{"id":1451,"date":"2023-10-05T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.sidekick.be\/itenium\/build-your-own-macropad\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T13:31:42","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T12:31:42","slug":"build-your-own-macropad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.sidekick.be\/itenium\/blog\/dev-setup\/build-your-own-macropad\/","title":{"rendered":"Build your own MacroPad"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 id=\"friendly-warning\">Friendly Warning<\/h1>\n<p>Before we begin soldering\u2026<\/p>\n<figure class=\"imagewrapper\" style=\"max-width: 360px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/itenium-be.github.io\/blog-posts-new\/assets\/blog-images\/macropad-soldering-meme.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"Too bad this info came AFTER the session \ud83d\ude03\" class=\"img-responsive\" \/><figcaption>Thanks to Mike for the heads up!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h1 id=\"the-components\">The Components<\/h1>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tinytronics.nl\/shop\/en\/development-boards\/microcontroller-boards\/others\/seeed-studio-seeeduino-xiao-rp2040-dual-core-cortex-m0-separate-headers\">microcontroller<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tinytronics.nl\/shop\/en\/switches\/manual-switches\/rotary-encoders\/rotary-encoder-module\">1 rotary encoder<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alternate.nl\/Sharkoon\/Gateron-PRO-2-0-BROWN-Switch-Set-keyboard-switches\/html\/product\/1892291\">6 keyboard switches<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"imagewrapper\" style=\"max-width: 360px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/itenium-be.github.io\/blog-posts-new\/assets\/blog-images\/macropad-circuit.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" class=\"img-responsive\" \/><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 id=\"the-assembly\">The Assembly<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"imagewrapper\" style=\"max-width: 360px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/itenium-be.github.io\/blog-posts-new\/assets\/blog-images\/macropad-soldering.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" class=\"img-responsive\" \/><figcaption>Soldering the pins on the microcontroller<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"imagewrapper\" style=\"max-width: 360px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/itenium-be.github.io\/blog-posts-new\/assets\/blog-images\/macropad-button.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" class=\"img-responsive\" \/><figcaption>Soldering the jumper wires on the keyboard switches<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"imagewrapper\" style=\"max-width: 360px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/itenium-be.github.io\/blog-posts-new\/assets\/blog-images\/macropad-wire-mess.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" class=\"img-responsive\" \/><figcaption>Trying to get it all in its casing \ud83d\ude09<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h1 id=\"the-session\">The Session<\/h1>\n<figure class=\"imagewrapper\" style=\"max-width: 500px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/itenium-be.github.io\/blog-posts-new\/assets\/blog-images\/macropad-intro.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" class=\"img-responsive\" \/><figcaption>Thank you Michiel for a very cool and fun evening!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"imagewrapper\" style=\"max-width: 360px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/itenium-be.github.io\/blog-posts-new\/assets\/blog-images\/macropad-printing.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" class=\"img-responsive\" \/><figcaption>Printing some additional button caps<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"imagewrapper\" style=\"max-width: 360px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/itenium-be.github.io\/blog-posts-new\/assets\/blog-images\/macropad-assembly.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" class=\"img-responsive\" \/><figcaption>Everyone busy at work \ud83d\ude03<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h1 id=\"final-touches\">Final Touches<\/h1>\n<p>Making them buttons actually do something using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.autohotkey.com\/\">Autohotkey<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/learn.microsoft.com\/en-us\/windows\/powertoys\/\">Microsoft PowerToys<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"imagewrapper\" style=\"max-width: 360px\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/itenium-be.github.io\/blog-posts-new\/assets\/blog-images\/macropad-assembly-finished.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" class=\"img-responsive\" \/><figcaption>Et voila, a stylish MacroPad!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2 id=\"whats-next\">What\u2019s Next<\/h2>\n<p>To make our MacroPads truly our own, we definitely have to do a followup Autohotkey session \ud83d\ude0e<\/p>\n<h1>Extras<\/h1>\n<p><b>Stuff that came into being during the making of this post<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/itenium-be\/BuildYourOwnMacroPad\">Hands-On Session: build your own MacroPad<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/itenium.be\/BuildYourOwnMacroPad\/\">Step by step instructions on how to do this yourself!<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last Thursday we built our own MacroPad at itenium. During this session the focus was on learning to solder and putting everything together, all under the supervising eye of Michiel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2011,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[20,15],"class_list":["post-1451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dev-setup","tag-fun","tag-tech-talk"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Build your own MacroPad - Itenium<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Build your own MacroPad - Itenium\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last Thursday we built our own MacroPad at itenium. 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