1/10/2026 - Day 1: Created the schematic

I started by looking at some reference keyboards online. I wanted to make a very well-designed keyboard, one that looked and functioned great. I found a few good examples:

I am going for the shape of the first one and the underglow of the second one. I began the schematic by following the ZMK design guide for keyboards, which is pretty simple. I first made the USB diagram, which looks like this:

Then, I made the power controller, which looks like this:

I then added some battery sensing, for which I opted to use a MAX17048 for precise measurements:

I then wired up the switches. I had initially created a 10x9 layout to minimize GPIO, but I realized that that would complicate wiring the switches, so I just copied the layout of a regular 75%:

Then, I added in the neopixels for keylighting, which looked like this:

I also made a small circuit to raise the voltage of the neopixels:

I connected everything up to the MCU (Holyiot 18010) and added an OLED:

1/11/2026 - PCB Work

Not much to say, I just used keyboard layout editor to design a 75% layout, available here and used the ai03 plate generator to make a plate. I imported that into KiCad PCBNew and started placing the switches and diodes. Took me a while since there are a lot of switches and they were also out of order at times since I changed up my schematic. This is what I have so far:

2/8/2026 - Placed Components

I haven't worked on this in a long time, mainly because I didn't want to have to place all the components. However, I decided today to do that. I started with the SK6812 RGB Neopixels, which took a long time. The footprint helped a little since it had outlines of where to put it on the switch, but it still took time. However, I realized that I just had to place the first and last ones in the row in the right spots, then place the middle ones however I wanted. Then, I could select them all, center them vertically and distribute them horizontally. This sped things up a little bit. Next, I added in all the ICs, placing the related parts together. I also routed them to make sure I wasn't placing things too close. For example, this is the battery circuit:

I wasn't sure if I could fit all the capacitors and resistors, but I made it work. Finally, I added in the capacitors for the LEDs. This was the same process as the neopixels, but it took a long time because there was no alignment tool. However, I knew that EasyEDA had a "move sequentially" feature that allowed me to skip selecting the component each time. I have searched for this before for KiCad but never found it. I decided to do another search and found that it did in fact have this feature, but I couldn't find it earlier because it was called move individually. The shortcut was CTRL+M. I used this and placed my capacitors, which finishes component placement. I added a ground pour on both layers and now I need to route 531 traces.

2/9/2026 - Began Routing

Today, I spent some time routing the PCB. I was able to drop it from 531 to 225 traces. I began by routing the switches' rows and columns, using vias on the columns to make sure I didn't block the neopixel lines. Then, I began routing the MCU to the rows and columns, as I often run into the issue of not having room to route around the MCU. However, KiCAD seemed to let me route closer than normal, which I can't figure out why. This is what it looks like now:

Then, I routed the NeoPixels, which was simple enough. I have to route the capacitors next and some residual traces.

2/15/2026 - Finished Routing The PCB

Today, I finished routing the PCB. I began with the capacitors for the Neopixels. These were easy to do, as I just had to use two vias, like so:

I did that for all the capacitors (I found one that was misplaced as well), and then connected them all to a single power line. This line runs across all the rows, like this:

Then, I cleaned up some traces and routed the charging indicator line, which was a thick +VSW line. After that, I used the stitching vias plugin to lower the ~150 isolated copper islands, which got me down to 60. It took me some time, but I was able to fix all the copper islands.
It also took me a while to get the keycaps in the render, and I had to mix and match, but this is what I ended up with:

2/16/2026 12 PM - CAD

I made most of the case today. I started by getting a plate dxf from the ai03 plate generator, using the raw data for a traditional 75% from keyboard-layout-editor. I imported the dxf and extruded it to 1.5mm, which is the recommended thickness for mx keyboard plates. I also recessed the keycaps by extruding the parts of the plate around the keycap, which I did by offsetting the plate outline by 2.2mm. This is what that looks like:

Then, I created the bottom of the case. This was simple enough, as I just created a rectangle with the dimensions of the PCB, added a 1 mm offset, and created a 5mm wall. Then, I extruded it up to the height of the plate, which looks like this (These pictures are from when I'm currently working on it, hence the unfilleted edges):

My top and bottom connect without screws, which is what I did in my last ergo keyboard. The PCB will attach through screws to the bottom, which cannot be seen from the outside, and the plate will be held down by the switches. This gives the case a clean look. I then got started on the OLED area, which took some adjustments to get working. I initially had a bottom bit attached to the bottom, and a top cover to the top, but that looked terrible. So, I decided to make it really thin and just on the top. I came up with this design to get the wires through to the PCB, which took some time to figure out:


I see now that I need to thicken a part of it.
Next, I need to add an angle to it, and I should be done.

2/16/2026 1 PM - Finished the CAD

There wasn't much left in terms of CAD. I thought it would take a while to get the typing angle set, as I have had trouble with it in the past. Usually, I try to cut into the keyboard for the typing angle, but that makes me run into issues of holes in my keyboard. This time, I decided to cut a little but add onto it for the rest, which worked perfectly. This is what the side profile looks like now:

It's a 5 degree typing angle. The thinnest part is 1 mm. I also redid the USB C cutout since I removed it at a point and added in the screw mounts:


The big flat thing is the battery. I am basically done. I want to base the color scheme on this: