as an under-$20 device that’s also a soldering practice kit, and [Natalie] has knocked it out of the park.

You build this macropad out of a stack of three PCBs — the middle one connecting the Pi Pico heart to the buttons, encoders and LEDs, and the remaining ones adding structural support and protection. All the PCBs fit together into a neat tab-connected panel — ready to be thrown into your favorite PCB service’s shopping cart. Under the hood, this macropad uses KMK, a CircuitPython-based keyboard firmware, with the configuration open-source. In fact everything is open-source, just the way we like it.

If you find yourself with an unexpected affinity for macropads after assembling this one, don’t panic. It’s quite a common side-effect. Fortunately, there are cures, and it’s no longer inevitable that you’ll go bananas about it. That said, if you’re fighting the urges to go bigger, you can try a different hand-wireable Pico-based macropad with three more keys. Come to find that one not enough? Here’s a 2×4 3D printable one.

Now, if you eventually find yourself reading every single Keebin’ With Kristina episode as soon as it comes out, you might be too far gone, and we’ll soon find you spending hundreds of dollars building tiny OLED screens into individual keys — in which case, make sure you document it and share it with us!

Continue reading “A Fun Low-Cost Start For Your Macropad Hobby” →

Banana Split Macropad Is Dessert For Your Desk

September 18, 2022 by Kristina Panos 10 Comments

Once again, [Dan Bostian] is ahead of the curve when it comes to bringing bunches of banana puns to the table, but we think you’ll find this banana split macropad quite appealing nonetheless. Does this tasty thing look familiar? It ought to — we discovered, plucked, and uncovered the one-piece version last summer, and this time, [Dan] simply made our two-piece, wireless dreams come true.

Peel back the — oh, forget it. Inside, you’ll find a nice!nano running the show from the right-hand board using ZMK firmware, and a banana-shaped chalk outline on the left-hand silkscreen that represents how completely [Dan] killed it with this build. You can use any switches you want, as long as they’re Cherry MX-compatible in the ~~shoe~~ footprint department.

The PCBs are open source, of course, and so are the printed parts — it’s all there in the repo. As for the stickers, well, you’ll have to produce those yourself.

via Adafruit