IEBPROJECT CASE STUDY
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CT 00:00:00 T+00:00
The white low-profile keyboard with white and grey keycaps, a red Esc and a red Enter, plugged in with a white USB-C cable in front of a larger keyboard

PCB designDesignerDrawing 16 of 47

Custom
keyboard

Four versions of a mechanical keyboard, all drawn in KiCad, and the layout settled at 84 keys. Version two is built and works on QMK. Version four adds a Mac-style Touch Bar and snap-on modules.

Sheet 02 of 05/Why

A keyboard as a first PCB

Under every key there's the same small circuit, a switch and a diode. You draw it once and then repeat it eighty-four times.

3D render of an early keyboard PCB with switch footprints placed but only a handful of copper traces
PL 02Generation one, which I abandoned. The footprints are placed, but almost nothing is routed and there's no microcontroller.
3D render of the underside of the wireless keyboard PCB showing routed traces and component pads
PL 05The underside of the third board, where the radio, the power tree and the per-key LED chain all have to share the space.
A white keyboard PCB on a desk mat with cream low-profile switches in every socket, hand-drawn flowers and handwritten text on the left edge and a USB-C port
PL 13Version two with the switches in: a white board, my own daisy art and handwriting on the silkscreen, and USB-C on the left.

Sheet 03 of 05/Parts

Issued as separate drawings

I split this project into parts. Each part below has its own page, with its own sections and pictures.

Sheet 04 of 05/The layout

The 75% layout

It's a 75% layout: eighty-four keys in hotswap sockets, a function row, an arrow cluster in the bottom right and no numpad. Every version since the second keeps that same layout.

Sheet 05 of 05/Source

Inspect the work