Mechanical Keyboard Sound Isn't That Simple
Figure 1: I couldn't think of a more literal way to represent this article if I tried... Looking back just a few years ago, there’s no doubt that the huge influx of people that joined the hobby at the peak of the COVID pandemic were drawn to keyboards by way of YouTube, TikTok, and other audio-visual content platforms. Even as the output from these content creators has waned in recent months, their collective impact and legacy on the keyboard hobby is rather firmly etched in the history books. As a result of all of their sound tests, build logs, and opinion videos, the message is clear to any new person joining the hobby: mechanical keyboards are all about the sound. Thock this, clack that. Whether it’s keyboards, keycaps, or even singular switches, seemingly everyone new to the hobby meticulously pores over each component of their keyboard not in an attempt to figure out how it will feel in hand, but how it will sound as they’re furiously grinding their way out from...
Mar 27, 2024
I have finished my small DIY project with this switch I mentioned earlier. I chose not to wait to get the switch from Massdrop, but directly purchased from Novel Keys themselves.
I laid out a 6cm*6cm PCB for the big switch, used a pro micro as the controller and put 4 WS2812B RGB LEDs onto the board, as well as a small push button to control the light. It was not easy soldering the SMD LEDs by hand when I don't have access to a small tip soldering iron, but thankfully managed to do that without a major failure.
(The lay out is ugly, for a board like this I just used auto routing)
Here's a picture of how the PCB fit, before I put the components on there
I chose qmk as the base for the firmware, and wrote a set of configs for a two key keyboard, compiled them with msys2 on my PC and flashed it into the pro micro, and...... It works!
And that was my small project, hope you'll find it a little interesting. Let me know if you are doing something similar and need help or whatsoever.
The RGB is set to loop between colors in a smooth fashion, here are some more pictures