Mod Framework Keyboard to External USB?

[MJ1]

@rednight39

What I’d really like to be able to do is use the FPR module as a power button without the keyboard. I foolishly ordered one, which just arrived, and I realized that it’s wired through the keyboard. My Thinkpad mod won’t be able to use it unless I get creative (or someone else does, which, thankfully, appears to be the case here).

The fingerprint sensor is just usb, so you should be able to use it, no?

Framework-Laptop-13/Touchpad at main · FrameworkComputer/Framework-Laptop-13

[rednight39]

@MJ1 I’m unsure. The FP reader might work, but I really only care about being able to power it on. If I can secure some time in the next week to play with wiring, I will find out.

[Ayhon]

To update my last post, I’ve made some progress in building a 3D model of the keyboard. Here’s the STL file I’ve come up with Body Keyboard 3.stl (76.8 KB). I’ve been using Fusion360 to model the keyboard parametrically so everything fits, but perhaps there are still some adjustments to be made to the measurements. These measurements have been taken manually and tweaked manually to make the previous model cover the keys of the keyboard. It still hasn’t been tested over the whole keyboard, but I share them in case they’re a useful starting point for anyone. Please do send my way any corrections anyone makes!

My next step would be to create a case for the whole keyboard, after which I would only need @Arya’s adapter for my first prototype!

[Ayhon]

Minor update, I printed a bulky first case prototype and snapped a picture to share!

It still hasn’t been put together, and it’s not the most ergonomic, but I hope to iterate over it to improve a possible final product.

As you can see in the picture, I had to print the case in two parts since the build was too large to fit in my printer. I don’t know what mechanism would be best to hold the case and keyboard together (I’m pretty new to this). I have a sheet of wood I was thinking of using for the prototype’s backplate, but was still wondering how to fix the backplate to the case. For now, I have made some holes to fix both of them with screws, but I’d prefer it if the final product was a bit more polished.

[Arya]

@Ayhon

My next step would be to create a case for the whole keyboard, after which I would only need @Arya’s adapter for my first prototype!

Working on it ^~^

[mpartel]

@Hari_Ravichandran

What if we were to just use the bottom cover kit in addition to the input cover kit? Would that make this project really easy (albeit expensive and a bit bulky), since we no longer would need to 3D print the keyboard case?

Has anyone tried this yet?
Or does anyone know of a reason why this wouldn’t work?
I’m kinda tempted to give it a go.

[Asbestos]

I bought it. The keyboard works, but touch pad is a no go. If you can’t get the keyboard to work trip the BT and GD and plug it in. It will pop up with a drive. Open said drive and download the zip file from the sellers store page and then drop the .uf2 file into the drive. The drive should disappear for a sec then reappear. Then the key board should work.

As far as getting the touch pad to work… I am stuck there, I’ve tried reaching out to Arya/Crimeir, but haven’t received a response back. So the issue going forwards with qmk will be adding/reverse engineering the driver for the pixart trackpad[1][2] that is something that is outside my skill set.

Looking for datasheet for the PixArt PCT3854QR in touchpad module

Welcome to the forum. Perhaps PixArt hasn’t made the datasheet public. But the Framework EC is open source, so you should be able to get what you need there. Looks like touchpad specific code is here. I hope you share whatever you build!

[mpartel]

I just built one too! The USB-C cable needed some scary-looking twisting to get it out of the corner of the “laptop”. Other than that, it was relatively easy to assemble. Nothing but the input cover kit, the bottom cover kit, @Arya’s wonderful controller, and a USB-C cable were needed.

As for software, I did some things to @Arya’s QMK fork:

• Merged with upstream. This eliminated a weird bug where holding S, T and R emitted an extra F6 keypress, and I think this fixed the Fn+Space backlight toggle too.
• Deleted some apparently broken FnLock state storing code.
• Got the Caps Lock LED to work! (I can also control the power button LEDs if I find a use for them.)

My version is here.
Note: it currently swaps Ctrl and Fn. You can edit keyboards/framework_rp2040_controller/keymaps/default/keymap.c to swap them back if you like. In the same file there’s also a line to uncomment if you want FnLock enabled by default.

I’m unlikely to have time to look into the touchpad situation any time soon though

[mpartel]

This eliminated a weird bug where holding S, T and R emitted an extra F6 keypress

Actually this still happens when holding S, T, R and I. Quite annoying when trying to type “string” in code.