Tag: crowdfunding

KMK: Harnessing the Potential of Open Source and CircuitPython to Energize Mechanical Keyboards

Within the realm of computer keyboards, a remarkable open-source firmware called KMK has surfaced, captivating enthusiasts from all corners. KMK possesses a potent capability to revolutionize mechanical keyboards into personalized instruments, enabling users to venture into uncharted territories of customization and productivity.

KMK Open Source Mechanical Keyboard Firmware Written in CircuitPython

CircuitPython is an open-source programming language that runs on microcontrollers used in various embedded applications, including mechanical keyboards like ANAVI Macro Pad 12 and ANAVI Arrows from our crowdfunding campaign at Crowd Supply. Built upon the foundations of Python, CircuitPython is specifically crafted to cater to the requirements of resource-limited embedded devices housing microcontrollers. One of the standout merits of CircuitPython lies in its user-friendly nature and effortless adaptability, particularly beneficial for newcomers who may not possess extensive coding expertise.

ANAVI Arrows and ANAVI Macro Pad 12 with the open source firmware KMK written in CircuitPython

The source code of KMK is readily available on GitHub, released under the GPLv3 license. The inception of KMK can be traced back to 2018. Notably, the KMK source code follows a coding style that employs the Python code formatter, known as Black, and embraces the usage of single quotes.

KMK firmware runs on Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontoller which is in the core of Seeed Studio XIAO RP2040 module

The hardware requirements for microcontrollers to run KMK are: a minimum of 256KB of flash storage, support HID over USB and/or Bluetooth, CircuitPython version 7.0 or newer. With its impressive hardware capabilities, the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller is a perfect fit for CircuitPython and KMK. Because of this we selected Seeed Studio’s XIAO module with RP2040 for ANAVI Macro Pad 12 and ANAVI Arrows.

KMK offers many key features:

  • Key Mapping: Customize key assignments to suit individual preferences
  • Macros: Create and assign macros for automating tasks or executing commands
  • Layers: Define multiple virtual layers for accessing different functions or modes
  • LED Control: Customize backlighting and LED behavior
  • Rotary Encoder: Rotary encoders for various functions like volume control or scrolling.
  • Mini OLED Display: Compatibility with mini OLED displays, allowing users to display custom information or visuals on their keyboards
Back-light and under-light effects with KMK firmware on the mechanical keyboards ANAVI Macro Pad 12 and ANAVI Arrows

KMK supports many mechanical keyboards, including ANAVI Macro Pad 12 and ANAVI Arrrows. Although you are free to change to another firmware at any time, both ANAVI Macro Pad 12 and ANAVI Arrrows out of the box will come with KMK pre-installed.

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Transforming Keyboard Customization: Unleashing the Potential of Hot-Swappable Sockets

A standout feature of the ANAVI Macro Pad 12 and ANAVI Arrows is their seamless switch swapping capability, allowing you to tailor your typing experience on the go! With utmost ease and no need for soldering, thanks to the convenient hot-swappable sockets integrated into the printed circuit board, anyone can effortlessly remove a switch from its socket and replace it with another compatible switch.

This revolutionary feature provides several benefits to keyboard enthusiasts and users who like to customize their typing experience. It allows for easy experimentation with different switch types, enabling users to find the switch that suits their preferences best. It also simplifies switch replacement, making it more convenient to replace a faulty switch or try out different switches without needing specialized soldering equipment or skills.

Basically the whole key is like a sandwich: hot-swappable socket, mechanical switch and a keycap. All kits with ANAVI Macro Pad 12 and ANAVI Arrows include Gateron red mechanical switches. However thanks to the hot-swappable sockets you can experiment with various options of clicky, tactile and linear Cherry MX compatible mechanical switches from different brands with various tech specs and colors: red, blue, brown, green, silver, etc.

The printed circuit boards of ANAVI Macro Pad 12 and ANAVI Arrows are designed with Kailh hot-swap sockets on the back. These sockets are for surface-mount technology (SMT) assembly. To provide backlight on the front of the printed circuit boards there is a separate LED under each mechanical switch. We decided to make both of these keyboards with north-facing switches, aka the LED on each key is on the top (north) part of the switch. Furthermore, there are WS2812B addressable LEDs on the back. All these LEDs combined with the translucent keycaps included in the kit create awesome light effects when the keyboard is turned on. The open source firmware KMK allows fine tuning of the lights.

Although, as you can see in the video it is possible to hand-solder the sockets, this is appropriate only for a prototype. For manufacturing the keyboards ordered from the crowdfunding campaign we have hired a trusted local factory and they will do a professional lead-free assembly of all components. Using these hot-swappable sockets and SMT LEDs there is no need of manual hand soldering of any mechanical switches. This significantly simplifies and speeds up the manufacturing process. The end result is better quality and lower price.

Our crowdfunding campaign has a very modest goal of just $1. It will help us make the keyboards in my hometown Plovdiv, Bulgaria, EU thanks to the trusted supply chain we have established throughout the years. Order ANAVI Macro Pad 12 or ANAVI Arrows to get a cool mechanical keyboard and help us bring these entirely open source hardware projects to life!

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Introducing ANAVI Macro Pad 12 and ANAVI Arrows

We are back with two brand new fully programmable, open source, hot-swappable compact mechanical keyboards: ANAVI Macro Pad 12 and ANAVI Arrows. The crowdfunding campaign is now live at Crowd Supply!

ANAVI Arrows and Macro Pad 12


Both ANAVI Macro Pad 12 and ANAVI Arrows feature high-quality gold-plated circuit boards designed with the free and open source software KiCad. These compact keyboards are driven by the Seeed Studio XIAO RP2040 with Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller, ensuring top-notch performance. Equipped with a USB-C connector and a charming mini yellow-blue OLED display, they combine functionality with visual appeal. Thanks to the popular open-source KMK firmware written in CircuitPython, personalizing keyboard layouts and macros becomes a breeze.

ANAVI Arrows

Import your typing experience with our bright and shiny compact mechanical keyboards, made in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, EU. Support our crowdfunding campaign and help us bring these unique and high-quality open source keyboards to life.

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ANAVI Macro Pad 10 & Knobs Shipping Soon

Happy New Year and best wishes for 2023! January starts with good news. All Macro Pad and Knobs kits were shipped to Crowd Supply’s warehouse for distribution.

In the coming weeks, all orders placed during the crowdfunding period will enter into Crowd Supply’s fulfillment system and will be processed soon. Shipping to all backers should begin shortly. After that ANAVI Macro Pad 10, ANAVI Knobs 3 and ANAVI Knob 1 will be in stock at Mouser and Crowd Supply.

Thank you for supporting open source hardware products like ANAVI Macro Pad 10, Knobs 3 and Knob 1! W’ll keep posting updates with technical information and we hope you will have a lot of fun with your new gear!

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ANAVI Macro Pad 10 & Knobs are Funded!

The launch of our crowdfunding campaign was a blast! ANAVI Macro Pad 10, ANAVI Knobs 3, and ANAVI Knob 1 were all fully funded and all stretch goals were met in the first week. Thanks to all backers and Crowd Supply for bringing life to these three entirely open source projects!

As part of the covered stretch goals, each kit will include stickers from ANAVI Technology and KiCad, the free and open source CAD software used for designing the printed circuit boards of the keyboards. Furthermore, ANAVI Macro Pad 10 kits will include 32 super-cool emoji stickers. You can stick them on the top or sides of the translucent keycaps. Last but not least, we’ll be publishing various video tutorials to ensure getting started is easy.

One more thing… Recently, our mini mechanical keyboards were featured in an article by CNX Software. This is a very popular website with news and tutorials about embedded systems, makers, and open source hardware. It was started in 2010 by Jean-Luc Aufranc. By the way it is worth keep an eye on CNX Software because there are always news about interesting gadgets!

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ANAVI Macro Pad 10 and Knobs are Here!

One, two, three new products! After several months of development we are happy to present you 3 new open source hardware mini mechanical keyboards and knobs. The crowdfunding campaign started on Monday!

ANAVI Knob 1, ANAVI Knobs 3 and ANAVI Macro Pad 10

ANAVI Macro Pad 10, ANAVI Knobs 3 and ANAVI Knob 1 all come with gold-plated black printed circuit boards, Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontrollers, USB-C connector and clickable rotary encoders. The popular open source KMK firmware allows you to easily program and configure custom keyboard layouts and macros using CircuitPython.

ANAVI Knobs 3

Once again we rely on Crowd Supply for the crowdfunding. The campaign has a very modest goal of just $1 and it has been already funded. Our plan is to make the keyboards in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, EU thanks to the trusted supply chain we have established throughout the years. We hope you will jump in and help us bring these entirely open source mechanical keyboards to life!

ANAVI Knob 1, ANAVI Macro Pad 10 and ANAVI Knobs 3

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ANAVI Macro Pad 10 and Knobs Coming Soon

With Crowd Supply we are preparing a new crowdfunding campaign for 3 open source hardware mechanical keyboards: ANAVI Macro Pad 10, ANAVI Knobs 3 and ANAVI Knob 1.

ANAVI Macro Pad 10, ANAVI Knobs 3 and ANAVI Knob 1

There are many common things between these 3 mini mechanical keyboards:

  • Seeed XIAO RP2040 – a power module with USB-C and Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU from Seeed Studio
  • Rotary encoders
  • KMK – an open source firmware for mechanical keyboards written in CircuitPython
  • Open source hardware designed with the free and open source software KiCad

Subscribe at our pre-launch page at Crowd Supply to be the first to know when we launch the crowdfunding campaign!

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ANAVI Info uHAT Manufacturing Progress

Thanks to the support of all backers at Crowd Supply, ANAVI Info uHAT has been successfully funded and has hit all stretch goals so we proceed with manufacturing. This week we received from the local factory the first batch of almost fully assembled boards. Only the EEPROM is missing. We will flash and solder it in-house.

The printed circuit boards still on panels before adding the EEPROM

The printed circuit board of ANAVI Info uHAT has a green solder mask and a gold surface finish. There are a few steps more to complete the manufacturing process. An EEPROM has to be flashed and soldered on each board. It will contain software description of the add-on board following Raspberry Pi Foundation’s HAT (Hardware Attached on Top) specifications. After that each board will go through a quality assurance, and finally each kit will be packaged in a recyclable cardboard box.

Panels with ANAVI Info uHAT

Low-volume manufacturing is not an easy task nowadays, especially during a global chip shortage. As usual we will keep you updated. Thank you again for supporting ANAVI Info uHAT!

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ANAVI Info uHAT Demo at the Technical University of Berlin

On 29th June, we had the opportunity to present and demonstrate the ANAVI Info uHAT add-on board for Raspberry Pi and some of our other open source hardware gadgets at the Technical University of Berlin for an event called “Open Source Hardware: Tools and Collaborations for A Better (Product) Future”.

OPENNEXT agenda on 29 June 2022

The event was organized by OPENNEXT. This is an organization that aims to bring together SMEs and makerspaces across the European Union (EU) to develop new hardware products based on open-source principles. The event brought together representatives of the Technical University Berlin, the Grenoble Institute of Technology, the University of Bath, the DDC – Danish Design Center, and many more organizations involved with open source software and hardware. Lukas Hartmann, the creator of the open source DIY laptop MNT Reform, was also a panel speaker at the event.

Panel discussion during OPENNEXT event in the Technical University of Berlin

This event was a great opportunity to show off the ANAVI Info uHAT with a mini OLED I2C display attached to the top of a Raspberry Pi and controlled using a Python3 script with the luma.oled library. The source code is available in GitHub. In the meantime, we are also improving the ANAVI Info uHAT user’s manual which is also available in GitHub.

Last but not least, don’t forget to check and support the crowdfunding campaign for ANAVI Info uHAT at Crowd Supply.

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ANAVI Info uHAT is a Certified Open Source Hardware

ANAVI Info uHAT has now officially been certified as open source hardware by the Open Source Hardware Association (OSHWA). OSHWA, a non-profit entity registered in the US, organizes the annual Open Hardware Summit and also maintains the Certified Projects Directory.

ANAVI Info uHAT with mini OLED I2C Display

OSHWA runs the certification program ensures that the definition of “open source hardware” used by a specific project matches the community’s definition of open source hardware. They provide a unique indentification (UID) for each version of the certified hardware based on the country code and a serial number. For example, the UID for ANAVI Info uHAT is BG000081. The prefix BG is the country code for Bulgaria, because the Info uHAT is made in my hometown of Plovdiv. The serial numbers show that now there are 81 open source hardware devices from Bulgaria.

OSHWA certified ANAVI Info uHAT with UID BG000081

As a fully open source project, we also use only free and open source software has been used to design the printed circuit board, the stickers, the source code examples, and to write the documentation.

ANAVI Info uHAT printed circuit board in KiCad

The crowdfunding campaign at Crowd Supply is still going on and we hope more people will jump in and order ANAVI Info uHAT.

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