This is a nice gadget I made recently for controlling speed / power of my PC fans (all are 12cm, 12V, 3 pin, with RPM output). It has way more features than my old & basic 3 knob regulator which I used for over 15 years. And since this is open source (and I wrote it), it surely has and can have any feature (commercially unavailable, not even thought of, or way too expensive). Obviously it isn’t badly needed, that’s why I made it after so long.
I do not recommend Teensy 3 at all. All Teensy boards are quite expensive and aren’t that needed for a fan controller. I think a bluepill or blackpill would suffice and be much cheaper. More info and detail in my MCU tutorial. I simply used Teensy 3 since I had it available, doing nothing and I had code for it from my older keyboard firmware, so it was faster to adapt it.
✍️Motivation
For many years I was using just the simplest LM317T voltage regulators with 3 knobs (for 3 fan sets).
Obviously a basic analog fan controller is very simple and extremely useful. I had 3 knobs (5k logarithmic potentiometers) with LM317T (even with no capacitors or radiators), mounted in the 3½” floppy disk bay. It was working very well for years and I could still use it.
I did try once a Gelid Speedtouch 6, wasn’t very cheap, and it was hopeless. Even worse, when I realized that I can make a better one myself, like usually. Additionally, after being rather finished with my keyboard features, I had some Teensy 3.2 boards left, lying around, doing nothing, simply asking to be used for something. Even better, I could use my older keyboard firmware for Teensy 3.2 and adapt it fast for this controller.
So I finally got to creating it. I called it “Fancy” from Fan C(ontroller). There was something new to learn too. I even used a cool circuit simulator to find out resistors around transistor, wasn’t exactly the real value later though.
And of course not everything went as planned.
For example: I wanted to use thermocouples for temperature which I had few of already. I tried an op-amp with differential amplifier for them and used ADC to read voltage which seemed working on breadboard. But after doing that for real (and using bigger resistor values) something didn’t work and I saw noise. So after few days trying I dropped it and just used DS18B20. They are bigger (3pin package) but have more precise measurement (at higher cost too).
Unfortunately I also killed one Teensy 3.2 board by accident. I’m not even sure how. I’m guessing some 12V was still left on capacitors and I could touch 3.3V pins with it.
📊Features
A shorter, bulleted list of all features can be seen in sources readme with more detail on electronic parts and schematic (image here).
GUI
It has a 3×3 keyboard and a LCD color display (diagonal is 1.8″, 4.5 cm). I did years ago my keyboards this way, so it also came with 3 levels menu (GUI), many options and even full screen demos (why not). Of course it permanently saves all settings, in EEPROM.
📈Regulating
The main advantage of my digital fan controller is that it allows lower RPM than analog, which then makes PC slightly quieter. This is because a fan needs shortly higher power (voltage or PWM) to start, but can have it lower after it started rotating (I don’t mean the power started rotating ?).
Next, it monitors RPM (revolutions per minute). So a natural safety feature here is: stop prevention (or in general RPM guard). It can increase power shortly to start again, even if user picked too little power to spin, or something stopped the fan.
Additionally PWM outputs can be used, for fans that allow it. Actually all of my old PC fans didn’t work with PWM, so I had to also make analog outputs (channels) for them at some point. I don’t know if it could be more universal, these channels require some other parts. So it can control analog fans (changing constant voltage) and PWM fans (changing modulated pulse width at medium frequency).
Optionally, temperature is measured. It can be used as feedback to automatically set fan power. This is naturally useful if sensor is on (or near) the heating part which fan is cooling. Sure, this can be possible to do with some software, that came with PC motherboard, GPU or a separate program. But it may not work on Linux or have all of my custom features. During summer I had my fans set higher, also even did set them lower when I wasn’t using much CPU (e.g. playing games or building C++). So hopefully this feature will make controller do it now, not me.
Since the display is 160×128 pixels, it can show graphs of RPM or Temperature over time. Even few smaller at once, but with less detail.
⌛Conclusions
Well it was a cool project, not just with digital chips, I had to use transistors with other parts too. I’m glad that one of the boards I have unused got to do something everyday. I hope it will last long. After all, my old regulators were really basic and much easier to repair (which wasn’t needed). Surely this thing is heavy, probably has too many parts too, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not like my PC weight matters at all.
At end of 2021 I bought a WLtoys K969 RC drift car. I will describe here all the modifications I made to it. Also with few review remarks about it, less important comments and rants are italic.
Video here. Drifting in empty office on carpet and kitchen floor (best of montage). Camera was just from old phone: LG K10 2017 Car camera: Ion Snapcam LE, like mentioned below Software used to for video eiditing: Kdenlive on Debian GNU/Linux with KDE
📜History
I guess I should write this chapter here, since being almost 40 requires (an attempt for) an explanation ?. Well, as a child I only had a few (probably Russian) cars from 80s, Two did have a cable from controller, and the one that was radio controlled had only 1 button to go backward, which also made it turn. Yeah I also can’t even. As a teenager, at some point I got an RC car. It had rear wheel drive and used 27MHz. I think I drove it only 2 times. It was fast and meant to drive outside. It had rubber tires so it stuck to asphalt and would rather flip over instead of sliding. It seemed kind of hopeless (compared to today RC toys) and felt like something is missing.
✍️Motivation
In the mean time I got interested in WRC and 4WD on gravel, played a couple of such games too. And finally made my own Stunt Rally. There was a time when I was a lot interested in tires and car simulation.
Recently, once a while I was watching various videos about RC toys. Technology moved forwards a lot in them too. This way, I found out about RC drift cars of 1:28 scale, and after days of watching videos and researching what would be cheap, but still good for drifting at home (or office) I found this WLtoys K969 and saw how it drifts at home. I think I watched later other 1:28 cars (like Mini-Z, Mini-Q etc.), and realized that even thought they are much more expensive they aren’t much better. At least for me as a first car, I don’t intend to drive RC professionally or on tracks. There are also cars and people who prefer RWD only drifting (front wheels move freely), but I was never a fan of that.
So I think this RC is a nice, real life example, even if in smaller scale. It surely reacts and changes direction much faster than real cars. But is certainly less complicated, has no: LSDiffs, torque curve, gearbox, central differential, etc. In this RC all wheels rotate the same, electric motors don’t even need gearbox, suspension has only stiff springs, and there is no flexibility in tires, since those are from hard plastic here.
🛠️Modifications
So the things that I changed and added first to last are as follows:
Moved the pin from servo‘s steering arm higher for more steering angle range. There is a video here where it was easy.. But, a huge but here, as it turned out (for me) the upper hole for this screw is wider and I couldn’t just simply use the same screw from lower hole. Thus I had to go creative to achieve this. Since I soldered a lot, I came out with a solution of putting few wires together for right diameter, then soldering one end to a tiny PCB part (with 1 hole), and just bending 2 wires out of the other end. It still holds well. Visible on my last picture. I guess this isn’t that important but is very good to have. Without this, steering angle is lower, making wider turns, but you still can make tight turns by drifting with quickly spinning wheels to oversteer (lose grip on car rear).
Made throttle range adjustable. How to video here. BTW I recommend that channel, it has many good videos including for this RC car. This is actually the most important one. Without this it will be difficult to not spin out wheels all the time. For small rooms, throttle range needs to be even lower. Of course they made the car to be cheapest, and even didn’t add the most important adjustment to it, I didn’t need those side buttons, so why not having this instead. Meh, always have to make things usable myself.
Added more weight on front. I cut out a universal PCB (my favorite kind) and made a place to solder down wires holding extra weights, they fit well. I used 4 in total, 2 on each side. One weights 4.5g, so this is 18g added on front wheels. This made center of gravity to shift (like 6mm or so) towards front and made the car oversteer even more, it drives better. There were some videos on doing that, just gluing 10g weight. Isn’t crucial though, still can drift without this. My front PCB is also used for lights and wires.
Added front and rear car lights. They are good for better orientation of how the car is rotating and what’s its direction. I mean it is actually easier (for me) to tell this by seeing those lights on floor, especially if car is far. The only way of doing this is making holes in chassis and hot gluing LEDs to it. I’ve spent too much time with lights, first making them in car. This way anytime I hit something harder they would change angle, go loose or break off. I also made a second mistake and made holes bigger to have LEDs with cases. It turned out the cases were too big and so long that made wheels hit them, if chassis is low. I will cut them to minimum and glue again. Good thing about that hot glue is that I can actually melt it with soldering iron again when I change my mind.
Made the RF sender battery use a 18650 LiPo. I don’t get why they didn’t already (was probably cheaper). When full, 4 AAs give 6V, LiPo is 4.2V, but RF sender still works. I thought it would be more difficult, but it was really easy. Just throw out 4AAs compartment and place the 18650 or any other LiPo here. Doesn’t seem to use much power, I didn’t charge it for a month or more. I only don’t know if it maybe decreases range? But with all being digital it may not be affected.
Added bottom lights. I had some old LEDs lying around, now 2 are on rear before wheels and 2 on front before wheels. Their location with chassis holes makes this cool blue X on floor now. I had only two 3mm LEDs so I also used 2 SMD LEDs, which I soldered out from those LiPo chargers (who needs them, red when charging is enough, and were so bright that I couldn’t even?). Then I added two 5mm LEDs (too big, SMD are better) green on left side, yellow-orange on right, located right after and above wheels. This turned out to be useful to know even better how the car is rotated from distance. So later I added same (close) colors to front, behind wheels. I soldered all on small cuts of universal PCBs.
Changed to a bigger car battery. The included 400mAh battery allowing 30 min runtime is laughable. Yeah I can’t imagine drones with 15 or less minutes at all. It was cheap and light, which is why they made it, right. After all, the freaking top speed has to be highest, like it was important at all. It drifts at much lower speed already. My new battery is 1200mAh and allows 1h 30 min drive time (so 3x more). It was made from two LiPo 603450 batteries, each size: 50x34x6mm. Glued with tape, fits nicely in same place, is just much higher and it weighs 45g. Secured it with some cardboard and mouse pad fragments on sides and wire (with thick insulation). I just had to remove their protection, because with it, it would stop for few seconds when pressing throttle too rapidly (very annoying).
With new battery I’ve also done new electrics in car. namely:
4 pin socket for battery, normally plugged in.
ON-OFF switch. I used a 6 pin Tactile Power Micro Switch (self lock on) 7*7mm to switch + from both LiPo batteries.
4 pin socket for charger, plugged in when charging.
4 micro switches for lights (on-off, one small package). I added 47Ω resistors at end of each. I call this a fuse box, their purpose is prevent battery short circuit if by accident some wires connect.
5 pin socket (3 used now) to connect chassis lights.
2 trimmer potentiometers 1kΩ, for dimming car lights and bottom lights.
All this required access, so I made a “door” in half of car’s front windshield.
In total, the boards with bottom LEDs and all electrics weight 27g. Seems too much, but whatever?♂️. Each LED has a 330Ω resistor before. LED calc can be used if needed.
Charger Made using 2 popular modules: TP4056 / TC4056A Lithium Battery Charger and Protection Module. Just added 4 goldpin connector for car socket and that standard 4 pin PC connector for 5V. It does charge the battery in about 1h 30min. I’m not sure if it’s too fast or okay. The 4056 chips are heating a bit too much (at start), so I’m using a small copper radiator on them. Besides of removing blue LEDs from chargers (mentioned earlier) I also reduced the red LEDs brightness, resistors are now 20kΩ (way more). I hate this approach of adding LEDs, even for “turned on” indication and making all LEDs as bright as it can be. I guess if they could they’d made them visible from space or neighboring countries, that would be the best commercial?.
Radiator for main motor. Having more time to drive showed that it heats a lot, especially in smaller rooms. So I used thermal glue and glued some small aluminum radiators (1 cut to match motor length) bottom to motor and side to car bottom, which is aluminum, so good for cooling too. I’m guessing an even better way could be using copper tape around motor and gluing that to car bottom? Not sure. Either way some cooling is needed and would be better to have it done already.
Added some rubbers (cuts from mouse pad) below chassis mounting points (I saw something similar in a video). And later some foam around the car, better late than never. This is to soften hard hits, those happen a lot at start when first learning to drive, especially without reduced throttle. Additionally, at home I do jumps sometimes, banked and U turns (up to like 80 degrees, on a bent sheet of metal I had in cellar) and flip overs can happen this way etc.
At some point while reversing I almost broke one differential end (those, like all parts are plastic). I only noticed when one wheel wasn’t driven. But I managed to put it together with a wire soldered around it, so it doesn’t fall apart completely and works, a bit uneven though. Parts are freaking expensive, probably few times more than their worth. I hate this approach. If someone bought all parts separately it would cost like 2 or 3 times more than the car itself. Plus the waiting for shipment takes time.
After some bigger hit, I broke the thing that holds chassis on front. It is filled with holes and plastic, so no wonder. I made something stronger (and heavier like all I did) from a metal part, M2 and M3 screws. Is more difficult to use but should last longer, if I don’t break the plastic part that it’s mounted to.
Added a mount for camera on roof. Camera is Ion Snapcam LE, it weights 28g, with its own battery. It even lasted longer than car drive. I didn’t yet make it lighter by using car’s battery. Not sure if I will. Unfortunately, videos are horribly shaking when driving, because of uneven wheels.
In total the car with camera weights now 288g. So it is a lot more (was 160g at start) and the front suspension won’t allow more. Without camera and extra weights it is about 240g. I think it still drives well despite the extra weight. But surely when lighter it was quicker and more responsive (less mass and inertia).
Now I’m waiting for new wheels, with aluminum rims. The default wheels on this cars are cheap, all-plastic and uneven. Even like 1mm difference in height when rotating. This makes the car shake a bit. Surprisingly it doesn’t affect driving somehow, and it wasn’t easy to spot. Only slow time videos showed it and those from car camera, which are rather unusable.
Maybe for future (not sure if I’ll try/do any of these): I was thinking of making the controller use IR distance detection for throttle (instead of potentiometer which I already once cleaned since dust made it go chaotic). Using a MCU (Teensy 3.2 which I have lying around doing nothing) with LCD, buttons and rotary encoder for a GUI that allows adjusting all ranges and offsets without potentiometers. I also had an idea about having a light MCU in car to use RF (e.g. NRF24L01 2.4GHz modules) to send some measurements to controller MCU, like: battery voltage (for remaining drive time), motor temperature, car acceleration, rotation and direction (from those popular new accelerometer chips), and making all car lights toggleable and dimmable (with PWM) from controller. Lastly very doubtful, but maybe if I used PC mouse optics and chip I could get real velocity and position on some surface.
⌛Conclusions / Review
I personally can’t imagine having fun with an outdoor, fast / touring car, with rubber tires. Neither with a smaller car that doesn’t have 4WD and drift. And those big RC cars that can slide on gravel (and jump up few meters) are quite big, very expensive (I seriously would buy a new PC instead) and require a big area or a track. And outdoor and indoor tracks aren’t close, are likely paid per hour and have other people. Plus parts for more expensive cars are of course more expensive.
To summarize, I would recommend the WLtoys K969 car, especially as first RC car for indoor use, with more fun because of drifting. But with a few remarks.
I don’t really recommend driving this car without modification 2 (throttle range adjust). I did it at start and it was chaotic. Some say modification 1 (more steering) is also crucial.
Another thing that many say, is that the 2 smallest gears wear out rather fast. Those that drive each differential, both from plastic again. Why on earth aren’t all gears from metal.
Well as I mentioned few times already, nearly all parts are from plastic, which can be a problem. Surely is for small gears. Later if you drive on uneven surfaces or jump, etc. then mountings for suspension will wear out or break (since closest to floor and from plastic). Still (and maybe that’s why) there are many metal upgrade parts and kits, but I don’t recommend any, at all. I have seen too many negative comments from people who say that those don’t even fit together, are bigger, leave less clearance etc. So they just look cool, and that’s it.
The rest of my modifications were optional and just an easy hobby, that lets me spend some fun time, but not with my PC as usual.
This is my newest keyboard controller software (based on my previous one) used in my keyboard CK9 (upgraded CK6), running on Teensy 4.0 with a 2.8″ color LCD display (320×240, ILI9341 chip).
Here are videos of keyboard CK9, showing most of K.C.4 on its display:
View – Short video of keyboard and closeup at display.
Demos – Showing all demos (in auto mode): Plasma, 3D Polyhedrons with diagonals, Wave, Fire (meh), 2D waving CK Logo with shadow, and old Rain.
Features – A detailed look at features, no voice or commentary though. Editing mappings, sequences, testing etc.
Link to my channel with all keyboard videos so far here.
📂Sources
My firmware sources are on github. It’s called K.C.4 (“Kacey”) simply from Keyboard Controller and 4 from Teensy version.
The readme with all key features is visible on github. Here is more practical description. At end of page I wrote a comparison from my previous version (for Teensy 3.2) and quickly with other controllers / keyboards.
📊Features
The current code features are (and were mostly present in my previous K.C. version):
Display with menu, where you can edit everything possible.
Mapping (key binding). So which USB code will the physical key send to PC when pressed. There is a pick list with all common keys (and internal functions, sequences, etc) to choose from when binding. It has group colors and group filter for easier orientation.
Keyboard layout drawn on display. Shown when editing mappings (for currently chosen layer). Has a cursor to move around between keys. It’s also possible to jump to a key by pressing it.
Layers. If you hold a key, whole keyboard layout changes giving you other keys. Kind of like the Fn keys on laptop but much more useful and customizable. A common feature of custom controllers. Locking layers is also possible, either by lock/unlock key, tapping layer key fast or holding it for longer. Of course can be disabled and delay parameters are changeable.
Mouse keys. Keys that will move mouse, press mouse buttons or scroll mouse wheel. Also featuring acceleration with parameters for it and speed in GUI.
Sequences aka Macros. Basically any key combinations (for key shortcuts) and any sequences of key presses (for e.g. passwords). I am showing sequence previews where possible too, so when editing Mappings (for a sequence key), when picking a key from list or Testing pressed keys (if a key runs a sequence). I am also showing in sequences View, all mapped keys that run selected sequence.
Sequence commands are just a further extension.
They are special commands (beside sequence keys), that e.g. wait for few seconds (0.1s resolution), or change how slow the sequence will run (1ms resolution, useful e.g. for putty).
Others allow putting comments (for sequence purpose), and hiding sequence from preview (e.g. for passwords).
There is also a command to run other sequence(s) from this one. Also a repeat command that will do sequence (keys) continuously, until interrupted. This is e.g. useful e.g. if you want to watch a video faster, skipping parts with arrow keys after a short delay or take screenshots while watching etc. Normal keys can be used when a sequence runs too.
All mouse actions are available as commands too. So for example you can press a key (for a sequence) that will press button or move mouse etc. I have this way a mouse gesture done.
Internal functions. Keys to e.g. dim brightness, toggle GUI, toggle LED light, quit sequence, lock/unlock layer, change default layer etc. This a direct way, faster than adjusting parameters in GUI.
Testing and Setup pages. Useful when developing and to check if everything is working properly. Scan setup is advanced and adjust which strobe delay, scan frequency, debounce time I need. Matrix page shows the 18×8 keyboard matrix, with my anti-ghosting code working and any issues from too low strobe delay. It now also features X marks on keys that are available in matrix but not present on layout, this makes locating new extra keys very easy.
Demos and Game. Were already present in previous version and even on the first tiny display I used (128×64 mono). Since I have a display, and a powerful MCU, they show their drawing possibilities. They got extended to new resolution with few added extras. Best shown on videos, links below.
Clock. With date (uses internal RTC, needs 3V battery). Also showing Temperature, read from attached DS18B20 1-wire sensor (optional).
Statistics. Clock also displays (on its extended pages) keyboard use statistics:
Uptime. Time since power on or plugged in USB.
Late hour background. Will start slowly showing top of display orange at 22:00 and every 0:30 min going more visible, being yellow after 0:00 (midnight). This is to notify and motivate me to go to sleep when I sit too long at night.
Active time. I.e. how long I use keyboard without a break (at least 5 min, can be adjusted). Changes color from value. This is helpful to know if I’m doing something too long on PC. After all, it is recommended to take 5 min breaks every hour, it is healthy for spine and hands.
Inactive time. The opposite. Useful to know how long was I away from PC (keyboard). Also changes color when over 1 hour. Meaning I probably should have turned it off, to save power.
Press/min. Typing frequency, so how much key presses are done every minute. A colored value on left, going e.g. red at 120, yellow starting at 50. Also a second value below with total average since power on, with slowly changed value. So it is useful and directly corresponds to how tired will hands be. It’d be great to keep this value below 50, but sadly writing any text (e.g. chat, email etc.) or playing a game makes it go even above 150.
Graphs. As a part of clock, they show history of using keyboard (key presses/minute in the past hours). Second one is for temperature history. There are 320 points on display width and parameters for how often a value is added to graph.
⌨️Keyboard CK9
I upgraded my 2018 keyboard CK6 with this bigger display and K.C.4 and it became CK9. I also added tiny extra keys, lots of them. Above Numpad, 2 rows of 8 or in other words 4 groups of 4. Surely will come handy for e.g. internal functions or could be extra F13-F24 keys for OS. The keyboard has visible tear on few keys already, well I use it since 2016 (was CK3 first). Nothing yet, compared to the 14 year old one (CK7/4/2).
✍️Motivation
My previous version of KC and keyboards with it were quite useful and the 1.8″ color display was good too. The keyboard drawn on screen was minimal. Keys with one letter/digit/symbol had a 5×7 font, but 2 letters needed a tiny 3×5 font. It worked, but didn’t look great. So the new display is bigger 2.8″ and has about 2x resolution (320×240 vs 160×128).
The main reason for this upgrade though was the new Teensy 4.0 with a MCU that runs at 600MHz. It seems to be the fastest one available (on a board with USB, ready to use). And is even way faster than all previous. I already didn’t like Arduino in 2014 when I got interested in MCUs (again), seemed like a stone age relic compared to Teensy 3, but today I can say they probably have computational power of a rock, when compared.
The result is constant 45 frames per second almost always. This is what 600MHz MCU with SPI set at 60MHz for this display does, while using DMA for transfers and double buffered drawing (one buffer is being sent by DMA to display, while MCU draws new frame in second buffer, at the same time).
⚖️Comparisons
Of course, there were many projects of using a big display with slow MCU even. A MCU not having enough RAM for screen buffer. But this means very low refresh rate (low Fps) and flickering (blinking when redrawn).
There are few open source keyboard controllers, I think none of them even have a display, and some still use ATmega 8bit MCUs. Their requirements for program and RAM (memories of a MCU) are minimal, way lower than mine. And the price will be lower too. But the main flaw coming from it, is having to compile on PC and upload to MCU after any change. This is a big nope for me.
📢Rants
So for me, this is now the present (not the future anymore). And well honestly, whenever I see a custom keyboard picture I’m just asking: “where’s the display?”. In addition, seeing Cherry MX or any switches turns me away immediately.
Because there is one more very important thing that is the light press modification. All my keyboards since 2005 have it and it’s just the default for me. Sadly all commercial keyboards are garbage in this matter and people continue to produce keyboards that have a tactile feel, 4mm travel and around 50 gram force to press. Well for me this is the middle ages era. This can cause injuries (Carpal Tunnel Syndrome). And I guess it feels awful for those having pain from using such keyboards.
For my modding process (of reducing rubber dome keys press force and travel) pictures are in this gallery and I made a video of it recently (it is CK5).
✅Summary table
For reference, here is a table with current status of all my keyboards, since start until present day:
Name
Assembly year
Original keyboard
Keys actuation
[gram force]
Notes
CK3 > CK6 > CK9
2016 > 2018 > 2020
A4 Tech KX-100
23 g
Cheaper, bit wobbly, but more keys
CK2 > CK4 > CK7
2005 > 2016 > 2018
Logitech Ultra X Flat
33 g
Stiff foil, old, extra keys
CK5, CK5b
2015, 2020
A4 Tech KV-300H
9-18 g
The lightest foil
CK1
2004
Logitech Ultra X Flat
25 g
First, old, had extra keys,
now only for testing, 1 row dead 💀
This will be a somewhat unusual project post. I normally don’t show off stuff that didn’t need much creative work, but in this case it has a very long history (since 1997). It has gone through many modifications and it is still used every day, now in our kitchen for playing music.
📷Pictures
Gallery here. It has pictures from 2020 and up, showing old look and the newest merge of 2 HiFis. Needless to say, their cases weren’t compatible at all, so there is a lot of black tape around.
📜History
It all started as a Panasonic RX-FT530 Dual Cassette Player. My mom bought it for me in 1997 (its production date inside has 1995), before I started technical high school. It was also around the date when I started learning electronics in practice and later in theory (from 20 years ago) at school.
Since then it has gone many changes and had lots of features, many of them aren’t present now:
Blue LED for radio stereo indicator. Obviously, the first thing to do.
A switch for super fast cassette rewinding (Do feel free to spool through). Tape looked after a bit uneven inside, but very useful.
Green LED lights under both cassette decks (in middle) to see where the tape is at (how much on left and right barrel). Also extremely useful.
I removed the closing decks, and was just having cassettes clearly visible while using.
A small LED for the marker on frequency ruler for analog radio. I think it broke at some point leaving me without a ruler. I guess due to putting it apart and together again, fast and too many times, while not caring much where I place its parts.
Not sure when, I splashed it with (white, silver and gold) oil paint?, from PCB markers I had back then (obviously too many).
A digital clock, at some point on right side. Wasn’t very accurate so it didn’t last long there. Left a switch and 4 places after its buttons in back though.
More input sockets, output audio socket to other amplifier, switch for it etc. I remember at some point of experimenting with other amplifier I accidentally put like -30V into HiFi, killing its power AMP chip. Which I then replaced, was a good challenge. While still being a teenager I obviously needed this HiFi.
Since these became not needed later, all holes got covered with black tape (at least 10 already, in total).
At some point I added a 5V regulator 7805 and USB sockets so I could power other devices from HiFi, e.g. a clock (Instead of ridiculous AA batteries. One can use a 3V regulator or a resistor (e.g. 200Ω) with 3V zener diode).
It has spent a few years, abandoned in cellar. Gathering dust and wishing for a better future.
Many years later, I ended my history with cassettes (recorded them on PC into FLAC and OGG, and threw out after). In 2020 the cassette decks (with all that mechanical nonsense and engine) flew out to electronic garbage bin too. It was just the amp and radio then.
I wanted to have a digital radio, that stayed at given frequency. And BTW a MP3 / USB player, why not. So I ended buying a cheap, local, 2nd HiFi (anyway with Chinese components) which just featured both. It had crappy sound due to small speakers (no bass at all), we used if for short, but naturally I wanted to merge its insides into my old speakers from Panasonic.
🔍Details
The final “HiFi” currently features a digital radio, USB or SD card player (from that 2nd cheap “HiFi” product) and analog input. Its radio forgets frequency after power off though, so power is always on. It was too in Panasonic, IDK why, using about 0.5 to 1W constantly, power amp is likely always on.
I scrapped that stupid Class D amp (MIX3018) from 2nd HiFi, I prefer that AB, although it has too much power. Then located its audio outputs and connected to old LA4108 power amp (low quality, too much power), but with better quality anyway. Later I also added a double potentiometer (which I even had available) for volume on front, since the original was making noise when turning.
I will eventually just use op-amps to speakers someday, and will throw out the big old PCB too, from which just 20% is now used. Then it will be just speakers and case from the oldest HiFi.
There are now 3 extra buttons on top (power on/off (hold) / input, next and previous) to control 2nd HiFi. Light press switches, 0.5N force, my favorite. I put rubber cover on top, to protect form any liquids💧, this is kitchen after all🫖💦.
For a while I had a cheap tiny Bluetooth receiver in analog input, powered from USB, but I dropped it, too much noise and once a while it did reconnect etc. Audio cable is more reliable, even cheaper.
I still use its regulated 5V outside but in different connector (PC like), to power an outside thermometer (was from a PC case) and a digital LCD clock.
Lastly I added a small white LED lamp, that’s always on, and helps moving around the kitchen at night, before reaching main light switch.
⌛Conclusions
So: why didn’t I just buy a new HiFi that already has all those features, instead of continuing with this old junk? Several reasons:
Firstly, there is no such thing as a product that has all features / properties that I need, with proper control and interface (knobs, convenient buttons, menu, etc). This can only be achieved by continuing to develop it myself according to my current needs. I now see all electronics products just as ingredients for further modification. Ideally I would create one from start, but that’d be too much time and effort spent, just for our kitchen.
Secondly, I am an anti-consumer, I usually hate buying. It needs a lot of time for research, to find a product that is closest to: not a hoax/hype, reliable, functional, fair-priced, still cheap, durable (will work for long), allows repairs, looks okay, black, etc. (all at once; add needed, strike out not needed ?). On top of that I don’t like spending money (I like saving it) to support companies, which constantly produce (soon-to-be) garbage.
Lastly, it is a fun and easy hobby that grants better more customized products for daily use.
This is my modified version (a fork) of Double Commander (DC), a two panel file manager. I first forked it in 2017 and in 2019 I finally moved to using it daily instead of Total Commander. I will describe few aspects here.
ℹ️How to start with DC
Here is a short paragraph upfront, for those who didn’t use a commander or are new to DC and want to start using it (or give it a try). I recommend the main website (for download and support) and the documentation (help) about how to use its functions.
DC is cross platform, so it runs on Windows and GNU/Linux. It is inspired by TC. There are of course many other file managers, (some even in text mode like MC), but I think DC is perfect for me and I highly recommend it.
The best features of DC though (for me), are being Open Source (FOSS, this gives Freedom) and still developed. What it means (especially for me) is that I can learn how it works and can change it myself. Or even add new features, including those that only I will use. And I can contribute to the project.
📜My History
I started using a file manager as a kid, already on my first PC which had DOS. It was Norton Commander (NC, in text mode). I quickly got to using it daily, as my main program to do all file and directory operations. I didn’t even know how to do them using DOS commands for a while. Well I barely started learning English and wasn’t able to read any documentation too (it wasn’t needed BTW).
When I was moving to Windows 98 (around 1999), I naturally wanted a similar program. I didn’t like Windows Explorer at all or even windows in general (I was still sometimes going back to DOS). Fortunately there was a similar program, at the time simply called Windows Commander (WC ?). It was later renamed to Total Commander (TC). Using NC in Windows was possible, but not always, since DOS had short file names and Windows has longer.
WC was better than NC, my favorite feature probably being that it could color file names by extension. I think it’s when I started adding my colors for file extensions I got to work with.
Naturally, when I started using Kubuntu and later Debian, I wanted something like TC.
⏳Before I started
I actually reported a couple of bugs that affected me the most and honestly prevented me from using DC. I was also too inexperienced to even try fixing them myself. Lastly those weren’t easy things to fix.
These were:
Very slow File Filters. It took 4 seconds of delay to view 24000 files in a directory with my settings having 123 file filters. Directories over 1000 files were already entered with noticeable delay. And yes, my file extensionslist grew and became something that I enjoy since years. Surely not something that I would throw away and just not use it.
Freeze on entering unreachable network paths. It happened often at work (where I had to use DC not TC) and also for more people. Application froze for nearly a minute. So quite an inconvenience to kill the process every time someone accidentally tries an unreachable path or a tab with it.
Compare by Contents not Implemented from Search result and archives. A simpler bug for a useful feature.
After a few months the first issue was fixed. So I started making my own program to deal with my file extensionslist for both DC and TC. I had a lot of them 96 in 2017 and 239 in 2019, this is just the count of unique colors (file filters), though I split some for readability (e.g. for Stunt Rally track sceneries).
The program has its own page and is called Crystal Color Center. I’m sharing it with my list included. It allows an managing the list on an even higher level, with features like: groups, search, quicker editing (with R,G,B sliders) and of course import / export for both DC and TC. Thanks to it, moving my list from TC to DC was easy and any changes to it is fast and conveniently done in my program.
The second bug was fixed after a year (still, I can’t complain since I didn’t do it earlier). But earlier it became not that needed anymore for me.
After that it was probably the time, when I realized I should fix the rest of my issues with DC. I mean just missing things from TC that I got so used to. It also turned to a nice learning experience and woken up old memories from Pascal.
✍️How I started
Well the start is the hardest part of any software (program or game) or even any project in general. To start, the page Building from source is crucial. And I believe it’s probably the most important page for any FOSS project. Of course beside a good documentation for users. Fortunately the instruction is not long or difficult.
Sources are surely different, because DC is written in FreePascal. Lucky for me, I knew Pascal since DOS and later Delphi in Windows. So I had some start and the rest is nicely explained on internet and in language documentation and wiki. But basically I prefer to just search on internet for particular problem. It doesn’t matter where I land (doc, wiki, forum, stackoverflow, etc.) to read the solution or hints.
At first I was building just from command line. After installing packages for Lazarus IDE (a bit more trouble) I could develop in it. Naturally I created my own color theme for Lazarus IDE as a result. And I also saw that weird build “Internal error 200611031″ plenty of times (well count – 1 too many).
The DC code is quite big and it surely requires time to get a hang of it. Learning FreePascal adds even more time. But it is a very nice (almost funny) language which also reminded me of my earliest years of programming (at college I moved to C++ and later also C#).
Pascal language doesn’t use so many symbols, making other languages look more like a forest. Pascal code looks more like a book. Not a phone book, a novel. An English book where people write what should happen. Assuming that comments are written in English too, which I recommend always.
Well let’s have an example, I have cut and pasted few very readable lines here:
uses
Forms, Controls, Dialogs, Buttons, Menus, Classes;
procedure LoadSettings;
function GetOptionsForm: TfrmOptions;
function GetAName: String; virtual; abstract;
destructor Destroy; override;
const
allowed : set of char = [ '-', '.', '_', '~' ];
var
I: Char;
begin
for I := #0 to #255 do
begin
case I of
'_', 'a'..'z', 'A'..'Z', '0'..'9': Identifiers[I] := True;
else
implementation
if not Assigned(Operation) then Exit;
Operation.Execute;
with Operation as TMultiArchiveCopyInOperation do
begin
if cbEncrypt.Checked then
repeat
..
until sPassword = sPasswordTmp;
finally
Free;
⚖️Pascal vs C++, quick rants
Well I can’t say I’m finally free yet ?, but surely many things from Pascal are great and make it very nice to read. E.g. that uses statement at start, compared to #include each in own line in C++. Or the with do statement that shortens a whole block below.
C++ is a horribly unreadable at start. And just to mention, some terrible mistakes made by just one symbol, like if (i = 0), instead of ==, that compiles fine. But I did like { } brackets for blocks, instead of begin and end, how many times did I spell them wrong.
I also remember my favorite thing from Turbo Pascal: F9 key to build project, if there is an error it jumps to it in code. Far too many times in Visual Studio I pressed: F1 to show error list, Enter to go to error and Shift-Esc to close that bloody thing. I can’t even ? (and those are my own shortcuts, just Esc won’t work).
It is much better with C# where it compiles in background and underlines bad expressions in code already.
One great thing in Lazarus IDE is that it makes tabs for each search you do. Why on earth can’t VS do it??
I could go on. But the point is, it was really nice (for a change) to code in a completely different language. I think I’d put Pascal after C++ and before C#. Okay then, that’s it from off topic.
📊My version
Now we finally arrive at the main and most interesting part (at least for me).
After I was able to use Lazarus IDE and felt good with Pascal (again), I wrote new features and customized DC to my liking. I also made source patches for some features on DC BugTracker.
📂Sources
Full list of my changes (in commits) can be browsed here (or locally after cloning with Git).
Here is what I changed and why:
Undo Close Tab I simply can’t imagine having dynamic tabs anywhere without this. We’ll see if it gets into final DC release, and when.
Multi Rename tool More compact look and new functions listed here. Probably the biggest update. I use this tool a lot at home, e.g. dealing with thousands of screenshots, deleting later half or one third of them, re-enumerating them with this tool and doing it again.
Status bar New look, visible on screenshot above. I really like to have a different status bar (text and color) for when anything is selected. I once had selected files, not visible at cursor, forgot them, wanted to delete a file at cursor and deleted them all.
Size colors Next, why shouldn’t I have different colors for different sizes (K, M, G etc)? Sure for some it’d be too much color. But I’m using the same idea in my audio player (cAmp), coloring track times and I find it informative.
Gradient for cursor (blue) and selection (orange). Also visible on screenshot above. I think it’s nice, more futuristic.
Follow links to destination. With Ctrl – (Left,Right or Up), quite a useful thing. I have few dirs with just such links (.lnk files) and use them as my starting point e.g. when developing one of my projects. And BTW a quick feature to use Ctrl-Shift-S on cursor to make a link to it, without asking.
Find Files results, Color by file types. Another useful extension. Seems natural for me, to have any list of files use coloring by file type (extensions) especially when I have so many in my list.
Some smaller things. Not very important, but definitely nice to have and a cool exercise to find it in code.
Another thing of mine is file and directory rating. I use it constantly since years too. This is visible on screenshot above as symbols ` ^ ~ + after name. It makes it easy to spot more interesting files/dirs and makes them change color (usually intensity). It is also an internal feature of my player to apply the symbols to filenames.
⚙️Contributing (in general)
There are a few different change types to software, that anyone can report, contribute, or have on own fork.
Bug or issue reports. This is relatively easy to do as user. And is surely a good thing to receive as a developer. With more features in project and more systems where it can run, it is difficult to catch bugs. I didn’t like those reports as a Stunt Rally developer, but without them it would be a more buggy game. But still, there is probably nothing worse than a post “help, it doesn’t work”, without any (not to mention all) data required like version, OS, steps, etc. In that case it’s better not to post. There is a general guide for “how to report a bug” and some project have specific ones.
Bug fixes. Like those above, but better. They requires programming skills though. It’s when you fix a bug yourself and submit it (to developers). In Git that would be a pull request (from your fork, name is surely misleading). It is less trouble to merge and test, also more convenient to discuss (on website Codeberg, GitLab, Github, Bitbucket, etc.). But sometimes a patch is enough.
Ideas. Well that’s just the worst IMO. Everyone has them, just having is not much worth. Discussing them could mean wasted time on development. And developers have usually their own ideas and vision of project. Having more doesn’t help. But, I guess, it could be some help for starting projects, with not set vision yet.
New features, implemented. That is way better than just having ideas. Being able to turn them into reality. One can submit those to developers. But there is a catch. Not all will be attractive to put into project. Having too many features makes a project more difficult to test and more bugs are possible. And could make it more cluttered in GUI or Options (wasn’t an issue in my projects).
Custom own features. This is why I have so many forks. I do have plenty of ideas, I implemented them and I’m pretty sure nobody (from the developers) would care or want to add them (reasons above). Additionally, since I have a lot of preferences, it is natural to keep them in my own forks. This way I can keep up to date with upstream (main) project versions and have my stuff too. Priority for me is to keep my stuff. But merging upstream versions is needed too (once a while) even if it takes time. If not done, it would at some point accumulate too much, making upstream update too time consuming. Sometimes in that case, it could be possible to apply (merge) own changes (only if not too many) to a fresh upstream version.
⏳Conclusions
My move to DC was surely long and took many steps. But I’m glad to use FOSS, not just as an alternative to commercial, but to prove that it’s simply the only logical way for me. It was obvious already earlier, when I created my own audio player (I use it everyday).
If you’d ask me why I didn’t yet move to GNU/Linux (from that Windows crap) it is because of all those steps needed. DC was one of them. Rewriting my audio player for GNU/Linux is next. There are few other programs I customized and got used to (Video player, Image browser, etc.) but those two (DC and my cAmp) are crucial.
I think I also showed some aspects of FOSS and the great things it brings. In particular, opportunities to: learn, express creativity and adjust to own needs.
BuildConsole (BC) is the program I created and developed at work*, using C# (syntax here), in WinForms. Specifically to visualize output from build process. It surely is my biggest and most useful C# project so far. Unfortunately I can not open source it’s code because of that*. But I can share my experience from this process.
📷Gallery
Screenshots here. Starting with latest version from 2021 and its features, then with older until first from 2017.
⚙️How it works
At its core, BuildConsole replaces the Windows cmd.exe command prompt (terminal) and will run any command too.
It does so, by creating a process and redirecting its output, error and input streams. For the core part, it was quite useful to browse ConsoleControl code and many stackoverflow answers as usual.
The main needed part of creating process is located here with redirecting (all 3 RedirectStandard*). It is also using BackgroundWorker classes (e.g. outputWorker) that run on own threads and read those redirected streams, to show output immediately when it comes.
Textbox
I used the richTextbox control (included in WinForms) since the beginning. It turned out to be garbage for this purpose. It makes few easy operations really too difficult:
Centering view to a line not even possible.
Adding a text line, is slowing down the more lines it already has.
View always jumped a little (jittered) when adding lines.
Having a user selection while adding text was a PITA, got it almost working.
Had to be unfocused before browsing text above. Otherwise new added lines would jump to end (even if turned off).
Finding text needed a lot of code. Mark all was painfully slow.
So I recently found and adapted BC to use the FastColoredTextBox control instead. Which is on the other side of spectrum. It is so feature packed (almost like a real IDE) that I probably only use 10% of it. Still, it is way faster at drawing text, has all needed features and even some extras already (like bookmarks). It needs using only fixed width fonts though (I used variable before). But it is understandable that e.g. selecting text (block mode too) was much easier to implement because of that.
✍️Motivation and rants
Well everybody in company was using just cmd.exe to build (nearly all) projects, with a custom .bat file. I can’t post how it looked like exactly, but I can surely tell that at some point, it looked like a black and whiteTV noise. It happened when building with VxWorks started, using GCC (which is awesome). But here, it was outputting full build command, for each file, with all include paths too (like 8 lines of junk). In other words, it seemed like somebody was shoving a black and whitesand at my face. Well I couldn’t even ?.
About 6 months after I started working there, I was building a project very often, to test an upmerge of some stupidly outdated branch. This required to look for build errors in that white textsandbox. It is when I realized I seriously can’t look at this trash and I simply can make a program, that filters out and colors this junk (firstly errors).
So after asking and getting approval, I started implementing it. Then after about 2 weeks I had a first working release. It was pretty basic, but already way more useful. It still had a couple of bugs, which I fixed later.
Screenshot
Now I can’t provide a real work example (also because of that*), so I’m including an artificial example on the screenshot (above). Output is similar to real and more general. The good part is that it has like 1 to 3 lines of each common message. Normally there are many similar lines on one screen, but only few unique. This way screenshot shows the whole process on one screen with already most of line types included.
📊Features
Here is a list of all program features from current version. Starting from basic, first implemented and ending with additional extras, added much later (not essential, but useful). I am describing them in place.
🔨Basic
Changing font on Settings tab. Zooming already present, with Ctrl-Wheel or Ctrl-Num+
Unlimited buffer scrollback. cmd.exe has very small default value, and even doesn’t allow more than 9999 lines, in settings.
Settings in a XML file, saved in user folder. I’d say a standard thing. Holds both user set options and all line rules (find text, color, skip and more).
Combo boxes for user paths and commands. With buttons on left to add, delete, set as default.
Filtering (skipping) useless lines. There is a lot of rubbish, e.g. coming from MSBuild (also visible in Visual Studio), like: “Compiling…”, “Generating code…”, something up to date, lines with just “Microsoft Visual Studio” (a greeting commercial) and more. With a simple xml option to skip a line, the final output becomes cleaner and to the point. There is a textbox with last line present (just below console) that shows those skipped ones too.
Coloring lines By regular expression (RegEx), more info on its syntax here.
Later replaced (and extended) by simple find (String.Contains).
Advanced RegExes Use groups and replace (change) the incoming line (to make it cleaner and shorter). Still doing a simple string check first, to make the whole process faster.
⚙️Utility
Progress list. On right, it has just key build steps. Copied from output with time since start. It shows only 0:00 here because this test was fast.
Double click on a line in progress list jumps to it in console. This was pretty easy with FastColoredTextBox and it also centers (impossible and awful in richTextbox).
Find. Searching for text in console, with: find next, previous, mark all and clear marks.
Program icon turning green when idle, yellow when running, red when build has errors.
Saving current console output to a text file. Loading saved files into console, to view them later, in same colors.
Log file, optional. Auto incremented for more program instances. There are checkboxes for disabling line skip in log file or in console.
Tooltips with info text for nearly all controls.
Icons for most controls, also in menu.
Help menu with full documentation in about 10 chapters. Also Changelog and nice About dialog.
Opening VS solution and VxWorks with workspace By button (all with hotkeys), you could open the project in path quickly. There sometimes were more in one path, so new settings were added in xml.
🛠️Advanced
Auto loading settings.xml file when it changed. Open by button on Settings tab, and on save in editor, program already loads it. Useful with many instances, all will do it. Also if one saves settings, other will load it too.
Queue. Ability to run a command in a number of paths sequentially. Done in settings.xml. Main thing here is that if a build fails in path the queue will quit, leaving the failing project path in combo.
Actions. Ability to start or kill a process, at command start, end or fail (build error).
💡Observations
So first, just as a warning, this is my point of view.
There is a number of things I realized here, some I still don’t get and can only suspect.
It is certain that I made an extremely useful tool. What bothers me here, is that nobody did it, in like 10 years. Well, I guess I’m the one guy who could create it so far and that is rare.
Next, which is even more odd, some people still don’t use it. I can only suspect a few factors here, they:
Don’t know of it. It is obvious for me that even the best software (FOSS, well made and useful) will go unnoticed without promotion (or commercials) and spreading information about it. That’s why I am always announcing each new release in local emails and some also further.
Are too lazy to try. Sure all programs have a learning curve, but this one is easy and well documented. Sadly that can happen, even worse if it takes years. I guess I can’t really expect ability to change especially from people who work for too long in one place.
Are so addicted to old methods, that they can touch the future. Actually the present, for nearly 2 years. That’s for me even worse than laziness.
⏳Conclusions
Whatever the case, it doesn’t matter that much. A software engineer has to deal with users. Sometimes even those who “didn’t even try turning it off and on again”. Also, developers need to balance listening to already users (wanting something) versus shouting at not yet users (to gain new ones).
Lastly, I’m glad I could develop this tool, because otherwise I would hate building even more (now it is nice to look at, just old and inefficient). Also I’m glad if anyone found it useful (beside me).
This is my own keyboard controller software used in my keyboards CK6 and CK7 (upgraded CK3 and CK4), running on Teensy 3.2 (or 3.1) with a color LCD display (160×128, ST7735 chip). It is continued in newer version with Teensy 4 and bigger display.
My firmware sources are here. I called it K.C. (aka “Kacey”) simply from Keyboard Controller. A catchy cool name for software is a thing, isn’t it.
The readme with all key features is visible on github too. Here will be a more practical description.
✍️Motivation
My previous keyboards CK3 and CK4 were quite useful. But there were few flaws that I wanted to improve. They had a very tiny display, sure it did the job, but wasn’t convenient to look at for longer. Since I based my code on existing kiibohd controller software, there were few problems. Any change in key bindings had to be done on PC, needed to build binary and upload it to MCU. That’s a long way to e.g. check if it’d be better if I swapped some keys. Not to mention doing it at work. Lastly, there were few bugs which I couldn’t spend more time trying to fix.
So, it’d be better indeed to start writing my own code. And that’s what I did. Right now I can’t find a reason not to use my controller code. Sure, it was easier back then to get started, knowing there is an open source keyboard controller and it runs on Teensy 3.1, this is how I got into it. My code surely doesn’t have stuff present in kiibohd like NKRO support, keyboard LEDs animations and other fancy things I will likely never need. But it now does have features I wanted and it wasn’t that difficult to code them.
📊Features
So the code features are:
Display with menu, where you can edit everything possible (that I needed so far).
Key bindings (mappings), i.e. what USB codes will the physical key send to PC when pressed. There is a pick list with all common keys (and internal functions) to choose from when binding. It has group colors and group filter for easier orientation.
Keyboard layout drawn on display. Shown when editing mappings. Has a cursor to move around between keys, can also jump to key by pressing it.
Layers. If you hold a key, whole keyboard layout changes giving you other keys. Kind of like the Fn keys on laptop but much more useful and customizable. Surely a common feature in custom controllers (like tmk or kiibohd).
Sequences aka Macros. Basically any key combinations (for key shortcuts) and any sequences of key presses (for e.g. passwords). Not typing passwords myself, when my keyboard could do it, was my first reason when starting with keyboard controllers back then. Sadly even in kiibohd you couldn’t change them without rebuild and upload. This then was possible in my fork of kiibohd. To be convenient, I am showing (short) sequence preview where possible. So when editing Mapping (for a sequence key), when picking a key from list or Testing pressed keys (if a key runs a sequence). I am also showing in sequences view any mapped keys that run selected sequence.
Sequence commands are an even further extension. If you have an editor on display (basically a simpler editbox) one could put special commands (beside sequence keys), that e.g. wait for few seconds, or change how slow the sequence will run (useful for putty). Newest ones allow putting comments, useful if you have lots of sequences and want to rather see what it’s for, not what it will press. And hiding sequence from preview, useful if you don’t want to show important passwords on GUI.
Mouse keys, i.e. keys that will move mouse, press mouse buttons or scroll mouse wheel. Also featuring acceleration and even parameters for it and speed in GUI.
I now even have mouse commands with all mouse actions possible to add in sequences. Some stupid programs don’t allow everything using keyboard and specifically want you to click with mouse. But hey, now even this could be done automagically by my keyboard.
Testing and Setup pages. Those are quite useful when developing and in normal use to check if everything is working properly as intended. Scan setup is nice e.g. to check which strobe delay, scan frequency, debounce time I need. Matrix page shows the 18×8 keyboard matrix, with my anti-ghosting code working and any issues from too low strobe delay.
Demos and Game. Were already present in my fork of kiibohd. Now extended with new presets to color display. Best shown on videos, links below.
Clock with date (internal RTC, needs 3V battery) optionally also showing Temperature, read from attached DS18B20 1-wire sensor.
Internal functions, e.g. to dim brightness or toggle GUI, by keys on other layer.
⌨️Keyboards CK6 and CK7
I then upgraded my 2016 keyboards CK3 and CK4 with bigger, color display (160×128 LCD, ST7735) and K.C. They now became CK6 and CK7. Apart from the new displays and my software, the keyboards are the same.
The CK7 is the oldest one, comes from CK4, which in fact was done from CK2 (2006) and is now 12 years old… Still doing fine. Well this proves then, that cutting and gluing rubber domes is nothing that would decrease the lifespan of a keyboard. Even recently folded keyboard foil since CK4 works okay.
▶️Videos
There are a few videos of my keyboard CK7, showing most of K.C. on its display:
View – Short video of keyboard and closeup at display.
Plasma – Quick and colorful show of presets of plasma fullscreen effect. It runs at 10-30 frames per second. Note that I overclocked Teensy 3.2 here at 120 MHz, HW SPI runs at 30MHz. My other keyboard CK6 has Teensy 3.1 at 144MHz, SPI at 24MHz, it gives about 1.5 Fps more here.
Demos – Showing rest of demos: 3D Polyhedrons with diagonals, Wave, Fire (not real) and the older ones: 2D waving CK Logo, Space, Balls, Fountain, Fonts.
Game – falling blocks (Sixtis), or my version of it. It has 11 game presets, generated blocks, possibly diagonal, with many parameters for custom games.
Features – A detailed look at features, no sound or descriptions though. Editing mappings, sequences, testing etc.
Link to my channel with electronics videos here, just from my keyboards.
☑️Summary
For reference, here is a table with current status of all my keyboards, since start until present day:
Name
Assembly year
Original keyboard
Keys actuation
[gram force]
Notes
CK3 > CK6 > CK9
2016 > 2018 > 2020
A4 Tech KX-100
23 g
Cheaper, bit wobbly, but more keys
CK2 > CK4 > CK7
2005 > 2016 > 2018
Logitech Ultra X Flat
33 g
Stiff foil, old, extra keys
CK5, CK5b
2015, 2020
A4 Tech KV-300H
9-18 g
The lightest foil
CK1
2004
Logitech Ultra X Flat
25 g
First, old, had extra keys,
now only for testing, 1 row dead 💀
This is a program I wrote specifically to aid in managing my coloring patterns in file managers. For both Double Commander and Total Commander.
📜History
I was using Total Commander since about 1999, back when it was called Windows Commander. Since then I’ve gathered an already quite big list of file extensions for own coloring. The list even has colors for directories and my own rating symbols.
I’m using Double Commander more now and having my list in it is essential. It also needs a bit of order changing to have similar result in both. E.g. for directories, links, executables. I also started a fork of DC with my own tweaks.
✍️Motivation
Because both commanders are clunky at managing such big lists, I’ve decided to write my own program that will allow doing it efficiently and fast. And by the way it will be usable for both commanders. This way I can now just use it and get my list exported directly into each commander’s settings files, without editing it there at all.
🔍Implementation
The program is written in modern C++11. It was a good step forward into learning it in practice, since all my previous programs and games were tied to C++03. Since I also switched to using GCC, more recent C++ features are available.
It uses SFML library, which allows easily having windows, graphics, shaders, threads, sounds etc. So without too much code and while also being cross platform. Which is important to let me use my own programs on GNU/Linux too.
Gui
I started using SFML already a few years back. But only for drawing text. This time I went further and looked around for a GUI system for SFML. I checked out SFGui and TGui which are good, have themes, most controls, but other that that are basic and need a lot of code for simplest things, same like e.g. MyGui did.
So my interest settled with ImGui which has an abundance of possible Gui controls and demos (on first page, and even more in topics). It is famous for debug panels in games and even is used in editors for games. The main downsides are no texturing of controls (just one color) and no editor for layout. Since you just create it in code, where also events are handled. This immediate mode approach is interesting and allows quick developing. Of course not for each purpose. For use with SFML it needs a helper library ImGui-SFML.
📖Tutorials
I’ve put it all together with CMake and using Qt Creator as IDE. This will probably serve as a base for many of my programs. It is easy to compile on GNU/Linux, as it needs only SFML installed, rest is in source code. To get started using it, you can see the SFML tutorials, the tutorial(s) on connecting SFML with ImGui and my tutorials for CKeys program (earliest 3 releases here). Later checking out the ImGui demo program’s code when needed.
The program’s code quickly got bigger and rich with features. Some are still missing but there already are many features that allow fast and pleasant editing, which aren’t present in those commanders. For example:
sliders for R,G,B colors.
scaling font size
pattern search with occurrences mark, also on slider
groups, visibility, etc.
Also convenient are hiding, toggling directory and newly introduced groups. Groups allow putting lines with patterns together with a title and then e.g. hiding it. Later I added also visibility sets for groups, allowing to easily create other views for list. E.g. basic (public) and detailed (with my custom patterns e.g for Stunt Rally or OGRE files).
The program also has some settings, saved in XML and visible on Settings tab. It also features a Help screen with all shortcuts.
Projects made in it are saved as own XML format (using TinyXML2), where each pattern (or group) is one line. This allows easy comparing (with diff viewers) with earlier projects, and merging some changes.
This is the last version of my program for showing pressed keys. It now also shows keyboard layouts.
📜History
The oldest version of it was useful already in 2005, when I was first tinkering with my first keyboards, later named CK1 and CK2. Program showed a list with the Virtual Key and Scan Code values of pressed (held) keys (and their names). It was useful for adding my extra keys on regular keyboards. First by finding which matrix combinations (shorting row and column) give key presses besides the present keyboard keys. Next for finding their codes and using them for binding in e.g. my audio player.
❌Why Qt and QML failed
I previously did the same program using Qt and QML for GUI. Just to get a bit familiar with it and get my own opinion. The repository with it is here. I finally abandoned it after realizing that I would need extra 55 MB in over 100 extra files just to start the program anywhere else. That’s insane ?, surely for such a tiny program. Maybe a huge editing tool or other big application could benefit from Qt (and QML) and hide that size in its own resources. But definitely none of my own programs. Even my Track Editor, but for slightly different reason: to not add Qt as extra dependency for building, when we already have MyGui.
⌨️Layouts
Now my keyboards CK3 and CK4 have different layouts. Hence drawing keyboard layout is a nice feature and visual addition to the list of pressed keys.
There already is a website where you can edit keyboard layouts, for many other keyboards including ergonomic ones, link here. So I decided to save time and not create my own and just used the output from it. It saves layouts in JSON format. Thus I needed a library for C++ that parses .json files. I decided to go with JSMN which is small and fast(est), at just doing what I needed and not much more.
🪟Program
The program is simple and it was easy to code, right after getting familiar with SFML and ImGui. Which I already used in my previous program Color Center.
Graphics and Gui turned out to be good, even if simply one colored and rectangular. The look wasn’t important here anyway, rather to code and use it fast. I made it basically in 2 days. But of course using parsing code and basic application with Gui from the other 2 programs and pressed keys detection from my older program.
Additionally it features a very fast scaling of the layout through slider and can also fit window to it. And a combobox to change layout for other keyboards.
📂Sources
Located here. Including Windows Releases. Should also work fine on GNU/Linux, after building from sources.
📖Tutorials
The first 3 versions of the program were aimed to be educational and can serve as basic tutorials for simple applications like this one.
Namely cross-platform C++ programs using SFML, built with CMake. With possible interface using ImGui and settings saved in XML with TinyXML2.
See archives in Releases, or use Git to get tags 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5.
The newer two of my heavily modified keyboards. This time having Teensy 3.1 (or 3.2) as microcontroller with a tiny 1″ monochrome OLED display. Firmware was based on Kiibohd, it was a fork with my extensions. I added display support (with a library), menu for editing e.g. macros/sequences, few demos and a game. I did improve them further in my newer firmware, with bigger display.
🛠️Modifications
The first operation I did, was cutting off most of all rubber domes. This makes the keys much softer to press, so needs less effort or fatigue. The result is minimized pressing (actuation) force and distance. Simply more pleasant and comfortable. Also healthier, since the risk of keyboard injuries decreases. I already did that earlier on my two oldest keyboards in 2005 and 2006.
✍️Motivation
Originally most keyboards need about 50 gram force needed to press keys, and probably 4 mm distance. After cutting, the distance is about 1-2mm, the force is at 23 gram for CK3 (top), 33g for CK4 (bottom) and 9-18g for CK5. This can also be varied per key (more detail can be seen on pictures (galleries below), but ultimately the lowest value depends on keyboard’s foil thickness.
⌨️Additional keys
For CK4 there are also few small extra keys. Which were present already in my earliest keyboards CK1 and CK2. Those are glued on top and are made from lightest 0,5N switches available. The row above numpad is used for my audio player control. Rest is custom. This part is optional and I didn’t do it for CK3. The disadvantage is the difference in pressing those switches and much lighter normal keyboard keys. They are smaller so you can fit more, but are less convenient to press. Lastly, regular keys can be used to switch layers instead.
⚙️Microcontroller (MCU)
The second step was replacing the keyboard controller board, with my own. The hardware is composed of Teensy 3.1 (or 3.2) with a tiny 1 inch OLED display (SSD1306, monochrome, 128×64) and a bunch of wires to connect to the original keyboard’s matrix.
The reason for this was to take advantage of already made open source Kiibohd controller allowing any imaginable keys assigned and layers. Also possible are macros, key combinations and even mouse buttons and movement simulation. But changing any of this required rebuilding controller software and uploading to controller, through already present USB.
It was a bit simpler to start at the time, instead of writing my own later.
📊Features
After getting it to work, I implemented my own menu where you can edit sequences, stored in memory (remembered after power off). The sequences are very useful for not typing passwords or simply binding some useful macro combinations or commands dynamically. Which needed a display and menu for entering.
Once I’ve done the useful stuff, I got carried away and implemented several demos on display and even a falling blocks game. I also wrote about it in this forum post.
📂Sources
The code is in my fork here with some more detail.
📷Galleries
There are picture galleries below, also from assembly and videos.▶
All galleries up to now, from my keyboards are as follows (newest first):
Most pictures have some description text (explaining what I did there).
