Radix - New Atreus62 Inspired OLED Keyboard Project

Hey All,

Another build log incoming for my new project - Radix :slight_smile:

https://github.com/cozykeys/radix

After building a couple of the Bloomer keyboards my last thread was focused on I decided to start up something new. I bought a 1.5" OLED display that I want to try integrating into a keyboard. I know others have had success with the 0.96" so I’m hoping this one won’t be too different.

Here’s the overall idea for the board:

It’s basically an Atreus62 with the left and right sides split farther apart to allow for an OLED display in the center and the thumb keys adjusted to my liking. The circle underneath the display is a rotary encoder knob. I’m also going to add a spot to showcase an artisan and one of the underglow RGB LEDs will be placed underneath it.

I’m planning to go back to using acrylic layers for the case because it’s so much cheaper and easier to prototype with than 3D models, especially considering I don’t have my own 3D printer.

Also, after looking at how my Atreus62 was constructed (Which I didn’t build myself), it uses 4.5mm acrylic for the plate which I personally think sounds better than aluminum and even feels better to type on.

My first focus will be to design the PCB so I’ll be getting started on that today!

4 Likes

Having the one RGB key is really cool - I like the idea of having one SMD LED for that one cap you want to light up.

2 Likes

PCB Progress

I’ve been working on the PCB and have the switch matrix just about done:

Something new I decided to try with this design was programmatically generating the traces between the switches. It actually turned out awesome:

Compare that to the Bloomer’s PCB:

On top of being much nicer to look at, other benefits are:

  • Direct traces results in a shorter total trace distance which should lower the manufacturing cost
  • Fewer segments in the kicad_pcb file which makes it thousands of lines shorter
  • If I update the layout I don’t have to redraw all of the traces :smiley:

Project Direction

I’ve been thinking of ways to make the OLED display look good in the case and I think I’m actually going to change things up a bit.

I stumbled across this repository after looking at some of the display modules on Adafruit:

And now I’m thinking, why bother using a breakout board display module when the schematics are all open source already? It would be way cooler to just have it integrated directly with the PCB.

I’m assuming it’s using something like this as the display component:
https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Visionox/M01760?qs=sGAEpiMZZMshRHSPqbouvJWDKQb1KqZ1RCrfGWYmblh4cjwkkqRBYg%3D%3D

Similarly, if I could use all on-board components instead of a separate MCU (Teensy, Pro Micro, etc.), I could actually put the LED display at the top and then just have a USB port wherever.

All of these would mean that the board could be much more compact and true to the nature of the Atreus62. The final thing would look something like this:

So, I’m definitely still interested in the OLED display but it will probably take me awhile to get there. First I need to work through the keyboard-pcb-guide on Github and get a functional schematic set up.

4 Likes

Love the atreus - this project would be a dream board for me with the improved thumb placement and the OLED/rotary encoder. The new compact footprint is nice.