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How to flash the PCB & Change the key layout

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Jan Kolkmeier edited this page Jul 8, 2020 · 1 revision

DIY PCB

If you have ordered the PCB yourself from JLCPCB or similar, it won't come pre-flashed with a keyboard firmware (the group-buy PCBs will come pre-flashed of course).

I just want to test if the PCB works ASAP

If you haven't flashed a PCB with QMK before and/or if you don't have a qmk_firmware dev setup, here is a quick guide to test your PCB with a default layout quickly:

  • Download & Install QMK Toolbox

  • Download the precompiled firmware from our releases section (you just need bemeier_bmek_default.hex)

  • Open QMK Toolbox & press the "Open" button and locate bemeier_bmek_default.hex . Make sure the "MCU" dropdown is set to atmega32u4

  • Plug-in your keyboard, you should see a message like this: dfu device connected

  • If you see this message, press "Flash". It should do some stuff and then end with "DFU device disconnected"

  • If you did not see the first message ("DFU device connected"), or when you try to flash and it says "There are no devices available", you can try two things:

    • Push the small "reset" button on the back of the PCB (after you've already connected to your computer). Give it a moment, maybe it shows up now
    • Re-work your soldering on the USB-C connector (at least from my experience that's the cause of this, 10 out of 10 times). Don't hesitate to go on the discord server and as for help in the bmek-diy channel!

Also note that after you've flashed it once, to get it back into "DFU" mode (to re-flash it), you'll either need to press the reset button again, or if you have it already assembled, press both spacebars and the top-left key (i.e. the top key of the macro-key-column) at the same time.

Group Buy PCB

  • Will come pre-flashed with the default firmware
  • Will be made compatible with QMK Configurator
  • And firmware code will be but on the qmk_firmware upstream repository

Compile Firmware yourself

The firmware is written with QMK, if you are familiar with this and want to be able to change the key layout, you'll have to checkout the bemeier branch on our qmk_firmware clone. BMEK is under keyboards/bemeier/bmek. (Before the group buy ends, I'll make sure this code is in the qmk_firmware upstream repository)

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