FinalKey : small and shiny cases

or : how to bend light

If you want to build a case in a short time and you want an easy to use interface go with dusteds case. If you have a lot of time and like shiny blinking stuff go my way. It took about 3 weeks to build the first case in the middle and another week to build the other two (each). Half an hour up to one hour during workdays and two to three hours in the weekend. Patience and a steady hand are required. If SMD and ISP are a foreign words for you, stay away. You have been warned!

What you get :

FinalKey, three small enclosures : red, blue,
green

Red Heart

blue/gold : Alien Artefact

Green Miracle

Size :

The big pushbutton has a size of 11 to 12 mm (outer square package).
Total size : 4 cm x 2,5 cm including the brasss rod to put it on a keychain.
Thickness : about 1 to 1.5 cm (see below)

Features : very small form factor, all lights visible, shiny and blinking FinalKeys

Feature	Red Heart	Alien Artefact (blue)	Green Miracle
Thickness	1.1 cm	1.4 cm	1 cm
LEDs	on both sides, light from the bottom is redirected to the pushbutton end and is visible below the button, it shines towards the brass rod	only on top side. Light is redirected with optic fiber from one end to the other end of arduino. All lights are visible on top.	on both sides, light from the bottom is redirected to the pushbutton end and is visible below the button, it shines towards the brass rod
Reset Button	Not used/available	available on the right side in the image above	Not used/available
Key chain/necklace	usable	usable	usable
Side used for LEDs and button	"bottom side", opposite atmega and eeprom	top side, the one where the atmega chip and the eeprom is mounted	"bottom side", opposite atmega and eeprom
Difficulty	medium to high (parts are not so crowded)	high (almost all parts on one side plus reset button)	high : soldering and connecting SMDs is more difficult than in Red Heart and Alien Artefact

If you want FinalKey functions only, go with the red or green approach and just use power- and FinalKey-LED. You dont need the incoming and outgoing signals and can forget about redirecting lights from LEDs. But its even easier to use dusteds setup then.

Advanced organizer

	ToDo	Time needed
1	Get the stuff you need.	Days up to weeks, waiting for delivery
2	Prepare Software and program arduino micro pro.	Hours to find the information and software you need. Setup your language/keyboard for special keys in passwords (time needed: unknown) At the time of writing, danish, german and us-english are available keyboards. Up to one hour to set up your programmer as ISP. Get a proper avrdude command (time needed : unknown) Some minutes to program.
3	Glue and solder all your stuff to the arduino board.	Hours/Days, waiting for glue to cure Soldering will only take some minutes for each part.
4	Cover it with repair glue.	One Day, waiting for repair glue to cure
5	Sand and color it.	Hours/days, sanding and waiting for varnish to cure

Programming and soldering is done within an hour or two, depending on your experience. Most of the time you have to wait for some glue or varnish to cure. And you have to make some seriuos decisions about design. There is almost no way back, once you glued something to your board. If you build a FinalKey my way for the first time think about weeks to do it. If you are experienced and set it up a second time you might do it in a long weekend or two. If you set up dusteds version it should be doable in an afternoon when all parts are at hand and the software is set up.

Enjoy

Design and hardware extensions used for
Red Heart, Alien Artefact and Green Miracle :
tc (thunderchild), Nov 2014

All praise and credit for FinalKey hardware and software go to dusted.