Embedded techniques engineer Xinao “dekuNukem” Wang is making ready to launch a follow-up to the favored duckyPad macropad, that includes a {custom} scripting engine with help for longer and extra complicated macros: the sensibly-named duckyPad Professional.
“[The] duckyPad Professional is a 20-key mechanical macropad for energy customers who demand superior macro scripting and customization past the shackles of QMK/VIA,” Wang explains, referring to 2 of the most well-liked open supply firmware tasks for keyboards and macropads. “With 4 years price of suggestions from the unique duckyPad, duckyPad Professional combines long-requested upgrades with a no-nonsense design, aiming merely to be essentially the most succesful macropad accessible at this time.”
Wang unveiled the unique duckyPad 4 years in the past, delivering a design that mixed 15 mechanical keyboard switches with a compact on-board show. The show, pushed by the pad’s STMicroelectronics STM32F0 microcontroller, was used to pick out from 32 configurable profiles — which means a complete of 480 macros may very well be loaded an chosen on a single duckyPad.
The duckyPad Professional is, successfully, the identical factor once more — however greater, with an Espressif ESP32-S3 at its coronary heart. An extra column expands the variety of keys to twenty, the show has been elevated in measurement, and there at the moment are two rotary encoders on board. The firmware, too, has been totally overhauled, and is fully-custom — permitting for configuration of a complete of 64 profiles, protecting 3,712 whole macros, in Wang’s {custom} duckyScript language. These macros may also be longer and extra complicated, Wang claims, as much as and together with storing your entire script for Dreamworks’ Bee Film.
The duckyPad Professional now helps enlargement by means of daisy-chainable modules, including as much as 32 extra switches to every board. (📷: dekuNukem)
Different options of the duckyPad Professional embrace computerized profile switching primarily based on the currently-active window, a microSD slot for native storage, Bluetooth connectivity, and help for enlargement modules — including, for instance, as much as 32 exterior switches or foot pedals to additional develop the board. One factor that hasn’t modified, although: it is nonetheless open supply, with the board design recordsdata, firmware supply code, and companion software program available.
Wang is making ready to launch a crowdfunding marketing campaign for the duckyPad Professional on Kickstarter this October; supply code and design recordsdata are already accessible within the undertaking’s GitHub repository beneath the permissive MIT license.