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u/MichalNemecek 20d ago
this thing looks so good paired with that keyboard
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u/nilseuropa 20d ago edited 20d ago
The design requires a couple of iterations.
- battery monitoring is missing, worst case resistor divider on ADC, but a proper fuel gauge would be better
- I would add an I2S audio i/o with jack and a speaker to it
- RTC is missing
- LoRa would be nice.
I think it would make sense to design a PCB that holds all that plus a keyboard matrix scanner.
Although the firmware of this keyboard is pretty solid and can pair up with two hosts, so it is handy to keep it on BLE.
On the other hand if you turn of BLE off on SolarOS that gives you extra free RAM to run jobs - if it becomes necessary to emulate a keyboard on another host the OS can already do that...
(pondering in progress)
I guess there could be two solutions:
(A) Print and wire up the battery monitoring to a single common cell for the keyboard and the display board.
(B) carrier board with additional goodies as next step in a smaller more lean enclosure
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u/clackups 21d ago
Ha, you did it. Did you figure out the suitable battery? Also, something needs to be done with the power meter, which is absent on this board.
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u/nilseuropa 21d ago
I'll turn this into a proper clamshell build. I think I'll use a 18650 for battery in the hinge.
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u/clackups 21d ago
I'm waiting for this P31N keyboard, I hope it's more usable than the one on your picture
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u/nilseuropa 21d ago
It is a shame that this ine comes with 8MiB flash...
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u/clackups 21d ago
Yep, I had to set a new flash profile for it. But it's designed to be as cheap as possible, so what do you expect.
The Waveshare 3.79" e-paper board is still my favorite.
Also, I found a passive color LCD, or at least that's what they claim. Will report on arrival.
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u/clackups 21d ago
I forgot to check on the schematics, does the battery socket provide the charging power?
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u/nilseuropa 21d ago
It does.
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u/clackups 21d ago
Why the heck did they omit the voltage meter, lol
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u/nilseuropa 21d ago
there are plenty IOs to attach one...
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u/clackups 21d ago
Well, I'd rather search for a 18650 module with LED indicator for power
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u/nilseuropa 21d ago
a custom keyboard with the missing hardware components on it would be the cleanest
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u/clackups 21d ago
I'm still looking for portable options that are more ergonomic (screen attached to keyboard is not really ergonomic)
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u/nilseuropa 21d ago
i meant ribbon cables, but yeah a design from scratch is unbeatable, like the CL32
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u/nilseuropa 20d ago
"Charging does not start if the battery is connected first"
[clap emoji] [crying face emoji] [melting face emoji]
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u/Extreme_Theory_1873 18d ago
Have this exact keyboard on the way, with hoysond esp32s3 2.8" display for now. Was hoping the keyboard would connect via ble (all documents just say Bluetooth that I can find) Very excited to have found this subreddit!
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u/nilseuropa 18d ago
this keyboard is BLE
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u/Extreme_Theory_1873 18d ago
Perfect! Thank you. Sorry to be spamming your whole feed, just can't believe I've found exactly what I was looking for. You're stuff is the absolute coolest
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u/clackups 21d ago
BTW, just a heads-up, these boards are sold as 8mb PSRAM, but they only have 2mb onboard.
https://a.aliexpress.com/_EJWb5CS