Have you built yourself a macro pad yet? They’re all sorts of programmable fun, whether you game, stream, or just plain work, and there are tons of ideas out there.

But if you don’t want to re-invent the wheel, [CiferTech]’s MicroClick (or MacroClick — the jury is still out) might be just what you need to get started straight down the keyboard rabbit hole.

This baby runs on an ATmega32U4, which known for its Human Interface Device (HID) capabilities. [CiferTech] went with my own personal favorite, blue switches, but of course, the choice is yours.

There are not one but two linear potentiometers for volume, and these are integrated with WS2812 LEDs to show where you are, loudness-wise. For everything else, there’s an SSD1306 OLED display.

But that’s not all — there’s a secondary microcontroller, an ESP8266-07 module that in the current build serves as a packet monitor. There’s also a rotary encoder for navigating menus and such. Make it yours, and show us!

Presenting the Wedgetyl, and Lessons Learned

Believe it or not, the Wedgetyl is [burbilog]’s first build. If you can’t tell the lineage from the name or the photo, this is a dactyl manuform-like design with super wedgy bases and RP2040s for the brains, and Gateron clear switches.

As this was a first build, there were plenty of lessons learned along the way, and that’s what the bulk of this post is about. While I won’t list all thirteen, here are some of the highlights including the revelation that finding the exact right location for the thumb cluster is the most difficult task of a project like this.

As far as building it goes, the hardest part might be the soldering/wiring, unless you use something like the Amoeba single-switch PCBs which allow for hot swapping. At first, the Wedgetyl had Cherry MX reds, but now it has those Gateron clears.

There are other gems in the post, like all wiring guides on the Internet are crap and TRRS connectors are stupid. While I’d love to see [burbilog] create the ideal wiring guide for at least this keyboard, I totally understand if that’s never going to happen. And apparently they fried some pins on the RP2040 trying to use a TRRS. There are a ton of options out there, and it seems [burbilog] already found one in the form of the 4-pin M8 connector. Great build, [burbilog], and I can’t wait to see your second one.

The Centerfold: Crowkb, Minus a Few Keys

This lovely little lavender number is the crowkb_38, which is a few keys removed from [CrackerRobot]’s original 46-key crowkb. That slammin’ desk mat is from One of Zero, and the key caps are MBKs. See those pinky keys on the sides there? [CrackerRobot] has them set up as Esc and Enter. What would you use them for?

Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad? Send me a picture along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!

Historical Clackers: the Corona 3 Folding Typewriter

While folding keyboards are quite cool, they are really nothing new. (Are you surprised?) If you were a soldier or a journalist during WWI, or happened to be named Hemingway, chances are good that you would have used a Corona 3 folding typewriter. Huff Post called it the first laptop.

Few typewriters ever reach icon status, and the Corona 3 is one of them. This extremely popular typewriter was made between 1912 and 1941. The platen and carriage fold down over the keyboard, which makes it compact and more portable.

Each of the 28 regular keys has three characters on the type bar, so between lower case, upper case, and all the third functions, you have quite a full keyboard thanks to the layers you get with FIG and CAP. You can see some rather nice pictures here.

The Corona 3 was so successful that the Standard Typewriter company changed its name to the Corona Typewriting Company in 1914. The company merged with L.C. Smith & Brothers Typewriting to become Smith-Corona, and eventually Smith Corona Marchant (SCM) in 1958. After a couple of bankruptcies, the company settled on selling thermal paper.

ICYMI: Keyboard for Ants Gets RGB

Aughhhh, it’s so tiny! You know I can’t resist things that are either way smaller or way larger than life, and my only regret is that I didn’t see this tiny backlit keyboard before [Lewin] did. Hey, at least I can write about it here.

This actually isn’t [juskim]’s first tiny keyboard, but as you’ll see in the video, it’s much smaller than the previous attempt. Even though it’s tiny, this 60% design is really inclusive, sporting a number row, a function row, and even +/-/= and square brackets.

You can see that it’s small, but if you want to make a maquette to really fathom the size of this thing, it measures 66 mm x 21 mm. Smaller than a Blackberry keyboard. And yes, you can actually type on it, because it’s a real, working keyboard with an ATmega32U4 brain and tiny 3D printed key caps. [juskim] managed to bang out 14 words per minute on it, which is pretty good considering the size.

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Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards? Help me out by sending in a link or two. Don’t want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to email me directly.

What can you do with a one-button keyboard? Quite a bit, actually, especially if that key has a little screen on it. That’s the idea behind [Maker M0]’s MagicClick macro pad, which is an updated version of a highly useful project we have featured in the past. Well, now there’s a tiny game to go with it.

Think you’re pretty good at measuring the passage of time? This game will likely prove you wrong. Press and hold the button and the timer begins with some pre-determined interval, such as four seconds. Once you think those four seconds have passed, release the button and find out how far off you were.

While the first version of this keyboard used the CH582F RISC-V microcontroller, the second and this third version use an ESP32-S3 on a custom, tightly packed PCB. That TFT display measures 0.85″, and the battery is an 3.7 V 802025 Li-Po. [Maker M0] has also redesigned this to make it easier to print, and plans to support circular screens in the near future.

They say Rome wasn’t built in a day, but this great little music-controlling macro pad by [nibbler] actually was. Why? Because as Hackaday’s own [Donald Papp] reminded us, we all need a win sometimes, especially as projects drag on and on without any end in sight.

As [nibbler] points out, what really constitutes a win? Set the bar too low and it won’t feel like one at all. Too high, and you may become too discouraged to cross the finish line. With that in mind, [nibbler] set the bar differently, limiting themselves to what could be done in the one day per week they have to devote time to electronic matters.

One-day turnaround usually means using parts on hand and limiting oneself to already-learned skills and techniques. No problem for [nibbler], who, armed with an Arduino Leonardo Tiny and a some colorful push buttons, set about designing a suitable enclosure, and then putting it all together. Was this a win? [nibbler] says yes, and so do I.

Keycaps To Dye For

When I saw [Nosp1]’s reddit post about dyeing their Moonlander keycaps, I remembered I was going to do that myself one of these days. While I was planning to use good ol’ Rit dye, [Nosp1] pointed to a video they watched that uses something called iDye Poly. Irritating name aside, this stuff looks like it does a fine job of dyeing keycaps evenly and vibrantly.

It’s important that you realize there is both iDye and iDye Poly out there, and the latter is what you want. The difference is mainly in the extra lump of stuff which is dubbed the color intensifier. You will also want a PBT keycaps for sure, not ABS, and a big strainer if you want to dye them more like Easter eggs.

Once you’ve gathered a pot to dye them in and some water, just turn up the heat to a simmer and stir in the iDye gunk until it dissolves. Throw in the keycaps, wait 10-15 minutes, and then rinse them off and let them dry and Bob’s your proverbial uncle. The chap in the video below only did a handful of caps, which looks pretty snazzy.

The Centerfold: Six Sides of Miss Fifi

Despite all the angles presented here (and more here), we don’t know a lot about [pascuajur]’s keyboard, but that’s okay. We do know that it’s a Fifi, which is open source, or you can buy one already made. It’s nice to imagine that those switches are whatever color you want, isn’t it?

Do you rock a sweet set of peripherals on a screamin’ desk pad? Send me a picture along with your handle and all the gory details, and you could be featured here!

Historical Clackers:  The Helios Typewriter

Some people like their keyboards small, like really small. So small that they end up with more layers than a fancy restaurant dessert. Apparently this has pretty much always been the case, as evidenced by the Helios typewriter introduced in 1908.

With just two rows of ten keys each, Justin Wilhelm Bamberger & Co.’s machine could output 80 characters total, thanks to a four-tier, cast-aluminium typewheel and three shift keys located to the left of the keyboard. You can get a closer look here, on a late model of the typewriter.

Operation looked like this: whenever a key was pressed, the typewheel would spin and move forward to strike the paper. Not a whole lot seems to be known about these little machines. By 1909, production had been taken over by the Kanzler typewriter factory in Berlin. Both companies eventually dissolved, and by 1915, the rights were acquired by A. Ney & Co. who renamed it the Helios-Klimax.

Via reddit

ICYMI: ErgO, Computer Interactions Can Be Comfortable

Okay, so this is not a keyboard. But it’s definitely an input of interest. ErgO is a smart ring that acts as an HID to extend your keyboard and mouse with something much, much cooler. No longer will you be tied to the home row. Imagine sitting or standing in any position you want, controlling your computer with ease.

ErgO is built out of breakout boards, so it’s simple to recreate. It has a lot of features that you don’t get with standard equipment, like ultra portability and device-switching capability.

At the heart of this ring is the Seeed Xiao nRF52840, which of course controls Bluetooth communication with your computer. Add to that a clickable Pimoroni trackball and some capacitive touch sensors, and you have a really capable smart ring that should be fairly easy to build or remix thanks to [Sophia]’s detailed instructions.

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Got a hot tip that has like, anything to do with keyboards? Help me out by sending in a link or two. Don’t want all the Hackaday scribes to see it? Feel free to email me directly.