floof.org

Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
I wonder how bad an idea it is to mount a raspi pico at a 90-degree angle to a PCB
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
I'm trying to design a keyboard that needs to fit into a small area (550mm by 15mm) and I realized I can technically get a little more room by making it have two right-angle PCBs. I could do that by designing two PCBs... or I could just have a pico mounted at 90 degrees!
Andrew mastodon (AP)
or mount the RP2040 right to the main board
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
@cinebox I'm not sure I'm gonna have room for that, amusingly enough.
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
Something not entirely unlike this.
Andrew mastodon (AP)
could you stick it on the back?
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
@cinebox Nope. Back is used to attach it to a surface, so it's gotta be flat.
can you make it longer? like just for the funny image
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
@StellaFoxxie I'm trying but so far I've just locked up kicad as it tries to handle even placing the footprints of my 2m keyboard
there's a kingdom hearts reference to be made here i think
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)

I just realized this PCB is actually bigger than my chosen PCB fab can make.

I mean, unless I have them make it diagonally, but I imagine that'd be a tad expensive

Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
I locked up kicad for 5 minutes by accidentally trying to insert 8000 keys
Simon Zerafa mastodon (AP)
Unicode / Emoji Keyboard? 🙂🤷‍♂️
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)

@simonzerafa NO

not only do I not want to do something Tom Scott already did, but keyboards don't do unicode.

Simon Zerafa mastodon (AP)

Sigh. I'll stop following you as you seem to have issues with actually having a conversation.

Be well and have a good life.

Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
@StellaFoxxie suggested I make it EVEN BIGGER and I got up to 254 keys and 1.9m meters before kicad started to completely shit itself
@StellaFoxxie "New Github Issue: Not possible to make proper keyboard PCBs with Kicad"
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
Here it is with an iso-standard height reference, a 5'12" foone
Clifton Royston mastodon (AP)

My brain went into an infinite loop at the measurement 5'12" and it took some effort to reboot it.

It just did it again, typing the above.

I suppose one could perfectly well go with 4'24", 7'(-12)" or various equivalences as well.

Andrew Golding mastodon (AP)
I think because I saw the Foone-for-scale post first, I originally misread the dimensions and tried to think why someone would want a keyboard 5.5 meters long.
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
I made a boringly sensible version of it.
18cm/7", 20 keys.
sif mastodon (AP)
curious why you don’t wire it so the microcontroller module faces up inside the profile of the face
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
@sif This is wrapping around an edge of a monitor, so it needs to be flat on that side
@sif
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
parts are ordered. who knows when I'll be able to solder it, but you gotta dream.
gaytabase mastodon (AP)
oh god you didn't?
gaytabase mastodon (AP)
oh wait, this isn't six foot, nevermind.
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
@dysfun yeah, no, I ordered the 7" one
@dysfun I did once find a PCB manufacturer that would make flex PCBs of near arbitrary length as long as they were no more than about 60mm wide. wasn't cheap but if ever you want to make a 6ft noodle keyboard I can probably dig it back up.
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
@gsuberland @dysfun once I can consistently solder again and have money, that might be a great bad idea
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
PCBs & parts arrived! Everything looks good. I'm gonna attempt to solder it together sometime this weekend
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
Arg I have no solder paste. This is going to be a pain to solder
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
I finished soldering it together. It's impossible to focus on with my camera (it's tiny and thin!) so here's a blurry photo
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
All keys work. I didn't fuck up any wiring!
Jeff Atwood mastodon (AP)
https://infosec.exchange/@codinghorror/114049938413744463
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)

Keyboard installed and functional!
It's a macro keyboard for my external monitor.

It's capable of being wireless (but isn't currently) which'll help with cable management, and I need to write some software to make it easier to remap without needing to recompile it.

Any device is capable of being wireless. Though only some can remain functional in that state.
Jason Knight mastodon (AP)
Dell Inspiron ~2015?
this should be obligatory on the backside of all pcbs
Tim Clevenger :donor: mastodon (AP)
up, down, strange, charm, bottom and top?
Have you been listening to #LemonJelly? Reminds me of “Elements”
Windows Mobile, Symbian, Java, Mophun
what's the difference between "under" and down? Shouldn't "down" be "behind?"
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
@StompyRobot you'll have to take it up with The Yardbirds
bigiain mastodon (AP)

<sings>
Everytime I think of you
It's over, under, sideways, down
No matter what I try to do
I try to get you off my mind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t6wLzXmkq0

(Hmmmm. "Released: 1986". Now I feel _oooold_)

Kit Bashir mastodon (AP)
don’t forget John Paul George and Ringo
instantiatethis mastodon (AP)
if I ever need to answer about how I got radicalized I am going to point to this post
GreenDotGuy mastodon (AP)
OK, but hear me out... what about a 512*384 Foone?
Eric Spittle mastodon (AP)
I realize I'm very late to this, but ... 5' 12"? I'm bothered by this in ways I can't quite explain
Matt Gray mastodon (AP)
that’s one hell of a guitar hero controller
Jonathan Clede mastodon (AP)
@StellaFoxxie What is this? Hilbert’s Grand Keyboard?
ROTOPE~1 :yell: mastodon (AP)
eventually you get to the point where "how the fuck do we ship this to you" takes over.
abrasive hometown (AP)
JLC quoted me a surprisingly reasonable $30 for 5 off 500x15 flex? I don't know about your space constraints but maybe you could origami your micro off one end or side in that case? 500x40 (for a side-hinged one) lands closer to $40
sif mastodon (AP)
just make it in several sections you can break off and plug together aling the length.
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
@sif I thought about that, but with how the wiring works that'd get really tricky. I'm just gonna downsize, which should be good enough for my needs
@sif
Argonel mastodon (AP)
as a Metallurgical Engineer it looks fine to me. I.e. as someone with no applicable technical knowledge i have no legitimate frame of reference to complain.
this is like the PCB from a nanoraptor device
Fratm mastodon (AP)
Why would it even be an issue? electrons don't care which direction they are facing.
Foone🏳️‍⚧️ hometown (AP)
@Fratm I mean sticking out of the board, like I only solder one side down and the other side is facing away from the board.
I know that'd work electrically, but mechanically it's a tad questionable
Fratm mastodon (AP)
Yeah, it creates a failure point for sure.
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
CarlosGS mastodon (AP)
"I wonder how bad an idea it is to... raspi"
Extreme Electronics mastodon (AP)
Itll be fine :)
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
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