Odd Inputs And Peculiar Peripherals: Touch This Macro Pad

June 13, 2022 by Jenny List 5 Comments

The need to provide custom controls for complex software packages has been satisfied in many ways, the most usual of which is to have a configurable keypad. It’s a challenge [Meir Michanie] has taken up in a slightly different way, by creating a custom touch-screen macro pad. Unlike the buttons, this allows entirely custom layouts with different shaped keys in any configuration.

At its heart is a versatile ESP32 touch screen development board of the type that can be found easily among the pages of your favorite online electronics mart. The Arduino IDE has been used to program the device, and configuration is as simple of providing it with a PNG of the desired layout, and a CSV file to define the buttons. The whole then connects via BLE where it’s presented to the host computer as a keyboard. The result is one of the coolest macro pads we’ve ever seen, with a limitless number of options.

With such a neat idea it’s perhaps no surprise among the numbers of macro pads that have made it to these pages there might be another take on the same idea.

Odd Inputs And Peculiar Peripherals: A MacroPad With A Handy Layout Screen

June 11, 2022 by Jenny List No comments

The idea of a macro keypad is a great one, a set of keys programmable with frequent but complex tasks. But once programmed, how can the user keep track of which key does what? To save the world from grubby, hand-written sticky labels, here’s [Andreas Känner] with the Badger 2040 keypad — a macro pad with a display to show keymap info that’s fully programmable using CircuitPython.

At its heart is a Pimoroni Badger 2040 e-ink screen and RP2040 board which sits in a 3D-printed enclosure which in turn magnetically attaches to a 3D-printed keyboard enclosure. Inside is an I/O expander board, which is hand-wired to the switches. The firmware allows for easy configuration and even extension of the keypad itself, and presents itself to the host computer through USB. It’s even possible to have multiple different layouts on the same device.

Full details can be found in a comprehensive write-up on his website, and all the files are in a GitHub repository. If this doesn’t satisfy your need for customisable input goodness, then it’s not the first macro keypad we’ve shown you.

Console Macropad Uses SD Cards For Stylin’ And Profilin’

May 26, 2022 by Kristina Panos 7 Comments

Macropads are great to have around for hotkey input, but things can get out of hand pretty quickly when you realize just how many shortcuts are in your life. To avoid ending up with another keyboard-sized keyboard, some hackers will use a handful of switches and a lot of layers to turn a few keys into many. And instead of worrying about legends, they use blank keys and leave the labels to be displayed on some kind of screen.

Among them is [QCJ3], who built this nifty little console-style macropad. Uninterested in managing microcontroller memory, [QCJ3] went the tangible route and loaded various profiles onto a micro SD card. Each text file on a given card holds a label, a color for the keyswitch LED, and of course, the keystrokes that make up the macro itself.

There are myriad ways to build a macro pad, from designing with bare chips (if you can get them) to programming a pre-built key matrix. Grab the files if you like the console look and call it a day, or build a completely new enclosure that fits your hand exactly. Whatever you build, consider entering it in our brand spankin’ new Odd Inputs and Peculiar Peripherals Contest, which runs now through July 4th. If you need more inspiration, just peep the projects under macropad tag, or peruse the much heftier keyboard tag.

Via KBD

CAT Is Not Your Average Meow-cropad

April 9, 2022 by Kristina Panos 3 Comments

Are you completely over the idea of the keyboard in any flattish form and looking for something completely different for inputting your data? Or do you want a mega macropad for 3D design, GIMP or Inkscape work, or to use while relaxing with a nice first-person shooter? Then this ergonomic, double-fistable keyboard/controller mashup named CAT may be what you’re looking for.

Inside each of these slinky felines is pretty much what you’d expect to find — 25 or so switches and an Arduino Pro Micro. Interestingly enough, the switches are all lever-action and not push buttons. There are two breeds of CAT available to build or buy: one has 25 buttons, and the other has a joystick or trackball on the thumb between two upper and two lower buttons. You could have one type for each hand!

More information is available on the Lynx Workshop site, which is where you’ll also find tutorials and instructions for everything from the 3D printing to the electronics to the assembly and coding. There is even a bonus 3D modeling tutorial. Don’t want to invest the time to make your own CAT? These kitties are also available for pre-order. Claw past the break to check them out in action.

Looking for something with regular keyswitches? Oh, we have plenty of those.

Continue reading “CAT Is Not Your Average Meow-cropad” →

Dead Mouse Reincarnated As Macropad

February 15, 2022 by Kristina Panos 9 Comments

[Taylor] wanted to join the cool kids club and build a macropad for CAD work and video editing, but didn’t want to do it the traditional way with an Arduino. We can get behind that. In fact, [Taylor] wanted to reuse some old piece of tech if possible, which is even better. With a little luck, they found a used gaming mouse with a set of 12 tiny macro buttons on the side that were ripe for reuse. Only the scroll wheel was reported to be broken.

After verifying that all the macro buttons worked, [Taylor] tore down the mouse and extracted the daughterboard, then removed the sticker that held the rubber dome actuators in place. Then they wired up twelve Kailh box jades to the pads, doing some nice diagonal work with bare 30 AWG wire to join all the common pins together.

[Taylor] designed and printed a simple enclosure that’s a slim 21.5 mm tall including the switch plate, and then made a dozen keycaps to match. That was until [Taylor] remembered some relegendable keycaps they had lying around — the kind that let you print your own labels and trap them underneath clear plastic. The only problem was that they are stemmed for some cylindrical actuator, so [Taylor] designed an adapter piece so they would fit on MX-style sliders. Be sure to check out the build video after the break.

If for some reason box jades aren’t clicky and satisfying enough for you, try making your own maglev Hall-effect switches. These days, you even have design options.

Continue reading “Dead Mouse Reincarnated As Macropad” →

Macropopsicle Melts On Your Desk, Not In Your Mouth

January 9, 2022 by Kristina Panos 6 Comments

We all know by now that macropads are super cool shortcut machines. And what’s cooler than a popsicle? Well, this cute little thing, which goes by the name of Macropopsicle.

The freezer’s open if you want your own Macropopsicle. There’s not much more to this tasty and practical desktop treat than an adafruit QT Py, a couple of Cherry MX-style switches, some wires, and a handful of printed parts. One cool thing about this design is that all the pieces print with little to no supports, and many of them snap together.

We say there’s a lot to like about Macropopsicle — it’s cute, it’s useful, and there’s even a little bite taken out of it that you can see in some of the renders. [oxisidia] even shoved a real popsicle stick in there to complete the look.

Keyboard aficionados will no doubt recognize Macropopsicle as a great companion to Milk, a 2% keyboard.

Hackaday Links: October 24, 2021

October 24, 2021 by Kristina Panos 13 Comments

It seems that the engineers of NASA’s Lucy spacecraft have some ‘splaining to do. The $981M asteroid-seeking mission launched without a hitch, but when the two solar panels unfolded, one of them failed to latch into place. Lucy’s two large solar arrays combine to an impressive 51 square meters. Both are critical to this 12-year mission as it will travel farther from the Sun than any previous spacecraft, and be gone for longer. The problem is that Lucy is on an escape route, and so they can’t just sidle up to her with a repair craft. Even so, NASA and Lockheed are “pretty optimistic” that they can fix the problem somehow. On the bright side, both solar arrays are providing power and charging batteries inside the cockpit.

It’s kind of hard to believe, but KDE is turning 25 this year! Well, the actual anniversary date (October 14th) has already passed, but the festivities continue through the 25th when KDE founder Matthias Ettrich delivers a fireside chat at 17:00 UTC. Registration begins here.

EnergyStar, purveyors of appliance efficiency ratings and big yellow stickers, will no longer recommend gas-powered water heaters, furnaces, and clothes dryers on their yearly Most Efficient list. They will continue to give them ratings, however. This move was prompted by several environmentalist groups who pointed out that continuing to recommend gas appliances would not put America on track to reach Biden’s 2050 net-zero carbon emissions goal, since they produce greenhouse gases. We totally understand the shift away from gas, but not so much the nitty gritty of this move, which the article presents as exclusive of any appliance that doesn’t run on 100% clean energy. You can’t prove that a user’s electricity is renewable. For example, this consumer is well aware that the energy company in her town still burns coal for the most part. Anyway, here’s the memo. And a PDF warning.

Sure, you can trawl eBay for space rocks, but how do you know for sure that you’re getting a real meteorite? You could play the 1 in 100 billion or so odds that one will just fall in your lap. Just a few weeks ago, a meteorite crashed through a British Columbia woman’s ceiling and landed between two decorative pillows on her bed, narrowly missing her sleeping head. Ruth Hamilton awoke to the sound of an explosion, unaware of what happened until she saw the drywall dust on her face and looked back at the bed. The 2.8 pound rock was the size of a large man’s fist and was one of two meteorites to hit Golden, BC that evening. The other one landed safely in a field.

Hackaday alum Jeremy Cook wrote in to give us a heads up that his newest build, the JC Pro Macro 2, is currently available through Kickstarter. It’s exactly what it sounds like — a Pro Micro-powered macro pad. But this version is packed with extra keyswitches, blinkenlights, and most importantly for the Hackaday universe, broken out GPIO pins. Do what you will with the eight switches, rotary encoder, and optional OLED screen, and do it with Arduino or QMK. Jeremy is offering a variety of reward levels, from bare boards with SMT LEDs soldered on to complete kits, or fully assembled and ready to go.