When I saw the corne for the first time on the Hola Mundo YouTube channel, I wasn't too fond of the idea of having a split keyboard because it didn't seem too comfortable. I was searching for a keyboard that would suit my needs as a developer. So I thought giving the corne a chance, this would allow me to build something on my own with the design that I would like, unique, made by me.
I realized that on the web page they no longer provided the assembly service that I saw in the video. Still, I was in love with the corne and the idea of carrying out this beautiful project, so I decided to buy everything and assemble it myself.Despite my lacking knowledge of electronics and damaging my first PCB(Printing Circuit Board) after some research I was able to get it right. Without further ado, let me save you a few dollars, here are five tips that I would have liked to find during the project.
1. Buy solder paste
This tip is a little more for people who do not have any knowledge of electronics and weld. The solder paste will save you time, especially if you are new to the world of electronics. It will be much easier to place the WS2812B RGB LED, which is very difficult to weld without experience because of its shape. If you are going to use a solder paste, make sure you use the correct temperature(138C, 281F) to avoid burning or damaging the LEDs. Of course, it does not hurt to carry out a little research on the solder paste. Weld it if you feel comfortable with it.
No-Clean T3 Solder Paste
2. Spring headers
Was my turning point on the tutorial. Spring headers only need to be welded to the pro-micro, so after that I just plug it to the PCB.
I advice you not to weld the pro micro in the PCB, this way in case it is damaged you won't need to make a very complicated and delicate process of unweld it. Trust me, there's a good chance that you can damage the parts of the PCB in the process.
Spring Header - 12 Pin
3. The correct way in the pro micro
The spring headers will prevent us from damaging our PCB, this is really a life-saver, Why? What happens if we solder it from the wrong side? correct guess: We will have to apply desoldering on the pro micro, which is extremely complicated since the spring header, once welded, is left well glued, but if you want, do not pay much attention to these tips. It will happen to you like me in the worst case, and you will wait a few days for the next pro micro to arrive and try again.
Pro Micro soldier from above
Pro Micro soldier from below
4. Surfaces mount diodes
Correctly placing the diodes is undoubtedly too important to get it right, unless you want to end like me and glue all of them to the PCB without looking at anything and regretting after, so I do not remember seeing in a tutorial that they explained the correct way to place the diodes. Indeed they did, but maybe your dear writer, excited to build his corne, flew it until it work no more, but somehow when I noticed that my corne only worked some keys. I realized that the ones that worked had T4 written pointing up, so I immediately applied desolder to those that weren't working and placed them this way, and voilà, it worked.
In any case, the PCB has a small signal that indicates where to place the diodes. The arrow pointing down the T4 written on the diode must be on the opposite side to the one pointed by the hand.
Socket with weld diode and without diode
5. No need to solder PCB screens
That's right, my screens are not soldered to the PCB, and why did I do it like this? Well, placing mine, I realized that the pin sockets are pretty tight to the PCB and make excellent contact. In this way, you only have to solder the pins to the OLED screens. Then, you have to plug them into the PCB.
Maybe some want to solder them to the PCB. Still, I would think more in the future, what happens if one of the pro micro that is on my PCB is damaged, so it is necessary to do desoldering to the screens to get a pro micro, complicating the work and user experience.
Shopping list
Acknowledgments!!
If you read this Nicolas let me thank you for your excellent work showing the corne, without a doubt the best keyboard
That's all folks!. I hope that the experience that I accumulated assembling this corne will be helpful to you too so that you won't make the same mistake I did.
About me
I'm an alien living in the world, ok; no, I'm a backend developer specialized in nodejs passionate about technology, happy and eager to learn and help in new challenges.
Ask me about Node, JavaScript, Express, Docker.
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