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rtitmuss / torn

Torn keyboard
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Creating a 5x3 Variant #4

Open bromanko opened 3 years ago

bromanko commented 3 years ago

I'm very excited about the Torn. It seems to be the best of the Corne with the comfort of a Kyria thumb-cluster. The through-hole components are gorgeous. Kudos on an amazing design.

I'm curious how difficult it would be to make a 5x3 variant. I've never used KiCad before. I'm sure I can remove some components and figure out how to reduce the PCB width. Do you have any tips or suggestions?

rtitmuss commented 3 years ago

Hi, someone asked about this before and I wasn't sure how easy it would be to route after moving one of the diodes for the thumb keys. However I just had a quick look and it should be pretty easy.

The mounting holes and outline need adjusting still, but it could look something like this: torn_left-top

To make this change you would need to update the schematic to remove the switches and diodes, and generate the netlist. Then import the netlist into the pcb designer and reroute the tracks. The Dwgs.User layer has a graphic with the board outline and switch positions. I used that to get the left and right sides (and case parts) to align.

If you decide to try it would be great if you could submit a pull request, and I'd be happy to review.

rtitmuss commented 3 years ago

Hmm, but after posting the render I think it would be better to layout the diodes in four rows (5, 5, 5, 4). Like this: torn_left-top (2)

bromanko commented 3 years ago

Thanks so much for the feedback! I'll poke at this over the holiday and submit a PR when I have something workable.

bromanko commented 3 years ago

What do you think of this layout? I still need to learn how to update the routing but wanted to get your feedback before I spent time on it.

image
bromanko commented 3 years ago

Looks like the lower two left mounting holes will be a problem there. I'm thinking of moving them between the fourth and fifth columns.

rtitmuss commented 3 years ago

Looks good, as you said the mounting holes need moving. And I've suggested where to put the silk screen labels below:

103471594-c3ec6b80-4d47-11eb-9021-e26a081c1c2e

I also checked your diodes placement (D1-D19) and it should be possible to route those. Getting the ordering of the diodes for easy routing was one of the tricker parts of the design :)

I'm guessing it does not make sense for SW5 to have a rotary encoder option with a 5x3 grid, but just wanted to check what you thought.

I've created a discord channel for Torn (https://discord.gg/dy3sCpUj), so feel free to chat there too.