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QMK-powered 34-36 key split keyboard

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draculad's Introduction

The DracuLad keyboard

This is a 34-36-key-board.

Features

36 keys, two of them can be replaced by rotary encoders making it support 34-36 keys and 2-4 encoders.
bright RGB Underglow with WS2812b LEDs
one SSD1306 OLED per side
support for the pimoroni trackball
powered by QMK-firmware (Firmware has been merged and can be found on the QMK master)
aggressive pinky stagger similar to the Kyria but with a slightly alternative thumb cluster to raise comfort for large hands
support for MX and Kailh choc v1 switches
files for fr4 plate and acrylic bottom plate as well as OLED window

State of the project

PCBs are fully working (OLED, LEDs, all switches, encoders, Trackball)
acrylic plates have arrived and fit perfectly
3D-printable case has been added thanks to the awesome work of Sadek Baroudi
basic ZMK Firmware (not all features implemented yet) exists on my fork of the zmk firmware

Hardware availability

hardware availability is always a big problem and ordering everything yourself is a big hustle. Therefore I'm happy to tell you that Ben from keycapsss (not me) is so kind to offer everything to make a full build. And for those of you who are American, littlekeyboards (also not me) also offers kits
if you live in a remote area resulting in high shipping costs or problems with importing, gerbers for ordering the PCBs and SVGs for getting plates cut are available in this repo, too

Things to consider before getting a DracuLad

for the upper encoder you can't use the really big guitar knobs as they're too wide and will interfere with the OLEDs, the smaller ones are recommended
the thumb cluster is lower than on boards like the Corne keyboard
liking or disliking a layout is not a matter of how "good" the layout is but mostly preference, hence I recommend looking at a split keyboard comparison site and print out some layouts to confirm you like it. (DracuLad can be found there, too)
before purchasing encoders, make sure they fit! The holes in the plate are 12mm x 12mm and won't fit bigger encoders. They're in particular not the size of the switch footprints.

Some pictures to get your mouth watery

draculad's People

Contributors

Stargazers

Watchers

Forkers

megamind4089 sadekbaroudi cidas hyphonetics jyaak keebd pablolema andrey5015 svorach mcjcc lizalc sboysel pokeygithub dgvigil lpanebr papaoursnoob albert-iv

draculad's Issues

Clearer documentation, maybe with pictures?

This is my first keyboard build, and maybe that's the problem... but I'm familiar with soldering etc..

the pinout isn't clear, so I didn't know the right orientation to put in my Elite-C. Thankfully there's a picture for one side which helped (your not-elite-c that you feature isn't helpful since it doesn't show the pinout on it at all)

Your instructions state to solder in the diodes on the bottom, but it isn't clear where to solder the leds? Is that also the bottom?
You have pictures: acryli_no_caps_top.jpeg that show the diodes soldered to the top?!?!?

I didn't know to be careful about aligning the pins inside the square indicator for the controller, so I've got them on the wrong pins for one of my PCB's (so I'll unsolder it and move it, but it'll be painful).

The main issue I have right now: my LEDS won't turn on. I put them on the top, but I'm guessing that's wrong. I tried putting one on the bottom of the other board... but while it flashed green briefly (when pressed to the contacts), after I soldered it in... it won't turn on at all (note, that's the only one I had put in.

Also, you have pictures of the OLED jumpers filled in without the OLED being installed (acryli_no_caps_top.jpeg), also have pictures of the trackball jumpers filled in... but no trackball. So I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to fill them in or not (I don't have the trackball... yet)

It's crucial to solder trackball/OLED jumpers even if you don't plan to them?

Hi and thank you sooo much for this great layout!

This is my first built and although I had no experience in soldering anything other than two wires together, I'm careful and like to study in preparation for challenges.

I will not add an OLED or trackball now and will use all the 36 switches as keys, so no rotary encoders also.

I've read your build guide and every other guide/video I could find on DracuLad layout (very few unfortunately). I was about to just ignore the jumpers until I read your comment on #7:

The jumpers can be soldered, even if you don't plan to use an OLED or trackball at that time. It's crucial to solder them on the side the ball/OLED is going on, though, the jumpers basically serve as a way to make the PCB reversible by reversing the pinout corresponding to the jumpers you solder.

Then I thought I'd better ask: What do you mean by "The jumpers can be soldered, even if you don't plan to use..."?

Well... while reading your build guide I noticed the referenced crkbd link for socketing the controller is broken. I searched and found this https://github.com/foostan/crkbd/blob/main/corne-classic/doc/buildguide_en.md which I believe is it(?).

Reading this crkbd buid guide I've found the socketing controller information and also the information below (what you know!?).

To use OLED modules, short circuit the jumper patterns. Only short circuit the front side

Reading this I did not fully understood if I should 1) short circuit as to close each individually, or 2) short circuit them all with each other?

I then inspected the pictures and am pretty positive it's 1: Short circuit jumpers as to close each one individually.

Just for some peace of mind could you please confirm:

if it's this what you meant by "it's crucial to solder them..."?
in your layout this should be done to each jumper set (OLED and Trackball)?
is it possible to add an OLED later on?

Thanks again!!!

PS: I've attached some pictures just because I'm very happy! I've only done one hand diodes and LEDs yet.

What is the microcontroller in the picture?

The microcontroller in this image has an awesome design! What is it? Or if that's just a cover of some sort, where can I get one?

mirrored keys with trackball on the right as master

Hi, im having trouble getting the trackball to function without having al keys mirrored, im using the right side as the master (there i have the trackball) using qmk cli, not sure if this is a hardware issue with the board as its soldered or a software, could you give me a help?
thanks!

Flashing

I am confused about how to flash the Micro controller; you reference the QMK guide, but I am not interested in customizing a keymap, I would like whatever defaults you have made, thank you <3

license?

i can't seem to find the license of this project.
can you please add a "LICENSE"?

total newbe help'on how to build the gerber

hi, I love this layout but I don't know which of the pcb files I need to open in kicad to create the gerber file.

any tips???

thanks!

Both rotary encoders are assigned the same functionality in current qmk default keymap

When I flashed my draculad over a year ago both rotary encoders worked as expected with a customized callback function encoder_update_user(). But when I lately switched to the new qmk setup with separated qmk_firmware and qmk_userspace weird encoder behavior occurred. So I tried the default keymap with

qmk flash --keyboard draculad -km default

on commit qmk/qmk_firmware@1fa84ea
What happens is, that the left encoder works as expected: VOLD/VOLD. But the right encoder has the mirrored assignment (VOLU/VOLD). According to https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/blob/1fa84ea83c68bb24bc6b21c5abc376ee12d1b939/keyboards/draculad/keymaps/default/keymap.c#L201 it should trigger PGDN/PGUP.

I haven't found the reason, yet.

Do you run into the same behavior?

PCB Pinout

Apologies if there is an obvious file with this info but I didn't see it. Does anyone have a PCB Pinout diagram for the controller?

I would like to use a Seeed Studio XIAO NRF52840, which is shorter than a Pro Micro but a 3x5+3 matrix doesn't take many pins. Since I am going wireless/ZMK I don't care about LEDs or trackball and could live without encoders if I had to. If some of the matrix pins are lower down (where they would be missing on my controller) I could wire jumpers, I would just need to know which pins.

Thanks!

e Key Not Registering

Hello,

I ordered a dracuLad kit from littlekeyboards.com and I'm having an issue where the E key is not registering (red circle). I replaced the nearby diode (blue circle) but no luck. I also tried creating a bridge with the nearby keys, but I was unable to get it working.

Once, while fixing the last LED of the right hand side PCB, the e key registered. Unfortunately, I tried the e key after a couple of minutes and it stopped registering.

Do you have any advice as to what could be going wrong/how to fix it? Could it be a manufacturing defect?

Thank you

Pimoroni firmware

So I built the keyboard and it works except for the trackball that I have on the right side of the board. When I plug in only the right half, the pimoroni works fine, but when I link that to the left half and use the left as the master side it doesn't function.
I saw in the keymap something about commenting out part of the code on the side without the trackball but I'm not sure what exactly I need to do to get it functioning properly, any help would be greatly appreciated.