If you're reading this, you probably picked up a BYO Keyboard kit from MakerspaceCT. These boards were designed by Painless Prototyping to use Adafruit's Itsy Bitsy M0 Express. In order to keep costs down, we've packaged the boards with Pro Micro microcontrollers powered by the Atmega32u4. The functionality is the same, but it requires aligning the pins correctly.
The kit includes the following:
- PCB
- Pro Micro clone
- Gateron PCB-mount Switches (Red) (6x)
- Diodes (THT) (6x)
- MicroUSB Cable (not included)
Assembling this board will take someone with solid soldering skills 5-10 minutes, and will take a beginner an estimated 15-30 minutes. We've provided some notes below that we recommend you read carefully.
Diodes are polarized, meaning they only work if installed in the correct orientation. Each diode has a black ring around one end. That right should be aligned with the thicker end of the foodprint silkscreened ontot he PCB.
Line up the pins with the holes, make sure they're pushed all the way in, and solder.
The Itsy Bitsy shipped with the kit has two more pins on each side, so placement of the Pro Micro is important. Ensure you leave the two pins at the bottom of each side unused (as pictured).
You'll probably want some sort of case so the solder joints on the bottom of the board don't scratch up your desk. This is left as an exercise for the reader, but check out painlessprototyping/byo_keyboard_cases for files to start with.
The easiest way to flash this board will be to flash one of the .hex files in this repository onto your keypad with QMK Toolbox. To put the board into DFU-mode (Device Firmware Upadate), use a jumper wire (or a paper clip) to short the ground GND and reset RST pins together briefly. Immediately, press the Flash button in QMK toolbox and wait as the flash completes. Of the two .hex files included, one sets the buttons to the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, and the other sets the buttons to F13, F14, F15, F16, F18, and F18.
Want to set your own layout? The structure you'll need to get custom QMK firmware working is here
Special thanks to spanpeak51 for his help in test assembly and QMK development at MakerspaceCT.
To all you who read these notes: greetings, good luck, and happy making! May this lead you down one rabbit hole or another. Have fun!