PCB manufacture

[Red Davies]

After much gnashing of teeth and hacking of code I have managed to successfully build a working 8x6 array.  Now the hand-made prototype is made I shipped my designs to China and have 10 prototypes of a 6x4 array winging their way to me.  See pdf attachment.

I've done the design as a tileable 6x4 array so if someone wants to make a larger array in either the X or Y axis they can do so by simply mounting multiples in the X and Y direction.  The array is based on the MX1A series of keyswitches from Cherry and has an LED per key.  The purpose of the LED is to label the white + black notes so that when I change keyboard layouts the key mapping is visually apparent.

The design is not perfect, it's missing things like mounting points and other niceties which, once I've tested this first batch I will start adding.

The boards are costing me in quantities of 10 about $3 each.

No, that's not a typo.

As promised previously all my stuff is open.  The diptrace source files and gerbers for manufacture are available on my github - http://github.com/redvers/isokeyboard

When the boards come in and I solder them up I'll report back manufacture quality and also (m)any mistakes I may have made on my board. :-)

Kind Regards,



Red
--
A referee in training should start with 100% accuracy and get better over time.

[Andrew Wagner]

Congrats, and thanks for sharing your design Red! Does the key scan
matrix just get bigger as you add more boards, or is the idea to
interface each one to a main board with a ribbon cable?

Wish I had more time to disect your design; my Ph.D. thesis is due in one week!

Cheers,
Drew

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[Red Davies]

The matrix just gets bigger.

With the current version you solder the left of one board with the right of the other.  I honestly didn't focus on the vertical component in this design but will in rev2.  I'm hoping to replace the solder joints with male/female connectors so they just snap together.

This version does have at least one error that I've spotted post-order.  On the bright side it's missing tracks not extra tracks so significantly easier to patch.

When these boards come in I'll be aiming for a 6 x 32 matrix.

Kind Regards,



Red

[Mike Battaglia]

Red, this is awesome. I've been keeping an eye out for something like this for a while. That's why I joined this forum, actually.

I currently moderate over at the yahoo tuning group, where something like this is sorely needed for microtonal music, especially with the LEDs under each key. How do you plan to interface this out to MIDI? Will you be doing it Arduino style?

Thanks,

Mike Battaglia

Sent from my iPhone

[Ken Rushton]

Excellent, Excellent design. Quite impressive in it's extensibility.
I'll post a notice on my blog and website.

I'm starting to think that now is the time to see if we can use the summer to get  some major magazine. ie. New Scientist, or Make! to publish an article. Now we have several interesting developments and a group of keeners.  Thoughts and ideas?

Ken

[Red Davies]

On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 1:23 PM, Mike Battaglia <batta...@gmail.com> wrote:

I currently moderate over at the yahoo tuning group, where something like this is sorely needed for microtonal music, especially with the LEDs under each key. How do you plan to interface this out to MIDI? Will you be doing it Arduino style?

I'd originally planned to implement it using my own design around the parallax propeller.  The reason being that I wanted my instrument to be able to switch layouts at the touch of a button with no interfacing or re-programming or any dependencies on a PC or PC software.

The propeller CPU is actually 8 CPUs in one with 32 IO pins.  They're allocated as follows:
1) Key matrix scanning
2) Midi event generation
3) LED rendering
4) Misc buttons
5) Debugging data via serial port.

As there are seperate CPUs I don't need to worry about interrupts or any such things.  It's an absolute joy to code in.

I still intend to do that but, given the interest that other people are starting to have in the design it may be worth me building hardware support around a more commonly used platform such as midibox or highly liquid.  I'll lose the re-programability but I'd be willing to sacrifice that if I can help bring an open platform to the community.

Kind Regards,



Red

[Tobbe J.]

Hi.


Good work! I'd love to see an article well at least a photo of the completed module. It appears as the keyboard will be flat but one could always use different length of the keycaps or tilt the board if a staggered shape is desired. The advantage with totally flat design is that the keyboard can be mirrored to feature left hand playing or even like a keytar.


Cheers


Tobbe

[Red Davies]

Forgive the really REALLY bad photos but the camera on my phone doesn't seem to want to focus for me today.

I'll get the boards on a flatbed scanner to give you hi-res pictures.

You can however get an idea of the tileability of these and how they look when populated.



Red

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[Andrew Wagner]

That's really cool! Did the low price really include cutting the
board into irregular shapes? If so it would be very tempting to have
some structural elements double as PCB's.

[Red Davies]

Yes - I placed the board outline in a separate layer and they routed the board to the correct shape.

I'm hoping to solder one to completion this evening.

Kind Regards,



Red

[battaglia01]

Very interesting, I'm not too familiar with it. How does it compare to
the Arduino? Also, what are you using for keycaps..?

Red, this looks awesome. This is exactly why I joined this group!

-Mike

On Jun 19, 10:10 pm, Red Davies <noiddi...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Red Davies]

Keycaps are as yet undefined.  I really want my keys to be transparent (preferably diffused) so as I can see the LEDs through them.  The purpose of the LEDs is to label the white + black keys.  They're going to be programmable so I can switch keyboard layouts on demand and not have to pluck + replace the keys like some other users have to.

The propeller is awesome but there isn't any software written for this kind of application yet.  I'm having to write it all from scratch.

I've deliberately used the MIDIBOX design for the matrix reading so that others who want to use my boards can directly use them with the midibox products.  So, there is a significant shortcut for people who want to go that route.

Kind Regards,



Red

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[battaglia01]

On Jun 28, 6:01 pm, Red Davies <noiddi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Keycaps are as yet undefined.  I really want my keys to be transparent
> (preferably diffused) so as I can see the LEDs through them.  The purpose of
> the LEDs is to label the white + black keys.  They're going to be
> programmable so I can switch keyboard layouts on demand and not have to
> pluck + replace the keys like some other users have to.

That seriously sounds awesome.

> The propeller is awesome but there isn't any software written for this kind
> of application yet.  I'm having to write it all from scratch.

If this is an open source design, I would love to write some Arduino
code around this as well. I don't know anything about the propeller,
but I know that the Arduino has a huge open source community built
around it and is programmable in C++, and costs $40, and I think
there'd be a lot of interest in it.

Not that I'm encouraging you to give up the Propeller, just saying I'd
be very interested in interfacing this board with an Arduino as well,
if your goal is to make all of this open source. It's been a huge goal
of mine to do something like this for quite some time now.

Red, awesome work - again can't communicate how stoked I am about all
of this. The LEDs being involved is the icing on the cake too.

Best,
Mike

[Red Davies]

Greetings!

On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 4:22 PM, battaglia01 <batta...@gmail.com> wrote:

If this is an open source design, I would love to write some Arduino
code around this as well. I don't know anything about the propeller,
but I know that the Arduino has a huge open source community built
around it and is programmable in C++, and costs $40, and I think
there'd be a lot of interest in it.

https://github.com/redvers/isokeyboard contains all my schematics and source code.

If you want to write Arduino code for it I will *GLADY* give you commit access so you can maintain that codebase.  I see a /arduino directory in that repository with your name on it if you want it.

Not that I'm encouraging you to give up the Propeller, just saying I'd
be very interested in interfacing this board with an Arduino as well,
if your goal is to make all of this open source. It's been a huge goal
of mine to do something like this for quite some time now.

Good - so let's collaborate :-D

The reason for my selection of the Prop was that an arduino just doesn't have the processing power for my full final design.  For basic midi output which is I'm sure what 99% of people want it'll be fine.

My bigger design is going to have a big button which will cycle the keyboard between Janko / Wicki-Hayden / Sonome layouts as well as split / symmetric amongst other things - all re-programmable.  The idea being that if I want to experiment with different layouts I don't have to re-flash the micro inside - just press the button.
 
If you're looking for a fast way of getting from hardware to MIDI you might want to consider midibox as all the code to do it is already there.  My keyboard layout is read by the Midibox DIN module so I'm pretty sure it's going to be compatible.

Red, awesome work - again can't communicate how stoked I am about all
of this. The LEDs being involved is the icing on the cake too.

My pleasure.  I just finished soldering one of the boards last night - tonight I'm planning on testing it.  Assuming all goes well I'll send rev2 to the PCB manufacturers and report back in a couple of weeks as to how that goes.

Incidentally, since this is an open source project anyone can get any of these boards made at any time.  It's as simple as sending the latest .zip file to the PCB company.

Latest is:
https://github.com/redvers/isokeyboard/blob/master/electronics/itlead/20110610-order/6x4r1.zip

Of course, I'd recommend people wait until I've finished testing them or else you may get a bunch of sexy green coasters :-)

Thanks,



Red

[bogru...@gmail.com]

For keycaps, I suggest you try just round disks - I found out they were available *after* I had sawed out, ground and smoothed about a hundred hex ones and then decided that round would have worked nearly as well. :(

For software to do the key remapping, take a look a my Keyboard Integrator (http://www.altkeyboards.com/integrator) software - with it you can re-map, adjust and blend input, and change mapping at the press of a key. It runs on PC or mac and is open source.

Ken Rushton www.MusicScienceguy.com

[Red Davies]

I finished populating the boards and had a few bugs.  They have been corrected and the new design has been sent to the manufacturer.

I should receive the new boards in about 2.5 weeks.

Kind Regards,



Red

6x4r2 has been sent to the PCB manufacturer.

[Mike Battaglia]

On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 5:21 PM, Red Davies <noid...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> https://github.com/redvers/isokeyboard contains all my schematics and source
> code.
>
> If you want to write Arduino code for it I will *GLADY* give you commit
> access so you can maintain that codebase.  I see a /arduino directory in
> that repository with your name on it if you want it.

Sure thing! Although it's going to be a little bit before I can really
focus on it - this month is going to be pretty packed. But since it
looks like the board itself is still a work in progress, that
shouldn't be a problem.

> The reason for my selection of the Prop was that an arduino just doesn't
> have the processing power for my full final design.  For basic midi output
> which is I'm sure what 99% of people want it'll be fine.

What's the final design?

> My bigger design is going to have a big button which will cycle the keyboard
> between Janko / Wicki-Hayden / Sonome layouts as well as split / symmetric
> amongst other things - all re-programmable.  The idea being that if I want
> to experiment with different layouts I don't have to re-flash the micro
> inside - just press the button.

Very nice! My goal is something similar, except when you bring
microtonal music into it, there will be even more layouts.

> If you're looking for a fast way of getting from hardware to MIDI you might
> want to consider midibox as all the code to do it is already there.  My
> keyboard layout is read by the Midibox DIN module so I'm pretty sure it's
> going to be compatible.

I'll have to check it out, I'm unfamiliar with Midibox. Man, lots of
microcontrollers involved here... PIC, Propeller, Arduino!

-Mike

[Red Davies]

Ken,

Can you point me at a source for these round disks of which you speak.  Can you get them plastic and clear?

Thanks,



Red

On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 7:48 PM, <bogru...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Red Davies]

Btw, please don't think I've gone idle on this project.I'm waiting for my second revision of boards to be shipped from China.

A .pdf showing how the new design plugs between boards is attached.

Kind Regards,



Red

[Red Davies]

New PCBs with vertical tiling have just come back from the factory.

See attached scan.



Red

[bogru...@gmail.com]

Here are a couple of sites with them. - 1/2 3/4 and 7/8 inches.

http://www.thefabricatorssource.com/products/29shapes.htm

http://www.tapplastics.com/shop/product.php?pid=137

somewhere I saw a person the would laser cut them in bulk, to any shape, but have lost the link.

Ken.

[jim]

I have two Axis 49's for sale. Thought they might be handy/helpful to somebody in this group.  They are  like new/hardly used.  They are wasting away in my office.  Make me a reasonable offer and it or they are yours.     Jim  ( Call   562 355 8172)

> New PCBs with vertical tiling have just come back from the factory.
>
> See attached scan.
>
>
>
> Red
>