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UniChunky

The UniChunky by u/tenstaana is basically two Chunkys fused together.

KBD.news
Published August 8, 2022
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The UniChunky by tenstaana is basically two Chunkies fused together, running on an RP2040.

After sadekbaroudi and I worked on the Rocksolid, I fell in love with unibodies. Also, I've really wanted to get a cocot46plus. But I wasn't able to snag one for the past two drops (it sells out in minutes). So I said: let met just make one with trackball in the middle – tenstaana.

The author knew exactly he will run out of pins so he used tzarc's (Ghoul) approach using three SPI pins (CS, MISO, and SCK) for the entire "matrix" using shift registers. (Recently, this technique was used by Peng Zhihui on his Hello Word keyboard as well.)

With regards to other inspirations, most of the pointing device code is from Charly and drashna.

Design notes/considerations

  • The trackball and the mouse buttons should be comfortable to use one-handed or two-handed.
  • Scroll ring. "Thankfully Bourns came out with a hollow shaft encoder which is just perfect (60mm outer diameter)."
  • The small space in the middle limited the author to the use of ceramic nitride balls instead of rollers or BTUs.
  • It must fit the front pocket of a laptop bag.
  • Must have a chunky knob on top.
  • Must have a trackpoint – SK8707 using a 19mm labret extension.
  • Hidden the screen bits, more flush with the case.

Other features

  • Audio
  • Haptic feedback
  • Per key RGB and underglow
  • USB 2.0 C hub
  • The center cluster supports a trackball, a 40 mm cirque, joystick, paw3204, or a Pimoroni trackball
  • ili9341 RGB OLEDs (240 x 320 colored TFT)

I am working on Rev 2 which will have correct termination resistors values for the SPI lines – tenstaana.

After that, this board will be open-sourced.

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Published on Mon 8th Aug 2022. Featured in KBD #90 (source).

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