Keyboard Builders' Digest
Save 5% at Typeractive! Code: KBDNEWS
Keyboard Builders' Digest / Projects

KiCad plugin for keyboard design

u/admwscki's kicad-kbplacer is a KiCad plugin using KLE layouts to place switches and diodes.

KBD.news
Published June 1, 2023
Creators! Feel free to tip me off about your keyboard related projects to bring them to 140K readers.

The kicad-kbplacer KiCad plugin by adamws/admwscki is a handy tool for designing keyboard PCBs. Developed an open-sourced to simplify mechanical keyboard PCB design, it automatically places switches and diodes, and uses the popular JSON layout description format of Keyboard Layout Editor.

All PCBs for mechanical keyboards share common properties which creates great opportunity for scripting. Although this project does not aim to provide a complete automatic PCB generation tool, it speeds up the development process by reducing the task of placing the element – adamws.

This tool is compatible with KiCad 7 and available in the official KiCad plugin repository.

(KLE is great for more classic or ortho layouts, but it gets a real pita once rotation and symmetry is involved, i.e. when designing split boards. In this case you may prefer ErgoGen.)

Pic:

Features

  • Automatic key and diode placement
  • Support for different annotation schemes
  • Basic track routing
  • Key rotation support
  • User selectable diode position in relation to key position

Resources

Do you like this post? Share, donate, subscribe, tip me off!

Published on Thu 1st Jun 2023. Featured in KBD #124 (source).


Related

Handwired hotswap generator

Klavgen, a handwired hotswap generator by u/thebgfan is open-sourced.

IBM keyboard part number finder

Need help finding an IBM keyboard part number? Look no further! This tool by SharktasticA takes care of that.

Controller boards for CircuitPython

Controller boards for CircuitPython with Pro Micro footprint by SouthPawEngineer.

Cyberpunk themed typing app

A cyberpunk themed typing app by EspressoJS (source).

PRK firmware

PRK is a PicoRuby-based keyboard firmware running on RP2040 chips.

Switch PCB footprints

These switch PCB footprints by Tweetydabirdie are not new but came up in this week's comments.

×
top