deskthority

Hello everybody,

I was planning on building my own keypad, since nothing I found suits my needs. Here is my "problem":
- I like playing some flash games that requires "mashing" 3 or 4 same keys. After 15 minutes, my wrist and fingers generally hurt. So I thought about making a small USB capacitive keypad with (let's say) 3 or 4 keys, so that I can go easy on my fingers (like touching an iPhone keyboard). After some googling, I found 12 keys capacitive keypad PCB that seems to match my needs. Link or the PCB here

Now there's only one problem, but quite a big one: I only have very basic knowledge of electronics (memories from highschool...). Or just to be honest I totally s*ck at it. I mean I'd know to solder and do all the manual stuff, but as for designing a layout, I'd probably need some help.

After reading some docs, I understand that I must solder that PCB to a programmable controller with a built-in USB port, so it could convert electronic signals into a "keyboard code" and send it to my computer through the USB right? I was told about Arduino things. Would that make any sense? Beside, how to program the controller to map each key to the ones I want?

Thanks in advance (and sorry for my quite scholar English)

PS: also, would it be possible to program an autorepeat if I leave my fingers on the keys (exactly the way it would be on a classic keyboard)?

Hello and welcome to Deskthority!

I was going to throw around wild guesses about how long it would take and so on but it just depends on your skill and motivation.

Given the parts, I could do it on a week-end. HaaTa or hasu or Soarer could probably do it in an hour. You...well it might take a month and you might have to learn and buy a lot of things you will never use again.

You would need something like the Arduino Leonardo. The Leonardo will connect directly with usb and act as key inputs almost natively.

The Leonardo can take (I think) 9 inputs. So you should have more than enough headroom for your needs. I am sorry I can't help you much more, I would help you with the code but I do not have the same keypad as you.

Feel free to message me if you get stuck with any code, or anything like that. Best of luck

There is a nice guide here in the wiki about designing a pcb (from bpiphany?). Maybe it gives you some direction for yr project. Also lots of other people here in the forum were into that topic already. So some searching for pcb related topics might be useful as well.

http://deskthority.net/wiki/KiCAD_keybo ... sign_guide

Thank you all a lot. Actually I finally managed to build a working one. What I did was coupling the touch shield to a USB Teensy 3.0 and use the teensyduino libraries and it worked like a charm. The keys responded very well as I expected them to.
The next challenge for me now is to simulate the shift key (including press/release detection).