Recommend me a controller please

[Eszett]

Hi! Can you recommend me a controller for my custom build with 18 cols and 5 rows?

Is a Teensy 2.0 sufficient? A Leonardo Micro Pro has probably too few pins, right? A Teensy 2.0++ would have plenty pins, but I'm not sure about community support (Soarer's doesn't support Teensy 2.0++ AFAIK).

[flabbergast]

If you're wiring the usual way, then you'll need rows+columns free pins. In your case that would be 23. Teensy has 25 usable pins (one of which is best to be avoided, since the onboard LED is wired to it). So it will be sufficient.

However if you want to add LEDs as well (not backlight, but like Caps Lock or something), then you'll need an extra pin for each LED. (The one with onboard LED might be fine for this purpose, it would just probably make your led slightly dimmer, which can be fixed with a proper resistor.)

The usual backlight (ie all LEDs either on or off or dimmed) would require one more pin.

Arduino Pro Micro has only 18 usable pins, so that's not enough for you.

If you're willing to wire in a more ingenious (and a lot messier) way, that you could get away with less pins: 18*5 = 90 switches, so probably the most economical way is to make it into "virtual" 9 rows and 10 columns, in which case you'd need only 19 pins.

[flabbergast]

Also - move this thread to Workshop?

[Ray]

If you're willing to wire in a more ingenious (and a lot messier) way, that you could get away with less pins: 18*5 = 90 switches, so probably the most economical way is to make it into "virtual" 9 rows and 10 columns, in which case you'd need only 19 pins.

I don't think it is as messy as you imply. Just group 2 columns next to each other for “virtual” 10 rows and end up with 9 columns in this case. So just a bit messy - still a bit more complicated. But if you grasp the idea and have no trouble thinking about how to wire it, you should be able to handle it. I would advise otherwise if it would turn into a more complicated matrix you can't keep in the back of your head, though.
If eszett wants to use Hasu's firmware, all it needs is after wiring, is a modified keymap macro and he is as fine as with a 18x5 matrix. I guess it is similarly simple for other firmwares, but I don't know them.

[Eszett]

@flabbergast Ah, I understand this "virtual rows/cols", but since it is my first build I better stick to the less messy 18 * 5 wiring (both physically and virtually). I do without LEDs at all. Are those cheap Teensy offerings on eBay, e. g. this one

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Teensy-2-0-USB-d ... 2c8c5d85ec

ok regarding quality, or of bad quality (clones)?

And, btw., If someone wants to move this thread to "workshop" it'll be fine.

[suicidal_orange]

I'm typing this on a full size Ducky running Soarer's controller on a 2.0++ (my intro to mechs was repairing a matrix and a controller swap ) you have to flash a different file but it's included in the zip.

[Halvar]

Not sure if it's worth it to buy a Teensy clone from HK when you can buy the original e.g. here:

http://www.exp-tech.de/teensy-2-298

[flabbergast]

Are those cheap Teensy offerings on eBay, e. g. this one

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Teensy-2-0-USB-d ... 2c8c5d85ec

ok regarding quality, or of bad quality (clones)?

In my experience any "teensy" bought from asia is a clone. That doesn't mean it won't work normally (I've got some arduino clones that way and the quality is acceptable), it's just that for a clone it's not actually cheap, and no portion of that goes to the maker.

Watterott sells teensy 2.0 for the same price (but they don't have stock right now). But exp-tech does have stock, same price (well, excluding shipping). These stores should carry originals.

(By the way, you can also use sparkfun's or adafruit's atmega32u4 breakout boards - they also break out all the usable pins on the microcontroller. The only practical difference to teensy is size and different bootloader (so you wouldn't use teensy_loader but avrdude or dfu-programmer). They're a bit more expensive though, but not by too much.)

EDIT: beat by Halvar. This happens to me too often lately...

[Eszett]

Thanks Halvar and flabbergast. It is true, there is no need to order something from Hongkong when exp-tech.de sells Teensy 2.0 for the same price in Europe.