PicoDeck

PicoDeck

A small USB control panel for PicoScope 7, built around an Arduino Micro (ATmega32u4). It enumerates as a USB HID keyboard and turns two rotary encoders and four push buttons into the keyboard shortcuts PicoScope uses for amplitude, offset, filter, time base, trigger and pre-trigger. A 0.96" 128x64 OLED shows the active channel and the current encoder modes.

  +--------------------------------------------+
  |        [ OLED 128x64  "PicoDECK" ]         |   <- sloped top face
  |          CH 1            AMP     TIME      |
  |                                            |
  |        (ENC1)                (ENC2)        |
  |                                            |
  |   (BTN1)  (BTN2)  (BTN3)  (BTN4)           |
  +--------------------------------------------+

Repository layout

Hardware

Parts

Pin assignment (as defined in fw/PicoDeck/general.h)

Power: 5 V and GND from the Micro to the OLED and encoder modules. All switches connect between the pin and GND. The OLED reset pin is shared with the Arduino reset (OLED_RESET = -1).

Firmware

Build

Board: Arduino Micro (arduino:avr:micro). Libraries (Library Manager):

• Adafruit SSD1306 (pulls in Adafruit GFX Library and Adafruit BusIO)
• Adafruit GFX Library
• Adafruit SleepyDog Library (included, currently not used functionally)
• Keyboard and Wire/SPI ship with the Arduino AVR core

arduino-cli lib install "Adafruit SSD1306" "Adafruit GFX Library" "Adafruit SleepyDog Library"
arduino-cli compile --fqbn arduino:avr:micro fw/PicoDeck
arduino-cli upload  --fqbn arduino:avr:micro -p COMx fw/PicoDeck

The display type is selected in general.h (OLED64_09 = 0.96" 128x64 is the default; OLED32 and OLED64_13 are prepared but commented out).

Source files

Debounce time is 25 ms (SW_DEBOUNCE_MS). Serial debug output runs at 115200 baud.

Operation

The deck keeps a current channel (CH 1..4) and, per channel, an encoder 1 mode. Encoder 2 has one global mode.

Buttons (key sent on release)

Encoder 1 - channel settings. Pressing its switch cycles the mode of the current channel: AMP -> OFF -> FLT -> AMP.

Entering and leaving FLT additionally sends Alt + a / s / d / f for channel 1 / 2 / 3 / 4, which toggles the filter dialog in the same way on both transitions.

Encoder 2 - time base and trigger. Its switch cycles TIME -> TRIG -> PRE -> TIME.

The key tables are at the top of general.h (buttons, encoder fallback keys) and in ENCODER.ino (enc1CtrlCW/CCW, enc1FltEnter, Send_Rotation). Adjust them if your PicoScope shortcut set differs.

Display

Text size 2 (12 x 16 px per character) on a 128 x 64 screen:

After power-up the PicoScope 7 logo is shown for 2 seconds.

Housing (OpenSCAD)

mec/PicoDeck/PicoDeck.scad generates a wedge-shaped desktop housing in two parts: the top shell and a separate base plate. Render with OpenSCAD (tested with the nightly build); no external libraries are needed by this file.

Select what to render with the part variable at the top of the file: both (side by side, default), assembly, top, or bottom.

Main dimensions (all parameters at the top of the file)

Controls on the sloped face

Positions are measured along the slope, s = distance from the front edge. Holes are perpendicular to the face.

OLED mounting (from the datasheet in mec/PicoDeck/)

Assumptions that are not in the datasheet: PCB 1.0 mm thick, glass stack about 1.4 mm (oled_pcb_t, oled_boss_h = 1.6), module mounted with the pin header towards the back of the housing. Rotating the module by 180 degrees means oled_win_dy = -1.76.

Assembly

• The base plate has a centering lip and snap bumps on all four sides that click into grooves on the inner wall of the top shell (tol, bump and groove sizes are tunable).
• Four screw posts hang from the roof of the shell and are connected to the side and front/back walls by 2 mm ribs. Pilot hole 2.6 mm for M3 self-tapping screws; the base plate has 3.4 mm countersunk holes, screws go in from below.
• The base plate carries 4 standoffs (6 mm diameter, 6 mm high, 2.6 mm blind pilot hole for M3) for a 70 x 50 mm prototyping PCB. The board is centered in x and sits against the back wall (3 mm gap); the holes are 3 mm from the board edges (pcb_size, pcb_hole_in, pcb_post_d, pcb_post_h, pcb_screw_d, pcb_back). Hole positions: x = 28 / 92 mm, y = 27.6 / 71.6 mm with the default housing. Check them against your board and adjust pcb_hole_in if its holes are placed differently.
• The back wall has a USB-C opening (13 x 7.5 mm, rounded) centered in x. Its height is computed for an Arduino Micro plugged into single-row female headers on the prototyping PCB: 6 mm standoff + 1.6 mm PCB + 8.5 mm header + 1.6 mm Micro PCB + half of the 3.2 mm connector = connector center at about z = 19.3 mm. Adjust header_h, pcb_t, micro_t, usb_conn_h, usb_cut and usb_x if your parts differ.
• Print the top shell open side down; the sloped roof needs supports. Print the base plate flat.
• part = "assembly" shows the closed housing for checking fit.

Known gaps

• hw/ still describes an earlier pin assignment (encoders on D8-D13, buttons on D4-D7 with internal pull-ups). The netlist (arduino_micro_panel.net), Fritzing description (arduino_micro_panel.fz) and the helper READMEs hw/README_KiCad.md / hw/README_FZ.md do not match the current firmware in general.h. The KiCad project in hw/PicoDeck/ is an empty skeleton.
• The firmware expects external pull-ups on D10, D14, D15 and D16.
• The firmware uses polling in loop() (no pin-change interrupts), so very fast encoder turns can lose steps if the loop is delayed. The Send_Combo helper blocks for about 90 ms per modifier keystroke.
• sw/ is a placeholder.

License

See LICENSE.