To recap, the requirements I set for this systems are the following: Be digital. Support multiple devices and syncing. Allow the user to remain in full control of their data. Be easy to set up. Being Digital In order to tackle requirements 2 and 3, requirement 1 will have to be fulfilled. In other words, the system will have to be bundled into an app. As most people already have their phones on them at all times, there is no more convenient option than just using an app and not needing to bring any additional equipment with oneself on the go....

Core Concepts Before starting with this project, I want to cover some core concepts I want. Namely: Ease of use All commonly-performed things (e.g., adding a task, scheduling a task) should be the easiest things to do in the app. Reducing usage difficulty is key to making me stick to using it. Out of sight, out of mind. I tend to get easily distracted by what I should be doing due to excess information....

Background I have rather terrible self-organizational skills. For the last 4-5 years, I’ve essentially been just winging it. To meet the deadlines and requirements given to me by life, I’ve been using solely a calendar (for tracking very important events) and sheer will. In a nutshell, I’ve just been controlled by the demands of life. Tasks are usually only done when the deadline is looming over me, and I have almost no hobbies....

Note: This isn’t going to be an explicit guide on how to add a dongle to any ZMK board. I will create a post for that later. Background I’ve since daily driven the Swan40 for quite a while, and it’s been working perfectly… on my desktop. Since it’s been working out so well, I wanted to make another one to have on-the-go, for use with my laptop. However, this is where some problems appeared....

In this module, we will be taking our first steps towards optimizing the 3D printing process. Why Optimize? Yes, the default settings in the slicers mentioned in the last module should work for most cases, but the issue is that they are designed to be a catch-all solution. In simpler terms, they are designed to be able to avoid

Introduction For the “A Guide to 3D Printing” bundle, the idea is to create a practical guide for people who currently view 3D printing as a black box that creates their desired 3D models in real life. You may check out the current posts here. Initial Difficulties For basically all my life, I’ve always been the learner, never the teacher. While trying to compile my knowledge into articles, the biggest difficulty I had was with structuring....

NOTE: This bundle will be focusing on FDM/FFF (Fused Deposition Modelling/Fused Filament Fabrication) 3D printing. In layman terms, the type of 3D printing where plastic filament is involved. Prerequisites To follow this section, I suggest having the following: A functional 3D printer PLA filament A computer Objective After reading this article, you should be able to: Find 3D models from online sources Use a slicer to turn a 3D model into gcode Successfully print a model Understand the general 3D printing process TL;DR: You should have the bare minimum of understanding needed to print a 3D model....

Tricks In my goals for this project, my number one goal was really the battery life. However, on a tiny split keyboard, I have not seen any good battery mounting methods that do not involve tenting the keyboard to make space below it or having it on the side. I want the battery to be part of the keyboard such that the keyboard’s physical footprint doesn’t have to extend too much to accommodate for it....

Note: You can find the relevant files of this project in the Swan40 GitHub repository. Goals Hardware On-off switch (Like the Corne) There should be a switch to disconnect the battery on the hardware level. Usage of a XIAO nRF52840 It should utilize Seeed Studio’s XIAO nRF52840 as the controller. (This was a cost-cutting measure; the nice!nano, a commonly used bluetooth microcontroller, costs about 26€ a piece excl. shipping, while this board costs only $10....

Disclaimer This is not intended for the average reader. Lots of keyboard jargon is used for the sake of convenience. A Little Background Just skip to the next post if you don’t want to hear my life’s story :D I’m really into keyboards. In particular, mechanical keyboards. I started just about how most people enter this space: “Clicky keyboards are cool”. Well, that is, until they were annoying. Since then, I’ve been on and endless pursuit of the “perfect” keyboard....