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Flashing & setup

TL;DR

  • Download QMK Toolbox + the firmware .bin from Releases.
  • Enter the bootloader: hold ESC, plug in USB.
  • Flash the .bin in QMK Toolbox, then drive the screen/lighting from al80-studio in Chrome.
  • To undo it all: flash the stock RIPPLE.bin back the same way.

A from-scratch walkthrough for putting the custom firmware on a YUNZII AL80 and driving it. No prior QMK experience assumed.

⚠ī¸ Before you start

  • This replaces the stock firmware with a custom vial-qmk build. It's reversible (stock .bin is in the release assets), but you're flashing at your own risk.
  • You keep: all keys, the LCD, the RGB, and the side bar. You gain: Vial keymapping, VialRGB (incl. reactive effects), an independently-coloured side bar, a working per-layer knob (volume / RGB brightness / RGB hue / media by layer), instant caps/num-lock LCD icons, battery telemetry, and full LCD control from the browser.
  • The bootloader is sticky — ESC + plug always gets you back to a flashable state, so a bad flash isn't a brick.

đŸ“Ļ What you need

  • A YUNZII AL80 keyboard + its USB cable.
  • QMK Toolbox — github.com/qmk/qmk_toolbox/releases (Windows or macOS).
  • The firmware .bin — from this project's Releases page (grab the latest, currently v1.3.0).
  • Chrome (or any Chromium browser) for the control app — WebHID needs it.
  • (Optional) Vial — vial.rocks — for remapping keys and RGB.

🔌 Step 1 — Enter the bootloader (DFU)

  1. Unplug the keyboard.
  2. Hold the ESC key (top-left) and, while holding, plug in the USB cable.
  3. Let go. The board is now in stm32duino DFU mode — no lights, no LCD, that's normal.

(Windows only: if QMK Toolbox doesn't see a DFU device, install the WinUSB driver for it with Zadig — pick the "STM32 BOOTLOADER" device, install WinUSB.)

⚡ Step 2 — Flash it

  1. Open QMK Toolbox.
  2. Click Open, choose the firmware .bin.
  3. Leave the microcontroller on auto (it's an STM32F103).
  4. Click Flash. You'll see it erase + write; wait for "Flash complete."
  5. Unplug and replug normally. Lights and the LCD come back — you're on the custom firmware.

đŸ–Ĩī¸ Step 3 — Drive the screen + lighting

The keyboard is controlled from al80-studio, a browser app (no install):

  1. Open al80-studio in Chrome. Close the YUNZII web app and VIA first — only one app can hold the keyboard at a time.
  2. Click Connect and pick the AL80.
  3. LCD tab — push a clock, a still image, or a GIF to the screen.
  4. Lighting tab — pick an RGB effect, colour, brightness, speed (this speaks VialRGB, the custom firmware's lighting).

⌨ī¸ Step 4 (optional) — Remap keys

For keymap, layers, macros, and per-key RGB, open vial.rocks in Chrome and connect. Changes are live — no reflashing.

↩ī¸ Recovery — back to stock

Want the original firmware back? Enter the bootloader the same way (ESC + plug) and flash the stock RIPPLE.bin (in the release assets), or use YUNZII's official updater. Same steps, different .bin.

🧩 Good to know

  • Chip: STM32F103x8 — 56 KB app flash, 20 KB RAM. It's tight, which is why firmware features are picked carefully.
  • Known-good fallback: v1.0.0. If a newer version misbehaves, reflash this one — it's the stable baseline the rest build on.
  • The screen is a separate smart module — the keyboard forwards your images to it over an internal serial link. That's why the LCD keeps working on custom firmware.