Debugging my Micro Journal
I wrote about building my digital typewriter in the past, and it has worked fantastically for me so far!
…until today.
I had hid the device for a couple weeks because I didn’t want my toddler to break it, and the battery died out over time, as expected. I had tried charging it overnight, but it wasn’t working the next morning. When I plugged it in on the other side (there’s a separate plug for if you want to run the device without the battery), I noticed several keys weren’t working.
I tried not to be upset by this, assuming my toddler did indeed find it and dropped it or something.
First problem: not working keys
Since I’ve built several mechanical keyboards before, I did my first round of “debugging” by doing the classic “unplug and replug them all back in” method. That didn’t work, but I realized that the switches that weren’t working were just the furthest right two columns of keys.
Googling this proved to be nearly impossible, until I found a Reddit comment buried in an old post:
There’s sometimes a glitch when powering the device with the left-side USB-C that’s farther from the keyboard, where some keys don’t work. The left-side USB-C that’s closer to the keyboard doesn’t have this issue.
THANK you u/Either_Coconut, turns out this was the issue! As soon as I adjusted my cable, the keys worked great.
Second problem: battery not holding a charge
I was really worried about the fact that the device’s on/off switch wasn’t working. I couldn’t tell if the battery was dead, or if it was the switch, or a hardware issue that might be scary to try to solve. I noticed too that there was no charging light indicator when I did plug it in, which was a bit nerve-wracking.
Thank goodness though, the documentation proved to be so helpful!! Turns out PD chargers and USB-C to USB-C chargers aren’t fully compatible with the hardware, and I needed to use a phone charger (a USB-A to USB-C one)!
Now, hooray, my device is happily charged and working just like new.
Reflections, a few months in
A full ~7 months into using the Micro Journal for blogging and general writing, and I’m still so, so happy with the device! The fact that it’s open source, well-documented, and consistently updated is just delightful.
These problems I ran into (which prompted this post) were minor, relatively speaking. I solved both in less than a half hour, thanks to the docs and community around the project. I love having this single-purpose machine that does exactly as it says “on the tin”, one that I can repair and mess around with without too much worry. And yes, I’m writing this post with it to test it out and make sure that it all still works smoothly, heh.
If you get a chance to nab one, I highly recommend it!