Ambra

Ambra

@ambraglow.org

20. Electrons and photons aficionado. box of rust: @localcc.bsky.social pfp: @megrocks.com

874 followers882 following203 posts

Ambra
@ambraglow.org

i haven't posted about this here so here it goes. Last month i bought a used keyboard, thinking i could use one when sitting at my desk paired to my laptop. It was a keychron k3 v2 and cost me around 30 eur, it has a low-profile which is nice for travel, backlight and bluetooth. ....

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Ambra
@ambraglow.org

The video clearly shows it has infrared lights, which confirmed my theory! Here i moved on to figuring out how to implement this in RMK (the custom firmware i decided to use for this board). My first tests were using a pi pico board, but this lacked IO/bluetooth, so i bought an NRF devboard ...

Ambra
@ambraglow.org

To wrap up the posts, i took the first image when doing the last firmware test runs. The second image is the keyboard finally back in its case and with the keycaps swapped. Everything works just fine as of today, i had a lot to figure out but i would have to write a blog post to include everything

Ambra
@ambraglow.org

i haven't posted about this here so here it goes. Last month i bought a used keyboard, thinking i could use one when sitting at my desk paired to my laptop. It was a keychron k3 v2 and cost me around 30 eur, it has a low-profile which is nice for travel, backlight and bluetooth. ....

View full thread
Ambra
@ambraglow.org

i found github.com/SonixQMK, which confirmed my idea of this chip being a chinese stm clone. And later confirmed when the LLM came up with a model nr: SN32F268 by Sonix. Unfortunately, no matter what i tried, i couldn't get debugging to work. So i moved onto a more insane solution (see pic) ...

Ambra
@ambraglow.org

At this time i still didn't know i was dealing with optical switches, so any attempt at writing firmware failed. At some point i had a hunch, and looked up images of the switches which finally revealed what i was dealing with. And just to be sure, i checked the board using my modified DSLR ...

Ambra
@ambraglow.org

i haven't posted about this here so here it goes. Last month i bought a used keyboard, thinking i could use one when sitting at my desk paired to my laptop. It was a keychron k3 v2 and cost me around 30 eur, it has a low-profile which is nice for travel, backlight and bluetooth. ....

View full thread
Ambra
@ambraglow.org

I had to disassemble my keyboard, without too much effort i was in. And i could clearly see the header pads i needed to short, for some god-forsaken reason this only worked once and never again. Everything went downhill from here, the keyboard wouldn't respond to anything ...

Ambra
@ambraglow.org

So as a last-ditch effort i tried looking into the microcontroller, to see if i could attach a debugger and program it directly. I left the job to an LLM to disassemble the stock firmware, and in the meanwhile looked at various custom firmware projects supporting this keyboard. ...

Ambra
@ambraglow.org

i haven't posted about this here so here it goes. Last month i bought a used keyboard, thinking i could use one when sitting at my desk paired to my laptop. It was a keychron k3 v2 and cost me around 30 eur, it has a low-profile which is nice for travel, backlight and bluetooth. ....

View full thread
Ambra
@ambraglow.org

Their warning is quite clear, but the software doesn't even attempt to warn you or check the model it's uploading firmware to. This obviously ended up bricking it. So after realizing what was going on, i tried entering "bootloader mode". ...

Ambra
@ambraglow.org

On some models this can be achieved by holding escape while plugging it in, or pressing keys for a certain amount of time. On others the method is via test pads, and they're easily accessible beneath the spacebar. Unfortunately i was cursed with a model that has none of these options, ...

Ambra
@ambraglow.org

i haven't posted about this here so here it goes. Last month i bought a used keyboard, thinking i could use one when sitting at my desk paired to my laptop. It was a keychron k3 v2 and cost me around 30 eur, it has a low-profile which is nice for travel, backlight and bluetooth. ....

Ambra
@ambraglow.org

I don't know what possessed me, but after testing it and playing around with the settings for a bit i decided to try updating its firmware. Keychron warns against doing this, but i went ahead and tried anyway. At the time i didn't know, but my mistake was picking the mechanical sw. download. ...

Ambra reposted

Erin Rose
@erinrose.bsky.social

hot take, but letting trans kids have hormones is far more ethically defensible than forcing them to wait on puberty blockers, and I hate that most people have abandoned defending that. (my qualifications on this topic: only alive because I figured out how to secretly order e online at 15)

Ambra reposted

AISLER
@aisler.net

A fellow engineer in our Community needs advice regarding EMI - since this isn't our main specialisation, we are calling on your collective brainpower. Got the answers? Help a peer out: community.aisler.net/t/board-leve... Or answer here & I'll forward 🧡 #Hardware #Technology

Ambra reposted

AISLER
@aisler.net

We are constantly amazed at the projects that our community creates. Formula Student team Blue Flash has been developing a system to access the data of their car in real time. Check out how they've developed a telemetry PCB this season in their community post! community.aisler.net/t/formula-st...

community.aisler.netFormula Student - Blue Flash - 5G Telemetry PCBHello, fellow makers! We are BlueFlash Mobility Concepts, the Formula Student team at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Hildesheim/Holzminden/Göttingen (HAWK), based in Göttingen. Our team comprises students from both the HAWK and the Georg August University in Göttingen. Every year, we build a race car based on the Formula Student rule set and attend multiple competitions. During 2025, we were competing in Spielberg, Austria and Hockenheim, Germany. To achieve the best possible per...
Ambra
@ambraglow.org

A week turned into two months, but we're finally back with some stock.. will be adding more as orders come in. By the way we're at v3! which just has some minor routing changes and nitpicks. www.tindie.com/products/tre...

Ambra@ambraglow.org

If anyone's interested add to wishlist rn! or waitlist! i'm gonna be restocking in a week

Ambra
@ambraglow.org

The boards arrived here last week, i've been doing the rounds testing them and i'll probably write a blog post about it since it's too much for a bluesky post but the verdict is, yes they work but i fucked up the BOM for one component (not necessary for it to work but for some functions it is) 🙃

Ambra@ambraglow.org

uh so update:

Ambra reposted

James Munns
@jamesmunns.com

One thing I wish MCU silicon vendors would do (e.g. STM32, Nordic) is be more upfront on the "bill of material" of IP blocks they use in their chips. Many different chips re-use the same IP blocks for UARTs, SPI, DMA, etc. Knowing when this is/isn't the case makes writing drivers WAY easier.

Ambra
@ambraglow.org

uh so update:

Ambra@ambraglow.org

new board in the works! nrf52840 battery powered thermostat with eink display and rotary encoder for control. The final idea is to have multiple of these in different rooms to regulate temperature in each, using Matter for wireless control through HA.

Ambra
@ambraglow.org

If anyone's interested add to wishlist rn! or waitlist! i'm gonna be restocking in a week

Ambra@ambraglow.org

www.tindie.com/products/tre... Restock's happening soon, with version v3 of the board! Routing has improved, and ofc it's framework module sized as well. Now shipping from a different location :D couldn't figure out shipping to the US unfortunately, the rates seem to be impossible.

tindie.comUSB-CThrough by Ambraglow's trinkets on TindieUSB-C has taken over the world as a connector standard, but some hackers still find it hard to work with, this board is going to help you!
Ambra
@ambraglow.org

www.tindie.com/products/tre... Restock's happening soon, with version v3 of the board! Routing has improved, and ofc it's framework module sized as well. Now shipping from a different location :D couldn't figure out shipping to the US unfortunately, the rates seem to be impossible.

tindie.comUSB-CThrough by Ambraglow's trinkets on TindieUSB-C has taken over the world as a connector standard, but some hackers still find it hard to work with, this board is going to help you!
Ambra
@ambraglow.org

new board in the works! nrf52840 battery powered thermostat with eink display and rotary encoder for control. The final idea is to have multiple of these in different rooms to regulate temperature in each, using Matter for wireless control through HA.

Ambra
@ambraglow.org

- added holes to make space for the two capacitors on the xbox board - added pads for UART - added an LED wired to one of the rp2040's GPIOs - fixed the crystal's orientation (we had to fix it manually on last rev cause i fucked up the footprint, it was basically mirrored horizontally lmao)

Ambra
@ambraglow.org

- changed the footprint for the resistors used on the usb pads, from 0201 (requires regular assembly) to 0402 which works with economic assembly.