you could route the diode not directly to the other pin, but straight to the bus line .. see topmost rightmost key .. the diode is very close to the other pin. otherwise maybe look into using heatshrink or fine silicone tubing for isolating crossing bus bars. but hey overall not bad, and as long as you dont plan to sell it and use it yourself, it is great.
interference is not really a concern, either the lines are touching or not. But think of it what happens when, due to usage or vibration, something shifts. something to make sure everything stays where it needs to would be good. personally, if i would isolate it at that stage, i would maybe add hotglue or uv glue, but only for functiin, not if i would like it to look good. ah and please take a look what happens if a key is lifted (due to keycap change, etc)
Great catch, this is the closest the diodes run to the columns but there is a solid 2 magic the gathering cards thickness of distance lol. The angle of the image makes it seem like they are touching.
I'm going for looks with this design, the case bottom is open so I need to prioritize how it looks, but it's not for sale anyway, it's for a close friend.
I work as a graphic designer, so I change units of measure on the fly, all day long, from fractional inches, to decimal inches, to metric.
I even still use points and picas on occasion, although not nearly as often as I used to, decades ago.
In all that time, I have never once used "Magic the Gathering cards" as a unit of measurement, so that made me laugh.
My country uses metric but we rarely use millimeters so even here 4 or 8mm wouldn't help someone visualize the distance, now imagine for the majority American audience of reddit...
I'm betting there is a overlap between keyboard users and TCG players. Even if you don't actively play, you must have held any tcg card at some point in your life. That's my assumption anyway haha
I blew our shop foreman's mind one day, when he brought a blueprint to me that called out a distance of 1/6 inch.
He asked me "how the hell am I supposed to measure THAT?", at which point I opened the drawer to my drafting table, pulled out a Pica ruler, and handed it to him.
For those who don't know, Points and Picas units of measure, in traditional typesetting.
There are 72 Points to an inch, and 6 Picas to an inch, so the pica side of the ruler had everything divided in 1/6ths of an inch.
I'm sorry but the Imperial system is a complete joke no matter how you look at it... Power of 10 is the easiest system every and everyone can understand and quickly calculate it
I've never really seen that big a difference between millimeters and decimal inches, in actual use.
They each pick their own random starting distance, and then divide it up.
It's those divisions that are the important part, to me, not the original distance chosen.
At the end of the day, either system will create the same accuracy, in the hands of a competent computer operator.
Beyond that, I will readily admit there was definitely some demented redneck involvement in the creation of the fractional inch system, as well as the Imperial system in general.
That is most visible to me, when I see distances measured in miles, while area is measured in acres, rather than square miles.
I can't imagine what was going through the first guy's mind, when he suggested breaking inches up into 64 parts, rather than 100.
Unfortunately, his friends apparently weren't any smarter than he was, and went along with his stupid suggestion.
That's the point I was making, in my follow up posts.
The important feature of any measurement system is the number of divisions on the stick you are using to measure things, rather than whatever random length you've chosen as the starting point for creating those divisions.
Thank you, the wire is 16 gauge. I'm preventing primarily by separation, making the wires stay far apart. If you look at other images in this post you will see that the rows are much below the columns.
Wherever it's not possible to separate, I put heat shrink tubes, but this is only necessary for the other wires that are not in this picture, the ones that go to the microcontroller
Could be personal preference, but I’d add a little edge padding so your copper wire isn’t touching the side of your case, also, you need something to prevent shorts between columns & rows. Great runs though
The image doesn't show it well, but rows and columns are very separated. The rows are touching the plate and the columns are at the switch pin level, huge distance. I isolated the wires connecting rows and columns to the microcontroller tho, they ran much closer to the rows and columns.
Also, its not the usual way of doing things, but next time I hand-wire a board that isn’t column-staggered, I’d put the row wire directly against the switch pin, and the column wire via the diode. This would mean that the wire-to-switch connection would be made to the widest part of the switch pin instead of the thinest.
my last build was this way on a column staggered, because i was not using a wire to connect them, just the diode legs, and the spacing top to bottom is a lot more consistent than the row spacing accounting for stagger
you could route the diode not directly to the other pin, but straight to the bus line .. see topmost rightmost key .. the diode is very close to the other pin. otherwise maybe look into using heatshrink or fine silicone tubing for isolating crossing bus bars. but hey overall not bad, and as long as you dont plan to sell it and use it yourself, it is great.
Yeah this - even if they are apart I'd worry some interference might be caused
interference is not really a concern, either the lines are touching or not. But think of it what happens when, due to usage or vibration, something shifts. something to make sure everything stays where it needs to would be good. personally, if i would isolate it at that stage, i would maybe add hotglue or uv glue, but only for functiin, not if i would like it to look good. ah and please take a look what happens if a key is lifted (due to keycap change, etc)
Great catch, this is the closest the diodes run to the columns but there is a solid 2 magic the gathering cards thickness of distance lol. The angle of the image makes it seem like they are touching.
https://preview.redd.it/kmlitd4yu77g1.jpeg?width=2252&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d472168eb20dc019a3f7b3259c0fd9327084e42
I'm going for looks with this design, the case bottom is open so I need to prioritize how it looks, but it's not for sale anyway, it's for a close friend.
This post struck me as particularly funny.
I work as a graphic designer, so I change units of measure on the fly, all day long, from fractional inches, to decimal inches, to metric.
I even still use points and picas on occasion, although not nearly as often as I used to, decades ago.
In all that time, I have never once used "Magic the Gathering cards" as a unit of measurement, so that made me laugh.
My country uses metric but we rarely use millimeters so even here 4 or 8mm wouldn't help someone visualize the distance, now imagine for the majority American audience of reddit...
I'm betting there is a overlap between keyboard users and TCG players. Even if you don't actively play, you must have held any tcg card at some point in your life. That's my assumption anyway haha
I blew our shop foreman's mind one day, when he brought a blueprint to me that called out a distance of 1/6 inch.
He asked me "how the hell am I supposed to measure THAT?", at which point I opened the drawer to my drafting table, pulled out a Pica ruler, and handed it to him.
For those who don't know, Points and Picas units of measure, in traditional typesetting.
There are 72 Points to an inch, and 6 Picas to an inch, so the pica side of the ruler had everything divided in 1/6ths of an inch.
This reminds me of that SNL George Washington bit
I'm sorry but the Imperial system is a complete joke no matter how you look at it... Power of 10 is the easiest system every and everyone can understand and quickly calculate it
I've never really seen that big a difference between millimeters and decimal inches, in actual use.
They each pick their own random starting distance, and then divide it up.
It's those divisions that are the important part, to me, not the original distance chosen.
At the end of the day, either system will create the same accuracy, in the hands of a competent computer operator.
Beyond that, I will readily admit there was definitely some demented redneck involvement in the creation of the fractional inch system, as well as the Imperial system in general.
That is most visible to me, when I see distances measured in miles, while area is measured in acres, rather than square miles.
I can't imagine what was going through the first guy's mind, when he suggested breaking inches up into 64 parts, rather than 100.
Unfortunately, his friends apparently weren't any smarter than he was, and went along with his stupid suggestion.
Anything's a unit of measurement if you try hard enough!
That's the point I was making, in my follow up posts.
The important feature of any measurement system is the number of divisions on the stick you are using to measure things, rather than whatever random length you've chosen as the starting point for creating those divisions.
I really like your wire work there. What gauge wire is that? Also, it looks like it's un-insulated solid core; if so, how are you preventing shorts?
Very pretty and neat wiring, in any case.
Thank you, the wire is 16 gauge. I'm preventing primarily by separation, making the wires stay far apart. If you look at other images in this post you will see that the rows are much below the columns.
Wherever it's not possible to separate, I put heat shrink tubes, but this is only necessary for the other wires that are not in this picture, the ones that go to the microcontroller
Those switches (with the four holes on the right in your picture) look like they could hide a diode, which gives a much cleaner look:
https://preview.redd.it/rpx60rjuh87g1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f9539b22f335142537ab696215b2e0a7771c0198
You gotta be kidding me lol. I had no ideia. If I ever do this again, that's my go to. Thank you!
I used to do this but keyswitches nowadays don't use this design anymore...
https://preview.redd.it/m4jjpoe4gg7g1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0df2a913f6617f696fbc1cb667b5af7fff0933e8
Could be personal preference, but I’d add a little edge padding so your copper wire isn’t touching the side of your case, also, you need something to prevent shorts between columns & rows. Great runs though
https://preview.redd.it/jr5mwb8ev77g1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=7a68d7c446157c29e3f3174ec9744b520897d150
The image doesn't show it well, but rows and columns are very separated. The rows are touching the plate and the columns are at the switch pin level, huge distance. I isolated the wires connecting rows and columns to the microcontroller tho, they ran much closer to the rows and columns.
Also, its not the usual way of doing things, but next time I hand-wire a board that isn’t column-staggered, I’d put the row wire directly against the switch pin, and the column wire via the diode. This would mean that the wire-to-switch connection would be made to the widest part of the switch pin instead of the thinest.
my last build was this way on a column staggered, because i was not using a wire to connect them, just the diode legs, and the spacing top to bottom is a lot more consistent than the row spacing accounting for stagger
i'm more of a fan of the solid core wire rather than copper tube
It's all solid tho, with 2 different thickness but 100% copper
but no sheilding
Yeah, that's true. Bare copper is pretty tho, I'm going for that look