1/3/2026 - Create the shematic diagram

after thinking what can i do with the custom devboard i just made (the pepuinoNanoV1) the thought where focused towards a keybaord, so i got hand on kicad and started making the schematic diagram for the pepuino75 (75 cuz its a 75 percent keybaord)

NOTE

the pins in this schematic diagram might seen like wrong but i changed the pinout in the devboard, so i just made it match

pinout of the pepuinoNanoV1

1/4/2026 - Routed the board

today i routed the pcb, and after all the pain of the other projects (the dev board, launchpad) this felt like a breze, it didnt take me as long as i expected, plus i fixed an error in which i forgot to connect the gnd from the roatry encoder with the gnd in the pepuinoNanoV1

1/5/2026 5:19 PM - Re route the pcb + fix minor issues

sou i noticed that the last layer of the keyboard was completely alligned with the previous layer of the keyboard, and after a solid time, i figured, somehow i had one more extra key that was messing everything up, and after deleting it, the fit was perfect, therefore i had to route the pcb again, which wasnt so much of a problem + i added the stabilizers and the spacers place for the pcb!

new pcb!

1/5/2026 5:37 PM - design the case

after the pcb was basically done, i decided to export the step and move it to fusion, and around it, model the case for the new keyboarad, im planning printing this on the h2d, so size is not an issue while printing this case

1/13/2026 - Update the case of the pepuino 75 + add firmware

todays work was to update the case of the keyboard, this includes, adding a switchplate for the swtiches, plus add the knob for the rotary encoder, plus added some nice fillets and chamfers, overall im very happy with how this new case turned out!

in the firmware topic, i decided to use QMK since it is a reliable option that in fact supports the rapsberry pi pico chip, even thought i havent test the firmaware yet, im happy overall with the new layout for the keyboard, just a basic 75 generic keyboard.

Image of the case

New render of this case

Tentative image of the layout

3/22/2026 - Fix crucial mistakes in the case

before sending it to the H2D I wanted to make sure no error happened and theres when i noticed that the wire for the stabilizers where gonna collide with the case so after some tweaking I fixed that and I also added the acrylic display I will cut it uses 8 mm standoffs

3/23/2026 - Soder all the diodes!

After A LOT of waiting all the components arrived, and now it was time to soder almost 100 diodes WHICH HOLY TOOK so much time although it was time well spended

btwww the pcb turned out REAALY REALLY nicely and the silkscreen IS PRISTINEEE i love it so much

now im going to upload the firmware I decided to use kmk since I'm using a rp2040 board so hopefully it's not that bad! I'm also printing the swithcplate in the school H2D and it barely fitted.

3/24/2026 - Print the switchplate and re write the firmware (PAINFULL)

Sooooo the H2D has an insane quality and since its bigger it had no problems to print this. After testing the tolerances for the switches I can gladly say IT FITS PERFECTLY!

and while I swapped all the switches I also decided to write the firmware for the keb again. I decided to use KMK because the pepuino nano uses a rp2040 microcontroller which runs python natively. After some research and READING THE DOCUMENTATION. I started writing the firmware, and it was sooooooo nice, I was at a flow state just writing the code and making sure everything is nice reading the documentation and typing it out and after some hours the firware is ready! Still untested since I want to soder the switches to test it first!

3/25/2026 - Soder all the swtiches + IRL DEBUGGING + Assemble

The day has finally arrived both the case and the switchplate has benn printed out, and after doing a test assemble the keb was looking great. Now it is time to soder all 82 keys since each switch has 2 legs I sodered in total 164 legs which took me a whileee.

Once all the legs where sodered it was finally time to properly test the firmware and see if every key works (it didnt) 2 keys didnt work the space and the pg down, the first one was because i forgot to soder the other leg of the diode and the ohter one was because of a crucial mistakes i've done turns out have shorted the switch
so it didnt work the fix was to grab a utility knife and cut the trace manually. Although it took me a bit it was not as hard as I thought.

The other issue I encountered was more of a pain in the a** the encoder wasnt working the switch of the encoder worked so that mean the physical encoder worked, the pins of the pepuinoNano worked, so it wasnt the microcontroller and turns out that the gnd in the encoder was connected to the vcc of the microcontroller! So I needed to brake the traces a again with the utility knife and I needed to hard soder a wire in the back

Although it was challenging at the end I had a working keyboard that I've done myself which I am really proud of, doing something from scratch and seeing it how it evolves is such an amazing experience!

3/26/2026 - Assemble the keb! Finished it!

Final day! today the was the last day I speneded all assemblying and putting some keycaps on be build tured out great! and after some taping and sodering some loose switches the keyboard is ready to use!

Featuring silent green swtiches for schoolwork at mightnight, custom made microcontroller and a rotary encoder.

3/31/2026 - More debugginn + fix encoder firware (KEB DONEEEEEEEEEEEEE)

Now the encoder features volume up and volume down after looking at the documentation and suffering with this same documentation I noticed I was lacking a set a braces and thats why the encoder didnt work so after fixing that I moved to the next issue

The up arrow didnt work and after looking at the firware first I noticed there was nothing wrong with this, so I opened the keyboard up and after looking at the diodes nothing seemed wrong with this and after taking a look at the schematic the problem was as clear as water (i didnt connect the switch to the matrix) so I ran another wire and soder it to another switch and just like magic it worked flawesly nowwwwwww I can say its DONEEEEE

4/9/2026 - Cut thee acrylic piece for the display + update repo!

Even so the keb was done, I still wanted it to look likee the acrylic pieces the corne has. So I exported the sketch of the part in fusion as a dxf, load it into illustrator, put it in a usb stick, open it in retina engrave and cutted the part

Cutting the acrylic was fun! although it started to light on fire since the protective film of the acrylic was still on

(And the proteective film got a bit burned too hehe)

And now you can choose your own adventures as my chemistry teacher says, either 3d print that piece for a NOT CLEAR orrrrrrrr lase cut the piece of acrylic using the dxf attached, the file is in mm just in case anyone strugles with the scales

Note: Nowwwww I can finally seee the beautiful silkscreen of the pepuino nano v1