Basic CW Keyer with BT Keyboard
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Mike Lewis
Oct 3, 2025, 6:21:37 PM (12 days ago) Oct 3
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I have a simple Bluetooth keyboard enabled CW keyer working and posted online that some of you might like to try out. I am moving onto a bigger Keyer program so wanted to point this one out to you since it does work.
https://github.com/K7MDL2/BT-Keyboard-CW-Keyer
If you have an ESP32-WROOM-32 CPU board laying around, and a BT keyboard, you can try running a new project I just built. Rick, W7RNB, found simple, though ancient, Arduino CW keyer source code that supports a PS2 keyboard. He was looking for a simple Arduino DIY keyer project he could play with and also support some basic beacon features. This code can do that without too much more work and testing, though it is very basic. His next thoughts were how to get rid of the mess that a wired keyboard connection creates. Wandering around a tripod or shack untethered seems like a good thing.
I replaced the PS2 keyboard driver with an ESP32 Bluetooth keyboard driver, supporting both BT Classic and BLE. It can send letters, numbers, and space characters from a Rii i8+ (aka K08) BT mini keyboard and hear it on a buzzer (Uses PWM). Also the onboard LED flashes.
All you need is a ESP32-WROOM32 CPU board, they are very common and cheap, and a BT keyboard. I have tested with the only BT keyboard I own, I suspect many others will work. Will try one or more in coming days. I have precompiled firmware so you can use one of 2 tools to upload the binary firmware images to the chip and stat using it. There are Wiki pages describing the process, hardware, and tools required, and pin numbers at the link above.
This was mostly an exercise to see if I could integrate a BT Keyboard class code I found online that works in the esp-idf dev environment and make it work in an Arduino program. I was unable (without some deep debugging) run it in the Arduino IDE, the BT stack does not initialize.
I then ported the Arduino CW Keyer code to the esp-idf environment where I had the BT keyboard code working and added the esp Arduino32 support library. This I was able to compile and run.
For now, I am not planning any more work on this while I explore some other ideas, but you can add things if you want an easy project. It is so simple you may want to try it because you can and many of you likely already have what you need. If you want to change the code, that is a bit more involved but quite doable.
My next step is to integrate the BT keyboard into the K3NG Keyer code which supports USB and PS2 keyboards today, and has every feature under the sun, all configurable. If it works I can submit it for inclusion in the main K3NG code. I found a 2022 vintage version of the K3NG keyer code that was made to work on an older ESP chip. With minor changes and pin configuration I was able to the K3NG code on the ESP32-WROOM-32 board. I can operate the paddle input pins and hear dot and dits on the sidetone buzzer I have connected. Now to get the BT keyboard working in it. At the end of it I hope to get the BT keyboard code working under a normal Arduino IDE. This will also make the simple program above work again in Arduino IDE.
Mike Lewis, K7MDL
CN87xs
https://github.com/K7MDL2/BT-Keyboard-CW-Keyer
If you have an ESP32-WROOM-32 CPU board laying around, and a BT keyboard, you can try running a new project I just built. Rick, W7RNB, found simple, though ancient, Arduino CW keyer source code that supports a PS2 keyboard. He was looking for a simple Arduino DIY keyer project he could play with and also support some basic beacon features. This code can do that without too much more work and testing, though it is very basic. His next thoughts were how to get rid of the mess that a wired keyboard connection creates. Wandering around a tripod or shack untethered seems like a good thing.
I replaced the PS2 keyboard driver with an ESP32 Bluetooth keyboard driver, supporting both BT Classic and BLE. It can send letters, numbers, and space characters from a Rii i8+ (aka K08) BT mini keyboard and hear it on a buzzer (Uses PWM). Also the onboard LED flashes.
All you need is a ESP32-WROOM32 CPU board, they are very common and cheap, and a BT keyboard. I have tested with the only BT keyboard I own, I suspect many others will work. Will try one or more in coming days. I have precompiled firmware so you can use one of 2 tools to upload the binary firmware images to the chip and stat using it. There are Wiki pages describing the process, hardware, and tools required, and pin numbers at the link above.
This was mostly an exercise to see if I could integrate a BT Keyboard class code I found online that works in the esp-idf dev environment and make it work in an Arduino program. I was unable (without some deep debugging) run it in the Arduino IDE, the BT stack does not initialize.
I then ported the Arduino CW Keyer code to the esp-idf environment where I had the BT keyboard code working and added the esp Arduino32 support library. This I was able to compile and run.
For now, I am not planning any more work on this while I explore some other ideas, but you can add things if you want an easy project. It is so simple you may want to try it because you can and many of you likely already have what you need. If you want to change the code, that is a bit more involved but quite doable.
My next step is to integrate the BT keyboard into the K3NG Keyer code which supports USB and PS2 keyboards today, and has every feature under the sun, all configurable. If it works I can submit it for inclusion in the main K3NG code. I found a 2022 vintage version of the K3NG keyer code that was made to work on an older ESP chip. With minor changes and pin configuration I was able to the K3NG code on the ESP32-WROOM-32 board. I can operate the paddle input pins and hear dot and dits on the sidetone buzzer I have connected. Now to get the BT keyboard working in it. At the end of it I hope to get the BT keyboard code working under a normal Arduino IDE. This will also make the simple program above work again in Arduino IDE.
Mike Lewis, K7MDL
CN87xs
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