Noddy Keyboard Almost

[Ruptor]

I have managed to make a footprint in Kicad for the surface mount switch so it can take both 12 mm and 6 mm switches for flexibility as attached. I exported it so you should be able to import it if I did it correctly. I must be looking at the wrong documentation because the text and icons don't match the actual display icons but I still managed to get through it partly because hitting 'E' put me in the right editing box. I have numbered the pins in a sensible clockwise top left to bottom right fashion that seem to be different in different data sheets. I can't seem to grasp the library handling methods where the documentation goes off piste so I ended up with two library entries but the footprint exists somewhere in one of the entries. I am going to try and layout the PCB for a third time in this third package Kicad from a netlist if I can figure it out. Still at least I am slowly getting there in a contiguous fashion and might end up with a PCB.
The file doesn't have many bytes I wonder if it contains the footprint.

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

The Footprint is missing from the zip file.

But I will add the Schematic symbol to my keyboard schematic and see if I can work out the footprint.

Do you have a data sheet for the switch?

The other slight issue is the connection to the QL Board, which needs a ribbon cable or cable with a thin PCB to suit the keyboard connectors without causing damage.

[Ruptor]

I don't find this Kicad very intuitive but I have made some progress and created foot prints in a net list pulled in to the PCB as a right mess as attached.

The Footprint is missing from the zip file.

I can't understand that since it is the file in my custom.pretty folder that is pulled in to PCB as in the picture so the foot print must be there.

The other slight issue is the connection to the QL Board, which needs a ribbon cable or cable with a thin PCB to suit the keyboard connectors without causing damage.

Remember I see this as a noddy keyboard but I envisaged either gold plated long thin pins on sockets that I have somewhere and could solder wires to or perhaps the 0.1" pitch ribbon like used on the microdrives. Another idea is solder thick wires to Veroboard and bash them with a hammer to flatten them like a ribbon so they can be poked in the QL board socket.

[Pr0f]

Tetroid might even be persuaded to release his adaptor board as a separate product, then you could make use of that...

[Ruptor]

Tetroid might even be persuaded to release his adaptor board as a separate product, then you could make use of that...

I think you mean I could use a serial keyboard with an adapter but this thread is about replacing the membrane with hardware switches. One could use the QL serial port because Jan kindly posted serial keyboard driver software here
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3099&p=31007&hilit= ... ard#p31007
so no need for an interface. It is how keyboards on terminals were attached until IBM screwed it up with PS/2.

[NormanDunbar]

I can't understand that since it is the file in my custom.pretty folder that is pulled in to PCB as in the picture so the foot print must be there.

I haven't yet created any footprints, but I believe from watching a video on the matter on You Tube, that it lives in a different library. In order to export a PCB design to use on another system, you need to supply the library as well as any PCB stuff that uses it.

HTH

Cheers,
Norm.

[Ruptor]

I haven't yet created any footprints, but I believe from watching a video on the matter on You Tube, that it lives in a different library. In order to export a PCB design to use on another system, you need to supply the library as well as any PCB stuff that uses it.

The files and library management is a mystery to me like the file system of Linux and just like Linux there are many ways to do the same thing. To get to where I am now I had to go back to the schematic thrice in order to give each of the switches the footprint and library location. Then it lost all the references SW that might be a bug. After that the generated netlist still had 5 errors of missing footprints. That was definitely a bug where it had lost them and I had to enter them again for just five switches. I still might have to edit the schematic because on attaching the connector footprints it deleted the symbols and when I entered them again I might have put the pin 1 at the wrong end from fatigue so that needs checking. Still I am learning how to use Kicad all be it the hard way and I will be able to do my main project, the pathogen disruptor MK3, more easily. It should be straight forward to position the components from the above state so it is just the output file generation for manufacture that might give problems. We shall see.

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

The switch footprint is okay, once imported into PCB-NEW. I importrd it into a project specific library.

There does not seem to be a Schematic symbol file.

Do you know the manufacturer of the switch?

[Pr0f]

Tetroid might even be persuaded to release his adaptor board as a separate product, then you could make use of that...

I think you mean I could use a serial keyboard with an adapter but this thread is about replacing the membrane with hardware switches. One could use the QL serial port because Jan kindly posted serial keyboard driver software here
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3099&p=31007&hilit= ... ard#p31007
so no need for an interface. It is how keyboards on terminals were attached until IBM screwed it up with PS/2.

no - it was about an interface board he's made to go into the keyboard tail sockets and has I think a 20 pin connector with an IDC female end on it - it's on here:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3395

[Ruptor]

There does not seem to be a Schematic symbol file.

The switch symbol is in the standard library as Switch:SW_Push. Do you want me to send you my schematic?

Do you know the manufacturer of the switch?

Nope. But it is probably a Chinese copy of an Omron B3FS-4.