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juhakaup / keyboards

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Add hole for LED battery indicator #29

Open dudicoco opened 2 months ago

dudicoco commented 2 months ago

Hi,

Thank you for this great project.

Would it be possible to add a hole for an LED so we can get battery status indication?

Thanks

juhakaup commented 2 months ago

Yes its possible, I've thought about it myself. I haven't looked into this too much, so if you have any ideas on how to implement it I would appreciate it. (what kind of hardware to use, does the firmware need to be updated)

If you just need a hole for a led, that can be done in a slicing software quite easily.

dudicoco commented 2 months ago

@juhakaup i'm still unsure about the exact details of the implementation but I did find this repo: https://github.com/caksoylar/zmk-rgbled-widget

Also found this PR: https://github.com/zmkfirmware/zmk/pull/1120

Would it be possible to add a hole for the LED until we figure out the implementation details? Asking for this since I need to place an order for the 3d printed case.

Thanks

juhakaup commented 2 months ago

led This is what I came up with. It uses a 3mm 5mm led, that should be easily accessible. There isn't a lot of room in the case, so I placed the led at an angle to make the installation easier. I didn't want a large hole in the case, so I made a 1.8mm hole so that you can use something like transparent filament as makeshift lightpipe.

Let me know if you want to try this out, so that I can make the change to the appropriate model and upload it to the requests folder.

Edit: Of course the led needs to be 5mm, don't know what I was thinking about. I'll see about adjusting the design.

dudicoco commented 2 months ago

Thanks @juhakaup!

I guess I need to be 100% sure that this will print out ok since i'm printing the case over at JLCPCB.

Do you think there could be issues with the print or with the fit and installation of the LED?

juhakaup commented 2 months ago

Well, I can’t say that this is going to work a 100% every time.

This is a hobby project of mine, I’m not a product designer and while I do my best to make things go smoothly, I can’t take into consideration all the variables that may change depending on your process. What kind of parts are you going to use, what tolerances do they have. I have no experience working with external 3d printing services, so I can’t talk on behalf of them.

Anyway, building anything means that you may have to be a bit crafty sometimes. Not everything is going to fit or go according to plan every time. You may need to modify the parts if needed. But it’s not really that hard, a bit of sanding paper may be all you need.

There is a thread on the discussion section about ordering cases from external source, you may want to check that out.

I’m still contemplating on the position of the indicator. I may want to try to position it on top of the case for better visibility, but I haven’t tested it yet.