We’ve built our keyboard from scratch, now it’s time to put a brain into it.

A keyboard functionality may seem trivial but the firmware job is all but simple. Dealing with the USB HID interface is tedious, that’s why it’s good to start with a controller that has integrated keyboard/mouse/keypads support like the Teensy and some ready to use libraries.

There are various firmware we can choose from but for the sake of this tutorial I’m going to use QMK. It was born as a fork of Hasu’s TMK and developed into its own thing. Unfortunately at the time of this writing TMK doesn’t compile properly with Chibios (aka modern controllers like the Teensy 3.x) so we are going to work with its equally capable cousin.

It’s finally time to get our hands dirty.

For the sake of this tutorial I designed and 3D printed a small case that will serve as the base structure for my handwired keyboard. It doesn’t matter what case you use anyway, the procedure is the same from a 40% to a full sized keyboard; you are only limited by the number of inputs on your main controller but up until a tenkeyless you should be good with pretty much anything (teensy, arduino, promicro, …).

If you prefer visual gratification, at the bottom you’ll find a video tutorial but this article will also cover some theory about the matrix so I guess it’s worth a read.

This is the third and last introductory chapter in the How to build a custom keyboard series before turning on the soldering iron and actually build some stuff. You’ll learn how each component is constructed and the constrains we are going to face in making a keyboard. By the end of this post you should be able to pick the right keycaps, enclosure, materials and controller.

Before getting our hands dirty we need to cover some basics. In this chapter we are going to dissect a keyboard into its main components and for each of them we’ll analyze cost, availability and difficulty to build.

We will also check our shopping list and make sure we have all the tools needed for our upcoming endeavor.

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I wrote multiple posts on my blog and on various community forums about mechanical keyboard making but the information is scattered, often outdated and unstructured.

Initially I wanted to release a full book, but it would take ages and I believe it would be somewhat limited. Being able to feature a video or download the source code of a firmware is crucial so I came up with a system that would let me publish my articles in a more organic way.

All chapters of the manual will be published on my blog at matt3o.com as soon as I write them. A post could cover some theory or be more practical and tutorial-like. Everything will be structured and easily accessible from the Table of Content at the top of each post so you can quickly navigate through the content.

Whenever possible I’ll add videos, source code, DWG and STL files in what I hope will become a valuable and ever growing source of information for custom keyboard makers. Even better, everything is free and released under a very permissive Creative Commons license.

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