2mo ago

I made my own pcb to "un-south" my Keychron v6

I was initially excited about my Keychron V6 keyboard, I was looking forward to a thockier keyboard and wanted the customizability with qmk. The V6 seemed like a good match. But after unboxing it, I realized that the south-facing LEDs weren't ideal. I had just purchased Razer PBT keycaps, which I loved, but they didn't work at all with the LEDs and the escaping light underneath just blinded me.

I tried to make the setup work with custom keycaps from fkcaps (https://fkcaps.com/custom/5ELZPQ). While they were cool, they weren't the same as double-shot PBT keys. The setup wasn't ideal but I just stuck with it.

When I saw a YouTube video about building a keyboard with KiCad, I was inspired to try it myself. I used an ATmega32U, because I thought it would be easier to integrate, but it did have it's challenges: limited I/O meant I had to sacrifice the layout switch, and my matrix is best described as "tortuous". Despite a few errors on my PCB (a group of LEDs were not connected and I completely missed the holes for a stabilizer), the final PCB works amazingly well.

I've added a few photos below showcasing my setup before PCB assembly. You can see the light issues under the keys and how the laser etching from fkcaps isn't very durable.

EDIT: I've published the files to github in case anyone wants to have a look: V6 conversion

19 comments

Super cool! Great job. That's the one thing that bothers me about their boards. Maybe I'll give this a shot too
- It was a fun process, much recommended. I've got an extra 4 pcbs that require a few bodge wires if you've got a V6. :D
  
  Any chance you’d release these files? I might wanna try this too. I miss my shine through keys.

Wait, how did you have the physical PCB? 3d Printed?
- There are services like https://jlcpcb.com/ that fab one-off PCB's surprisingly cheaply.
- There are a number of relatively inexpensive PCB fabrication services available online, that is if all the YouTube sponsorship ads forced in to every channel I watch are to be believed.
  
  Yes, I got it made at jlcpcb. It’s a big board, so it wasn’t as cheap as a small prototype board. But not unreasonable. A good price per board, but a bit of a waste because I now have 4 more that I will never use.

Yeah, the LEDs on my Q6 are the only thing I don’t like about it. I don’t use it in the dark much, but I’ve gotten used to the shine through letters on laptops, so I wish it was the same.

I got a V5 and feel like I got tricked by the "backlit" thing not meaning shinethrough
- South facing fits "Cherry profile" keycaps better, as well as old-school caps with shine-through lock indicators. Would be a bummer if you were expecting full shinethrough though.
  
  It's my first mechanical and I was just hoping to be able to read the keys in the dark

What about the matrix, "Japanese" duplex or something?
- “Japanese” duplex
  No, lol! I wish I had known of this or would've been clever enough to come up with something similar. I basically just yolo'd it the best I could. It was a torture.

19 comments