OrthusTrackpad

OrthusTrackpad

A capacitive trackpad PCB designed as a component of the Orthus split keyboard, but also usable as a standalone mutual-capacitance touch sensor.

The PCB carries a diamond-pattern mutual-capacitance sensor grid intended to be paired with a touch controller IC and read over I²C. The grill cutout in Fabrication/ matches the sensor pitch and is meant to be laser/CNC-cut from a thin overlay.

Status

Functionally complete. Gerbers, BOM, and pick-and-place (CPL) files are all generated and present under JLCPCB/.

Renders

Note: the renders are PCB-only views with the silkscreen and sensor traces on a white background; the geometry is faint at fit-to-screen zoom. Open the PNGs locally or load KiCad/OrthusTrackpad.kicad_pcb in KiCad's 3D viewer for a clearer view.

Folder layout

OrthusTrackpad/
├── KiCad/              KiCad 7+ project — open OrthusTrackpad.kicad_pro
│   ├── OrthusTrackpad.kicad_pcb     Board layout (sensor grid + routing)
│   ├── OrthusTrackpad.kicad_sch     Schematic
│   ├── fp-info-cache                KiCad footprint cache
│   └── backups/                     Dated KiCad auto-backups
├── Renders/            Sensor-grid PNG exports (man4/5/6_00000.png)
├── 3D/                 OrthusTrackpad.step — mechanical model of the PCB
├── Fabrication/        MutualCapSensorGride.dxf — sensor-grid overlay cutout
└── JLCPCB/             Production-ready output
    ├── gerber/                      Per-layer .gbr + .drl files (Cu/Mask/Silk top+bottom, NPTH/PTH drills)
    ├── production_files/            Ready-to-upload bundle:
    │                                  GERBER-OrthusTrackpad.zip
    │                                  BOM-OrthusTrackpad.csv
    │                                  CPL-OrthusTrackpad.csv
    └── project.db                   JLCPCB project metadata

Relationship to Orthus

This PCB also lives inside the main Orthus repo at Orthus/Components/OrthusTrackpad/. The two folders are independent copies — edits in one do not propagate to the other. Treat this standalone repo as the canonical version when iterating on the trackpad in isolation.

Original source

All files were originally copied from Custom/Ergomania/OrthusTrackpad/ in the local working tree; the original folder is preserved at that location.