Drop Mech Keys Meetup Recap - Thanks for Visiting!
As you may have seen, we just hosted our first meetup in quite a while here at Drop HQ (Corsair HQ, but they seem to like us enough :) )! It was a blast to get to meet so many enthusiasts local to the bay area—it had been 10 years since I was last hanging out with keyboard nerds in the bay, at KeyCon 2014. We had a great time hosting everyone at the offices, checking out all the very nice boards y'all brought, and sharing some of our own projects/spaces! I knew it would be fun to host in the Game Room when I first saw it in person, but seeing it come to fruition was still so cool. Alright, I'll stop blabbering on now. xD Picture time! (Oh, real quick - there will be more of these! Stay tuned for more info and to catch the next one!)
May 15, 2024
- Make a new firmware. The device uses the "Quantum mechanical keyboard" (QMK) software (https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/tree/master/keyboards/xd004). To make a new firmware, there's an "easy" way by going to https://config.qmk.fm/#/xd004/v1/LAYOUT_all, making all the (limited) mods you want, then compiling and downloading the ".hex" result. The "hard" way (but it gives you more versatility including macros): Download and build the QMK development environment. I had problems with Fedora, but eventually got this going under an Ubuntu 20.04 VM.
- Put the keyboard into DFU mode. For me this was using a piece of wire or some other small conductor to bridge the two header holes furthest from the square keyed one at the header row on the opposite side to the USB port. At this point the XD004 keyboard device disappears from its host computer and is replaced with a DFU device.
- Flash the .hex file onto the keyboard. You're supposed to be able to do this on the commandline from the build environment, however my VM couldn't seem to find the DFU device. You can also use the graphical QMK Toolbox tool (Which only runs under Windows or MacOS, sadly). I used QMK Toolbox: Firstly pressing the OPEN button on the top row and selecting the .hex file we generated; set the MCU family to "Atmel 16u2"; From the "Keyboard" drop down, select "xd004/v1"; Press the "Flash" button and hope for the best! (You might need to unplug/replug the keyboard to see the changes taking effect.
Hope that helps!