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QMK - How to flash Arduino Pro Micro or Elite-C

posted at 09-08-2022

If you want to flash a microcontroller to be your keyboard you can use QMK for that. You can even use the QMK toolbox to do it, which is a UI that helps you to flash/compile your keyboard mapping and even to already select the kind of bootloader that you use to flash your microcontroller.

If you want to flash a recently edited or something that you changed recently on the configuration file, you might need to use the command line for that. There was when I questioned "How will I do it for the Elite-C?".

I use Arduino Pro Micro for almost all keyboards that I built, but because of micro usb not being the best when it comes to durability, I choose Elite-C to be the microcontroller for one of the keyboards that I created.

So here's how you flash it:

Arduino Pro Micro:

Arduino Pro Micro

qmk flash -kb sofle -km default -bl avrdude

or stay in the root of qmk_firmware folder and run the command below

make sofle:default:avrdude

With that, the keymap will compile and it will ask flash the Arduino, if you connect reset to ground, it will accept the flash.

Arduino Pro Micro - Reset

Elite-C:

Elite C

qmk flash -kb sofle -km default -bl dfu

or stay in the root of qmk_firmware folder and run the command below

make sofle:default:dfu

With that, the bootloader used will be DFU instead of avrdudes (used for Arduino Pro Micro). You don't need to do anything in the board to flash it.


This is simple and easy, but I took a while to find this info, so here it is :D

For more info about QMK and flashing, go to their wiki page https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/blob/master/docs/flashing.md