Design Your Own Keyboard!

Go from zero to hero by following along as I design a PCB for a custom keyboard. Follow along as I prepare a gerber file to order boards from PCBWay! The detailed walkthrough contains everything you need to know to create a custom keyboard PCB using Ergogen and KiCad.

Links:

🪛Soldering Essentials!

Tooling up with these links helps me out at no extra cost to you. Thanks! 🙏

Heat Proof Mat:

Soldering Iron Kit:

Lead Free Solder 0.6 (for sockets and switches):

Lead Free Solder 0.3 (for smaller work):

Flux Pen:

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Details on my 16 key layout:

Or how about 34?

Or if you're feeling totally excessive, 36:

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Contents:

0:00 Intro
1:18 My Custom Keyboard Format
1:52 Ergogen Basics
7:24 Installing Ergogen Locally
8:08 Outlines
11:34 Creating A KiCad File
13:10 Switch Footprints and Nets
14:42 Controller Footprint
15:11 Keycap Outlines
16:05 Additional Footprints
20:03 Bind Values
22:29 Routing
32:37 Adding Artwork
38:40 Uploading to PCBWay

[PCBWay]

Super excited to be one part of your Keyboards, Ben

[CiDK]

Been putting off using ergogen for a while now since it looks a bit too complicated, but this video might finally push me to finally jump into the last step in completely custom keyboard.

[willbreetz]

Ben, great video. I love the series.

What do you think of doing a video on how to modify open-source boards that others have created? One of the beauties of open-source keyboards is building on work that others have done. So for instance the very popular Sofle keyboard was based on Lily58, Corne and Helix keyboards. It would be great to show how to take the Sofle and (for instance) add another thumb button, then create the PCB and case for that new board.

[pithlyx]

For anyone experiencing an issue with the ergogen `row_overrides` keyword not being recognised, i have the solution.
To exclude a key from a column you create a `rows` key and set `{row}.skip: true`
```
pinkie:
rows:
top.skip: true
```

[BenVallack]

If you found this video useful you can help keep this content free for everyone by hitting the Thanks button below the video - super appreciated.

[KyekOfficial]

Honestly, this to me seems extremely more complicated than just using kicad and it's tools. I feel like there is a point of diminishing returns with ergogen, where if you need to do this level of advanced tweaks you'd be better of putting in the time to learn kicad.
I can see it being really useful for a beginner to make a simple PCB prototype, but if you start to feel the need of using custom footprints, rearranging net values, editing footprints and pads, then I think it's easier to do within kicad.


I like that this video now exists, because it is certainly useful for a lot of people. But I hope that at some point they get out of the ergogen comfort zone and give a shot at actually using kicad.

[denesban]

Our unofficial mascot at it again! Wonderful video... Thanks for all the work you've put into popularizing Ergogen!

[ryderr]

Finally got everything routed today, and just ordered the pcbs. I ended up solely using KiCad to make the board out of personal preference, but this video was still a huge help and inspiration in the first place. It feels great to know that I'll have fully designed and built this thing from the ground up. Thank you for making all these keyboard videos and getting me into this crazy hobby.

[BenVallack]

Watch next - how to build these components onto a board:

[MediumSizedPizza]

Really high quality contents here, Ben! I’ve been stalking for a while but this video is just… **chef’s kiss**! Keep up the great work, you’re heading in the right direction. ⚡️🔥

[mavrk]

Thank you. Been thinking of building my own macro pad and this video will be so helpful in order to get it done. I really appreciate the time and effort you put in your videos.

[ux]

This is a great tutorial on Ergogen! Thanks for the good work Ben. Keep it up!

[oragami]

I built my first wireless split keyboard after I saw "The Card" and now I'm building my second one with cad files for the case. Thank You!

[Bobbakerfield]

This is absolutely astounding work. I can't wait until I figure this all out and can build my own.

[cielvague]

Ben : **uploads any keyboard-related video**
Me : **slamdunks the Like button before even reading the full title**

[JanneSauvala]

Great video! I got inspired by your previous videos about making my own keyboard. I hope there will be a follow up video for this to show up how your board turned out

[ryderr]

Perfect timing! I had just started trying to figure out Ergogen after watching your earlier video. Fantastic content as always.

[bibbytenbillion]

i was about to try and design my own pcb with your old video! perfect timing on this

[timlarsson]

This video (and the others along the journey) really inspired me to start making my own keyboard. I'm going from a 100% keyboard though, so I'll have to ease my way down, and has planned for 41 keys, a trackball (perhaps, or another key) and a rotary encoder. That'd be 43 possible key presses, a pointing device and an encoder. I assume two Elite-Cs would work with 24 I/O pins on each.
But thanks to a comment here under this video, I realized that because I'll have over 36 keys, I'd need diodes. (I was wondering why yours didn't have them).
Now there's just one more thing that I'm trying to find an answer to: Serial or I2C to connect the two halves? I read something about I2C not being able to use RGB (The trackball I am looking at has RGB, and I thought it could be fun to play with as a layer indicator, or something like that). Serial has some latency issues though, so that's something I want to avoid.

I'm having a blast watching these videos! Keep it up, and I'm sure I'll be more and more inspired for every video! The planning stage is so much fun, because I'm considering mounting holes for a future 3D-printed case, and other tenting options.

[ayudroid]

Fantastic work. I've worked on editing Corne PCB and I was thinking of doing an automation of the process. This is exactly what I was looking for. It's amusing the amount of ideas I had that I've just found out you've already explored.