Cumulative Design Review

SteelSeries stealth replacement

SteelSeries stealth replacement

by Alex s -
Number of replies: 5

Hey everyone. Originally planned on following the course script, of the original keyboard. When I had told my brother about this course, he had asked if I could make him a keyboard, so changed it up to try and kill two birds with 1 stone. I haven't had much opportunity to add better decals or profile of the PCB over the last few weeks, but will be adding those a little later. 

Cheers, 


Alex

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In reply to Alex s

Re: SteelSeries stealth replacement

by Henri Kemppainen -
Wow that's a big one.  It's always nice to make something for a sibling.

Did you run DRC? You seem to have a couple unconnected nets: 3V3 between pico and U1 & the boot/reset switches, and also the ground of SW13.  See attached images.

It also complains that pad 5 of SW14 is unconnected and while it technically doesn't seem to be, you can fix the complaint by redrawing the connecting trace and making sure it snaps to the center of the pad.

You might find routing easier if you use pours (e.g. fill the entire board on one side with ground and on another with 5V or more ground).

I hope you've accounted for the size of keycaps when designing that layout.  Your key spacing looks relatively standard at ~19mm, but there's a small risk that the corners of a cap will bump into an adjacent key when you have keys that are rotated relative to each other.  Of course, that's nothing a dremel can't fix (I have a pile of mutilated keycaps waiting to be cleaned up with a knife...).

One more thing to think about is whether you want some kind of mounting holes.  Maybe you'll make an enclosure later, or at least add some rubber feet so the bare PCB doesn't scrape your brother's desk with all the pointy through-hole component leads.  Of course even without mounting holes you could always stick some adhesive backed feet to the bottom of it.

Also you'll still need to figure out how to generate gerbers and drill files.  Then we can appreciate the board on tracespace.io :)  And you might pass these files to your fabricator (unless they ingest kicad pcb files).

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Attachment 3v3.png
Attachment gnd.png
In reply to Henri Kemppainen

Re: SteelSeries stealth replacement

by Alex s -
Awesome. Thanks for the feedback. I haven't decided yet how Ill be assembling it yet. The caps are already arranged just slowly working on it at the moment. Here is the key arrangement.

Alex

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Attachment Key Caps.PNG
In reply to Alex s

Re: SteelSeries stealth replacement

by Mark Hughes -
Wow -- that's cool! I like it!
how are you going to make the keycaps? Also -- make sure you have enough pins for your layout -- you'll have to use the matrix approach -- schematic variation B, and you'll need to use the pins normally assigned to the rotary encoder to ensure you have enough inputs.

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In reply to Mark Hughes

Re: SteelSeries stealth replacement

by Alex s -

Hi Mark, 

Will likely be getting the caps 3D printed by my buddys shop here in Canada (not sure if I can/should name it). Likely will be doing a clearprint/opaque plastic with a black cap that can be glue on to make the double shot effect (still have to do the CAD models for that but shouldn't take too long). I'll post what the CAD looks like when I have it done. 

In regards to the pins, instead of using the encoder signals pins, I ended up using pins 21 & 29 (GP16/22), as they were not being used. Hopefully that wont be an issue, else Ill have to be doing some jerry rigging with wires to reroute them. I've gone through the board and Im reasonably sure I've covered everything but without a doubt, Im still likely missing something. The Shell and board legs will be 3D printed as well, likely in opaque with a tint sprayed to mute the lights so they are not blinding. Here's a rough outlook showing the keyboard with the Bottom/Top shell, restraints and mounts for both sets.


 


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In reply to Alex s

Re: SteelSeries stealth replacement

by Mark Hughes -
That is soooooooo cool Richard! Hey -- come hang out in the Discord and ping Elliot -- he's make three or four of these by now, including custom keycaps. Might have some ideas for you.

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