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Finished my DIY keyboard with printed case, feet, and RPi Pico "caddy". Keycaps are not 3d printed, but the labels were DIY from my laser.
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this post was submitted on 14 Feb 2024
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Can you direct me to some helpful guides on programmable keyboards? If I can figure out how to non-destructively float the keys, levers, and letters and how to non-destructively establish a common, I'd like to tackle converting a mechanical typewriter I found into a Bluetooth keyboard.
It should be doable. The way these things are wired, you wouldn't use a common. You'd instead wire a matrix with diodes to avoid ghost presses. The firmware on the arduino or RPi microcontrollers will constantly scan for keypresses. So much would depend on the exact mechanism of your typewriter, but you could find a place where a keycap moves parts in close enough proximity to make your own switches, or if some part of the mechanism presses straight down, you could just have that actuate mechanical keyboard switches.
For wireless, you'd probably want ZMK. QMK is the most famous, but ZMK supports more wireless MCUs. I use KMK, a firmware where everything is human-readable python. I understand it has some wireless support, but I've never looked into it.
Interesting! This makes everything seem so much more doable and impossible at the same time! If possible, I'd love the actual letter hitting the ribbon to be my "key press" just to make things that much more authentic(annoying).
Are there nice options for wired? I just assumed Bluetooth was the standard way to go on a kit, but it would be far more comically satisfying to plug my typewriter into a USB port.
All those firmwares work fine, or even better, over USB. Of course, there's also the option to simply buy a kit. No idea if these people are legit, but the tech itself looks simple enough, a circuit board with contacts that let the linkage make a connection.