General

Electronics

Are the PCBs / kits / assembled products lead-free?

I’m using lead-free PCB manufacturing process and lead-free solder for both the outside automated assembly and in-house SMD and THT soldering.

There’s no real upside to using processes that rely on leaded solder, so given the associated health risks it’s a no-brainer!

Why are the solder joints on some of the PCBs I received dull instead of shiny in appearance?

It’s a side effect of our current PCB cleaning process. It doesn’t affect the solder joint quality, but I’m working on another one that will keep the solder joints nice and shiny.

Products

Revolt Keyboard

Why is RP2040 used instead of, for example, the Arduino Pro Micro?

The RP2040 has significantly more GPIO - it made it possible to read the whole switch matrix with one MCU and provide the pointer device functionality without IO expanders.

It’s also more powerful - it has CPU to spare to support any future initiatives, like an OLED screen or a wireless interface, for example.

Why don’t you include a USB cable in any of the configurations?

Users have different needs when it comes to the USB cables - the length, manufacturer, computer-side connector type - it would be difficult to satisfy all the users’ requirements.

The user can usually obtain a suiting cable easier and cheaper on their own - they might already have one ready!

Why don’t you make a hotswap/cherry MX/top plate/wireless Revolt variant?

There’s a good chance I thought about doing it! I probably wanted to focus on making the variant I needed first. Feel free to email me so we can talk about making your ideal keyboard.

Why does the Revolt Commander use a RP2040 prototype board instead of embedding the MCU IC?

The boards are impressively cheap and it made sense to use one instead of embedding the IC in the Commander PCB. It makes it much easier / cheaper if you ever want to upgrade your Commander revision - you just move the Raspberry Pi to the new board.

Additionally, it makes the cost of the Commmander PCBs lower, which allows me to stock more of them.

Why is the commander board so big, blocky and non-ergonomic? Why is the MCU board soldered in?

Rev2 was mainly a POC to test the PSP joystick and mouse functionality. I’m planning a subsequent iteration that focuses on UX.

We’re committed to backwards-compatibility though - you’ll be able to re-use the Revolt “Hands” and the cables - the potential upgrade is going to be trivial and inexpensive.