Customizing the Binepad BNK9 firmware

Last year, I blogged about the Binepad BNK8, a macropad by Binepad. This week, I received the larger brother, the Binepad BNK9. It sports 9 buttons and a larger knob¹.

Since the firmware is customizable, I started exploring it through VIA. I could create new layers, control the light effects, etc. But, once I started adding layers, I had a dilemma:

1. Either keep a key pressed to activate a layer. That, however, required some finger gymnastic, especially if I wanted to use the knob while keeping a key pressed. Or
2. Be left wondering in which layer I was as there is no visual clue.

I then started looking around and soon it turned out I had to write a qmk firmware by hand.

The getting started guide is straightforward. On macOS, just fire up a terminal and type:

brew install qmk/qmk/qmk
qmk setup  # take note of where the qmk_firware is cloned. It will be your $QMK_FIRMWARE_HOME
qmk compile -kb binepad/bnk9 -km default
qmk config user.keyboard=binepad/bnk9

Afterwards, I created a copy of the keymap into $QMK_FIRMWARE_HOME/keyboards/binepad/bnk9/keymaps/gglanzani, where $QMK_FIRMWARE_HOME is whatever folder qmk_firmware was cloned into.

After some trials and errors, I ended up with a keymap.c, config.h, and rules.mk that work the way I want. I’ve uploaded them to Github and you’re free to use them.

To compile the custom firmware type in a terminal:

cd $QMK_FIRMWARE_HOME
qmk compile -kb binepad/bnk9 -km gglanzani  # use your own if you don't use my repo!

This will create a binepad_bnk9_gglanzani.uf2 file in your $QMK_FIRMWARE_HOME folder.

But how do you get it on your macropad? To do so, disconnect the USB cable, press the knob, and then connect the cable. That will mount an RPI-RP2 volume on your computer. One you copy the uf2 file into it, the volume will unmount and your macropad will be ready to use!

If you look into my repository, there should be enough comments to understand what’s going on an adapt it to your needs!