Recently we shipped ANAVI Macro Pad 8 kits to Crowd Supply warehouse. Crowd Supply team will start shipping them to you soon to backers of the crowdfunding campaign. Furthermore kits will be available on sale at both Crowd Supply and Mouser.
ANAVI Macro Pad 8 is an open source, custom-programmable, mini 8-key mechanical keyboard. Fully compatible and running the popular Quantum Mechanical Keyboard (QMK) open source firmware.
ANAVI Macro Pad 8 is made in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, EU. Here we write with a Cyrillic alphabet so if you are wondering what is the strange looking text on the parcel’s red labels – it is the word for fragile in Bulgarian 🙂
Keep in mind ANAVI Macro Pad 8 is indeed fragile and please be gentle with the mini OLED display while assembling your kit.
USB to microUSB cable is not included in any of the kits. Pick a cable that suits you best or recycle a cable, for example from an old smartphone. Please be careful when plugging the cable and make sure it doesn’t bend as this may damage the microUSB connector on ANAVI Macro Pad 8.
Huge thanks to all people who supported the project by placing an order during the crowdfunding period at Crowd Supply. If you missed the crowdfunding campaign you can still order ANAVI Macro Pad 8 from our distributors right now!
ANAVI Macro Pad 8 is an open source, programmable, eight-key keypad with backlighting, underlighting, and OLED screen. Following the successful crowdfunding campaign we manufactured the printed circuit boards in a small local factory in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, EU. We would like to explain in detail the whole manufacturing process.
The fabrication includes a procedure called panelization which groups together a number of PCBs on a larger board called a “panel”. In the case of ANAVI Macro Pad 8 the “panel” contains 3 boards. All of them are gold plated through electrolytic nickel-gold process. Gold is very expensive, especially at the moment, but it is still worth it. Gold-plated PCBs have excellent quality with high hardness, wear and oxidation resistance.
Sourcing parts in the COVID-19 time is a challenge but we work with trusted and reliable suppliers. We bought Microchip ATmega32U4 microcontrollers from Mouser. They arrived from the warehouse in Texas, USA. Each microcontroller is with TQFP-44 package that requires surface mount technology (SMT). The local factory has already assembled them alongside with all other SMT components.
The assembly of Gateron red mechanical switches and the red 3mm LEDs for all developer kits requires through-hole technology, a.k.a. manual soldering. This is a time consuming process. To simplify the work and to keep the mechanical switches on their places we created this plate that matches the size of the panels.
There are special holes on each mechanical switch for the 3mm LED. After soldering all of them, the leads of the LEDs have to be cut from the back side of the panel.
After all these steps, testing and packaging the developer kit will not require any soldering. However, people who enjoy soldering like me can order a maker kit and experiment with various mechanical switches and 3mm LEDs with different colors. Furthermore, the maker kit allows to perform a hot-swap upgrade as explained in the previous post.
After burning a the same bootloader as in Arduino Leonardo, flashing the open source QMK firmware and testing our mechanical keyboards are ready for packaging!
Hot-swappable mechanical keyboard allows you to replace switches and LEDs on the go without soldering and without even powering off the keyboard. In this short video tutorial I explain how to make hot-swappable any printed circuit board for a mechanical keyboard with footprints for Cherry MX plate switches. Other brands such as Gateron and Kaihl are compatible with the Cherry MX switches so this solutions is universal.
The video has been created with a maker kit of the open source mechanical keypad ANAVI Macro Pad 8. I have customized it by adding holtite sockets to make it hot-swappable.
Required Hardware
Appropriate printed circuit board (for example for ANAVI Macro Pad 8 maker kit)
Mechanical switches
3mm LEDs which are optional depending on the type of the PCB and the switches
Using the tweezers place the holtite sockets into the PCB. The sockets are small so be careful not to lose any of them. Turn on the soldering iron. Heat each socket and gently push it. So we are using a soldering iron but in this case not for soldering. We are just mounting the sockets using its heat.
It looks easier than it is. It took me some time to do it for all switches and LEDs. Each key has 2 holes for the switch and 2 holes for the LED so basically you need 4 sockets with appropriate sizes for each key.
Step 2
Next step is optional and specific for ANAVI Macro Pad 8. The maker kit includes WS2812B addressable LED strip which should be soldered on the back of side of the keyboard. Please note the arrow that indicates the direction of the LED strip and make sure you are placing it properly as shown in the video.
Step 3
Cut the legs of the 3mm LEDs to make sure they will fit well in the hot-swappable holtite sockets that we have already mounted.
Step 4
Assemble the switches, the LEDs and the key caps. Once you are done with steps 1 this is easy because you already have a hot-swappable printed circuit board for your mechanical keyboard.
By default ANAVI Macro Pad 8 is with Gateron red switches, red LEDs and white translucent keycaps. However, in this case with the hot-swappable version I am experimenting primary with blue Cherry MX switches, green LEDs and dark translucent keycaps. I have purchased several different mechanical switches: Gateron Red, Cherry MX blue and Cherry MX brown. Please note that these particular Cherry MX brown switches in the video do not have slots for the 3mm LEDs.
Although in this video I am using the maker kit of ANAVI Macro Pad 8. The same approach with holtite sockets can be applied on any other PCB for mechanical keyboard with footprint for Cherry MX switches.
Jesús has attached various sensors for collecting data as we as a Raspberry Pi camera to take pictures of the room. He has developed energy efficiency algorithms running in the cloud which make decisions based on the data from the sensor and after that ANAVI Infrared pHAT takes care for transmitting commands as a stream of infrared signals to his air conditioner.
ANAVI Infrared pHAT is a low-cost open source hardware add-on board for Raspberry Pi with infrared receiver and transmitted. Furthermore it has slots for attaching up to 3 I2C sensor modules as well as convenient UART pins. We launched it in 2017 and it is one of our best-selling products. ANAVI Infrared pHAT is available at our distributors around the world and you can order it to build a similar home automation solution.
Have you already ordered our open source mechanical keypad ANAVI Macro Pad 8 from the recent crowdfunding campaign? It is powered by Microchip ATmega32U4: an 8-bit microcontroller with 32K bytes of ISP Flash, USB Controller and I2C. This microcontroller is part of the AVR family of microcontrollers developed since 1996 by Atmel and acquired by Microchip Technology in 2016.
Microchip ATmega32U4 is how ANAVI Macro Pad 8 connects to the USB port of a personal computer, shows graphics and text on the mini OLED display through I2C. Furthermore, this microcontroller has more than enough general-purpose input/output (GPIO) pins for the mechanical switches.
The popular open source Quantum Mechanical Keyboard (QMK) Firmware supports Microchip ATmega32U4 and therefore it is easy to use as the default firmware for ANAVI Macro Pad 8. However, it is technically also possible use ANAVI Macro Pad 8 as a development board and upload Arduino sketches compatible with Arduino Leonardo through Arduino IDE or PlatformIO. Many popular development boards such as Arduino Leonardo, SparkFun Pro Micro, Teensy 2.0, Olimex eduArdu also use ATmega32U4.
After several months of development, the crowdfunding campaign for ANAVI Macro Pad 8 has been launched at Crowd Supply!
ANAVI Macro Pad 8 is an open source, programmable, eight-key mechanical keyboard with backlighting, underlighting, and OLED screen. The popular open source QMK firmware allows you to easily configure custom keyboard layouts and macros, even directly in a web browser.
The crowdfunding campaign has a very modest goal of just $1. We have 3 stretch goals! If we raise $500 or more we’ll add super cool 32 transparent emoji keyboard stickers to all kits. You can stick them to the top or the sides of the key caps.
The crowdfunding campaign will help us manufacture it in a local factory in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, EU. We hope you’ll jump in and help us bring this entirely open source project to life!
The crowdfunding campaign for ANAVI Fume Extractor in Crowd Supply has been very successfully so far so we have already contacted suppliers and started sourcing various components. Most of the mechanical parts have already been delivered and we can have a closer look at them.
As some of you know, we will make and assemble the printed circuit boards in my beautify hometown of Plovdiv, Bulgaria. One of our goals is to support local manufacturing and if possible purchase parts from local factories and suppliers even when their prices are not the best. Of course, ANAVI Fume Extractor contains a lot of parts and some are so specific that nobody manufactures them locally. Because of this the project also relies on trusted suppliers from the US, the UK, Germany, Poland and China.
Transparent Acrylic Enclosures
Each kit of ANAVI Fume Extractor contains 4 transparent acrylic enclosures. They have been designed with the free and open source tool OpenSCAD. The source and the schematics are available in GitHub. For the laser cutting I rely on a local Bulgarian company from Stara Zagora.
There are protective films on both sides of each acrylic enclosure. You must carefully remove them before assembly your do-it-yourself kit with ANAVI Fume Extractor.
Screws, Nuts and Stand-offs
ANAVI Fume Extractor contains various screws, nuts and washers for attaching the printed circuit board, the fan, the display and the sensor modules. The most difficult-to-source part is the 20mm M4 metal stand-off. Each kit contains 4 of them. We couldn’t find anyone in Bulgaria making stand-offs with the required size, so through a local supplier we imported the “abstandsbolzen” from Germany.
80mm Fan
The key part of ANAVI Fume Extractor is the 80mm 5V/0.25A brushless DC fan. This type of a fan is primarily used in personal computers which makes it relatively quite and compact. Unfortunately, this is another part that nowadays nobody makes in Bulgaria so we are importing it from China.
Packaging
All kits will come in an eco friendly recyclable cardboard box made in another Bulgarian town Lyaskovets. Although we do our best to reduce plastic packaging as much as I can, some small plastic bags made in Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria are still required to store the components in the kit. The stickers will be printed in Plovdiv.
The next step is the manufacturing of the printed circuit boards. Numerous components from various suppliers all around the world have to be assembled on the PCB. We will make it in a small local factory in my hometown of Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The manufacturing is scheduled to start right after the end of the campaign when we know the exact quantities.
This step by step tutorial explains how to install and configure the free and open source video conference software Jitsi Meet on Raspberry Pi with 64-bit Ubuntu Server 20.04. Although the Jitsi Meet installation is simple, the network configuration is not.
This tutorial is only for 64-bit Raspberry Pi models and versions, for example Raspberry Pi 4 or 3. It is recommended to use Raspberry Pi 4 with 4GB or more. Please note that Raspberry Pi 0, 2 and other older versions are 32-bit and this tutorial is NOT suitable for them.
Setup Network
To successfully run self-hosted Jitsi Meet on your Raspberry Pi at home and allow your friends and family to access it from anywhere you need to make several network configurations.
The network setup depends on your WiFi router and although the steps in general are the same they vary depending on the router model and version:
Dynamic DNS (DDNS) – the public IP of your WiFi router is provided by your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and in general may change over time. To avoid service downtime and hassle to remember IP address, it is highly recommended to setup DDNS. Some ASUS routers, like RT-AC68U, have this advanced service built-in. Alternatively you can use one of the many free or low-cost DDNS services.
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificate – for secure communication over HTTPS. It is highly recommended to get a free certificate from the automated and open certificate authority Let’s Encrypt. You can do this through your WiFi router (if it supports it), manually or during the installation of Jitsi Meet.
Port Forwarding – two ports must be forwarded from the Raspberry Pi on which Jitsi Meet is running to the Internet through the configurations of the WiFi router. By default these ports are: 443/TCP for the HTTPS server and 10000/UDP for the video bridge of Jitsi Meet.
Install Jitsi Meet
Download and add Jitsi GPG key to the list of trusted keys. Once added you can remove the downloaded file.
ANAVI Fume Extractor is a smart, open source, solder smoke absorber. It is powered by ESP8266 with WiFi, 80 mm fan and supports various peripherals: mini OLED display, MQ-135 analog gas sensor for air quality, sensors for temperature, humidity, barometric pressure and light. The filters are replaceable.
Furthermore out the box the open source firmware of ANAVI Fume Extractor works with the popular IoT platform Home Assistant over the protocol MQTT. This means you can gather sensor data and control the fume extractor remotely using your smartphone, tablet or personal computer!
After more than 10 months of development we launched a crowd funding campaign at Crowd Supply! We are ready for manufacturing in Plovdiv, Bulgaria and now we need your support. We hope you’ll jump in and help us bring this entirely open source project to life!
MicroPython allows you to run Python on constrained embedded devices, including our favorite ESP8266 and ESP32. It is a full Python compiler and runtime.
You can use MicroPython on the whole range of our boards with ESP8266 like ANAVI Thermometer, ANAVI Gas Detector, ANAVI Light Controller, ANAVI Miracle Controller, ANAVI Fume Extractor, etc.
How to Install MicroPython?
Follow the steps below to install MicroPython on ANAVI Thermometer or any other of our open source hardware development boards with ESP8266: