deskthority

Hey everyone I'm a long-term lurker and I finally decided to try my hand at building a keyboard. I do a lot of modeling with Blender 3D and love the idea of having a keypad with all of my favorite shortcuts. I'm still in the chalkboard phase so any input is much appreciated.
The Idea:

I often find myself wasting time clicking through menus to find tools or worse yet holding down three or four keys in an attempt to be "efficient." I can only imagine how much more efficient I would be if my right hand was on my mouse and my left hand is on a keypad covered with all of the tools that I regularly use. I started making a list of all the tools that I regularly use. The keypad will feature two layers the first being primarily for modeling tools and the second primarily for navigation. The second layer will be activated by the key on the bottom right corner when it's held down similar to a function or shift key. Blender has a very flexible user interface so I can create new key bindings with customized behavior. I haven't settled on a color scheme yet although I am leaning towards a darker gray caps with orange back lighting. A majority of the artwork is from font awesome and the rest is inspired by it. It still needs some refinement so feel free to criticize.
My Questions:

Does anyone have suggestions for controllers, specifically a controller that can accommodate multiple layers? I have an extra Espruino sitting around so I might give that a shot.

Is there anyway to have a key open a program? I know that's a stretch, but a guy can dream right?

Who else has built an auxiliary keypad similar to this one and do they have any recommendations from their experience?

If there is anyone else who uses blender, do you have any favorite tools I should consider adding to my board?

Thanks in advance for any wisdom shared. I'm hoping that this build will be the first of many.

I just realized that I forgot to attach a description of what each key does. For anyone interested, I'll try to get that up tomorrow evening.

Very cool stuff! Would love to see progress!

A Teensy is a good platform. I know those are frequently used and there are several different firmwares out there. Besides soldiering the lines, it should just be a matter of editing some text files for which button is at which row/column in the keymatrix and assigning scancodes to be output.

Thanks for the feedback! I've heard of Teensy, but have never used one before. Has anyone made a board with multiple layers using a Teensy before? I'll have to peruse the forum for some examples.

please google for the maxipad on switch top (sorry, cant link you atm - i likely have a pcb + stuff floating around me).
The laxout could workout for what you are seeking, but is available as PCB, so theres no handsoldering..
if the layout could work out for you that would make your life easier I guess.

http://www.switchtop.com/product/gamepad-macropad-pcbs

One thing to keep in mind when using that particular board is that it uses QMK. I'm able to flash on windows, but haven't been able to build, though I'm still trying.

You also either need to use PCB switches, or get your own plate cut. I did that for my GHPad, but that's only a 4x5 matrix, or I'd point you to that.

Both of those options sound pretty tempting, especially for my first keyboard. However I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron and I work around a lot CNC machines, so cutting a plate isn't an issue. What are the pros/cons of going that route?

There's no dxf files for the plate in the archive that I see, so you'll have to draw your own to even use the CNC for the top and bottom. There's the QMK bit if you don't have a linux or mac machine, and programming the layout.

https://www.gitbook.com/book/qmk/firmware/details

There's also the fact that the archive for the QMK archive is having problems with conflicts, i.e. This branch is 7 commits ahead, 1607 commits behind qmk:master.

Thanks chuckdee for suggesting QMK. I'll go ahead and order a teensy and give it a shot.