
▗▖   █  ▐▌█  ▄ ▗▞▀▚▖     ▗▖  ▗▖▗▞▀▜▌▄▄▄▄  
▐▌   ▀▄▄▞▘█▄▀  ▐▛▀▀▘     ▐▌  ▐▌▝▚▄▟▌█   █ 
▐▌        █ ▀▄ ▝▚▄▄▖     ▐▌  ▐▌     █   █ 
▐▙▄▄▖     █  █            ▝▚▞▘

Creating a keyboard - LV16

My first attempt at making anything handwired. Armed with a terrible soldering iron, a busted ethernet cable, and a ProMicro clone, I started building this thing.

Plate

I download the a plate from Joe Scotto's and used it as a base shape to build out a 4x4 macro pad. It uses a great idea for a 1.5mm depth for the switch to clip into, and then a further 1.5mm with wider holes to avoid the switch clips.

Soldering

With barely any clue, I clicked the switches in, stripped wire segments from some of the ethernet cable and started soldering the columns.

When it came to the rows, I just stripped bits of the ethernet cable and got this working as a proof of concept.

Firmware

I skipped the QMK business and went straight to Vial porting.

Pretty boring but you can view the code in my Vial Fork

One thing I did wrong was code the order of the columns in reverse, so the correct order when the keycaps are away from you. Not realizing this, I manually rewrote the matrix with the column index reversed. Whoops!

Feeling like I had some sort of idea, I went onto to make the "LV47"

You have made it to the bottom.


▄▄▄▄  ▗▞▀▜▌█  ▄ ▗▞▀▚▖     ▄▄▄  ▄▄▄  ▄▄▄▄  ▗▞▀▚▖   ■  ▐▌   ▄ ▄▄▄▄    
█ █ █ ▝▚▄▟▌█▄▀  ▐▛▀▀▘    ▀▄▄  █   █ █ █ █ ▐▛▀▀▘▗▄▟▙▄▖▐▌   ▄ █   █   
█   █      █ ▀▄ ▝▚▄▄▖    ▄▄▄▀ ▀▄▄▄▀ █   █ ▝▚▄▄▖  ▐▌  ▐▛▀▚▖█ █   █   
           █  █                                  ▐▌  ▐▌ ▐▌█     ▗▄▖ 
                                                 ▐▌            ▐▌ ▐▌
                                                                ▝▀▜▌
                                                               ▐▙▄▞▘