Less keys = better right?

Sorry for the crap photos - I just wanted to share these extra keys I added to my Lily58.

I noticed there was a gap in the matrix so I tacked a spare hot-swap socket to the pads on the back of the PCB. That worked with minimal modification to my QMK set-up. I couldn't really use it dangling off some wires so I set out to make an extension that would slot in and be retained by one of the standoffs. I don't have a laser cutter or 3D printer so I just hacked these out of a sheet of ABS plastic following a printed template and glued them up. They're nice and solid and line up really well, despite being rather rough around some of the edges.

I'm finding the 1.5U keys a bit confusing at the moment, swapping them out for 1U keys makes it a bit easier to home my thumbs. These are certainly much easier to access than the outermost keys on the lower row or the keys below the display. I'm thinking they need to be called Lily Pads.

Hi all, I recently got into the world of ergo mech by borrowing a friend's old Iris v2, and I really love how powerful and customizable things can be with QMK firmware.

Recently, my old n52te has started to show signs of age after a dozen or so years of abuse. If you're not familiar, they look like this:

There's definitely stuff that could be improved on--just being able to build your own firmware for it would be amazing. Having one or two more thumb buttons for layers would be sweet as well.

The community of ergo mech keyboard builders are doing some super cool things with 3d printed builds and all kinds of neat stuff. Since I've just been dipping my toes in, my question is: does anyone know of any good replacements for my n52te? Is this something anyone has tried tinkering around with?

Thanks!

The primary motivation behind v2 was to simplify the build process by ditching the XIAO/Shift Register for an integrated STM32 microprocessor. The only parts that need soldered are the hot swap sockets.

Features

• 36 key unibody split
• Choc spaced, column staggered, splayed
• Cirque touchpad support
• Integrated microprocessor
• Built in mounting standoffs
• Preflashed with VIAL

Kits include all required hardware except switches, keycaps and case.

Base Kit - $50

Cirque Kit - $65

Printed Cases are available in every color - as long as the color is purple or black.

Black ABS - $35

Purple ABS - $35

Purple Sparkle PLA - $25

Matte Black PLA - $25

So, I figured y'all would be the best people to ask. I make fairly traditional row-staggered hand-wires, but I like them to be stabilizer-free, due to my home tooling limitations and a realization that they work fine. They also avoid one of the biggest pet peeves across the various niches of keyboard people. What is the easiest and cheapest way to come by a handful of convex keycaps at 1.75u and under, to use as spacebars? I can make a lot of different combinations work, so "mix kits" in Cherry or MDA or XDA seem the most likely to be useful, but I'm not sure.

With the sole exception of the Enter key (which at 1.75u will need to be labeled CapsLock or Control for most keycap sets), most keys can be sourced by being a little careful with which sets you get, even in sculpted profiles. Numpads require a bit of care too, as many don't have the two to occupy a "split plus", but they'll usually have something usable for that, as well as a shrunken Enter.

I can find blank keycaps easy enough, and they work pretty well for XDA, but other profiles can get a little uncomfortable on the thumb, and only some benefit from being turned around.

We're a mechanical keyboard shop that's specialize in aluminum case for ergomech.

The Sofle v2 with aluminum case is one of my proudest builds and here is the link so you can have a look and if you are interested, you can snatch one for yourself: https://ergomech.store/shop/sofle-v2-enclose-case-16

If you like some blinking, then here is the Sofle RGB for you: https://ergomech.store/shop/sofle-rgb-enclose-case-13

If you like it small, then we got you covered with the Corne: https://ergomech.store/shop/corne-cherry-aluminum-version-early-bird-419

Those are the most popular open source keyboard designs that we've seen, but how about something that only we have?

Sofle Hybrid: https://ergomech.store/shop/sofle-hybrid-aluminum-version-exclusive-403

Neodox: https://ergomech.store/shop/neodewtco-neodox-enclosed-case-version-exclusive-52

As you can see, we got you covered from the smallest to the largest boards.

Oh one last things, we in Vietnam is celebrating Labor Day on the first of May, and to share this with you guys, we're having 15% discount when you use this code: LABORDAY

open source, files on Codeberg

this was a big learning experience, first time doing a proper PCB instead of using yet another Pro Micro equivalent – this would not have been possible without Noah Kiser’s tutorials on Youtube, all the work that went into QMK and Vial, and the ease of JLC’s assembly service (no way I was ever going to solder an RP2040)

shocked and giddy with how easy the whole process was – plugged in the fresh PCB and it went straight into bootloader mode – uploaded the *.uf2 and it worked first time!

• symmetric split-ergo style layout (6 × 3 + 3)
• katana stagger
  • personally find this works really nicely and keeps the feel of an ortho or columnar board
• fits into Minivan case (12.75u × 4u)
• attempt to use as many existing mounting holes as possible (6/7)
  • main issue was maintaining symmetric layout with two mounting points in bottom row
  • personally find the resulting odd gap to be uncomfortable
  • if I do an update, I would remove the awkward spacing and slide the whole bottom row to the left a smidge (resulting in an uncomfortably-asymmetric symmetric layout)
• learning to use JLC’s PCB assembly instead of a Pro Micro equivalent
• providing a proper Vial firmware
  • (default layout is based off Reviung41 layout)

Okay, it's a numpad. However, if you happen to have access to a gantry-mounted diode laser engraver, it should be able to cut through cheap and readily available 3mm Masonite without much trouble (my 5w Comgrow took two passes). A couple of coats of textured spray paint gives a surprisingly nice finish, and mounting the MCU on top left me with a 12mm thickness for the main body, not counting the MCU and before feet, switches, and keycaps. This numpad came in at about 30mm "desk to finger" with no additional efforts to keep it low profile. I'm not doing anything new here, just confirming that it doesn't have to be insanely difficult or expensive to do a DIY ortho-split.

I don't have any RSI issues right now, nor am I particularly motivated to change how I type, but ergo mechs are one of my favorite parts of the hobby to follow, and I even made a pretty rough one once. As an aside, I gotta stop taking oversaturated iphone pictures in the office I share with a dander-factory of a cocaktiel. I look like 37% grosser than I really am.

Howdy!

I have a keeb.io cepstrum split board that I'd like to travel with when I head into the office. Anybody have good experiences with a carrying case they could recommend? My cepstrum is 8 inches / 20.5 cm by 4.5 inches / 11 cm for reference.

More info here.

This one pushed the limits. It's a little over-the-top for a wireless build but it's alive and thocking.

This is a 4x6 whole matrix Dactyl Manuform. The case is printed in translucent smoke resin with an acrylic coating.

It's fully wireless running some of the latest ZMK features. Here's the list:

• Trackball support with a PMW3610 sensor utilizing inorichi's new driver and the in-development pointing device setup (it's imminent). It has precision and drag scroll modes enabled on Raise and Lower layers.
• Two Nice!View screens running their standard ZMK widgets -- battery status, connection status, WPM graph, device connection, and current layer.
• Both standard EC11 and wheel-style EVQWGD001 rotary encoders. Volume up/down, page scrolling, and RGB controls on Raise.
• Full hardware per-key RGB running ZMK's Underglow configuration. (ZMK doesn't yet support true per-key RGB.)
• Four layers with support for the Nick Coutsos' ZMK keymap layer editor

It's all running on a pair of PillBug nRF52840 controllers from MechWild and powered by a couple of thick 18650 LiPo batteries. I used Skree Claw flexible PCBs from TheBigSkree for the right and left key matrices which worked out really nicely using his Translator breakout.

Oh, and those are Kailh Purple Pro switches, if you were curious.

It's a lot. It's pushing and/or exceeding the limits feature-wise, power-wise, pin-wise, and memory-wise. But it's alive. The right side PillBug is very nearly maxed out. There were foibles along the way and one or two (or ten) bang-head-on-desk moments, but it all came off in the end.

So.

We're having a light snack of a sale this weekend to celebrate the success of this build. Get 5% off any order with code WYLD_LIGHT_SNACK. Ends midnight, March 31st.

Full Dactyl Manuform Builds (wired and wireless) https://wylderbuilds.com/shop/p/dactyl-manuform-build

DIY Dactyl Manuform Build Kit https://wylderbuilds.com/shop/p/manuform-diy-kit

Resin Dactyl Manuform Case Prints https://wylderbuilds.com/shop/p/dactyl-manuform-resin-print

PLA Dactyl Manuform Case Prints https://wylderbuilds.com/shop/p/made-to-order-dactyl-manuform-cases

If you'd like to try a Dactyl Manuform case on for size, we sell "sizing prints" of our C stock keyboard cases so you can actually try a case in hand to gauge how it feels.

https://wylderbuilds.com/shop/p/hand-size-print

Cheers!

Andy @ Wylderbuilds

I finally finished writing a build guide for my Mantis keyboard and taking all the pictures to make it easy to follow. Hope it helps someone ...

Over the last couple months I've been working on the next version of Bad Wings, the board I've been daily driving for over a year now. Using the stm32f072 onboard and has cirque support (which wasn't working until a couple hours ago - thanks GeorgeN!). I've been using it for two weeks now and I'm happy.

Now that the cirque is working, I need to design a new case.

Just, you know, hanging and drinking cider at the arcade bar with the latest Wylderbuilds keyboard.

Another jumbo build, a full row 6x7 Dactyl Manuform with dual trackballs. It's got 88 keys total, like a grand piano, so if you're layer-averse, this one's for you.

It's got a gorgeous dark navy gray resin case with a matte acrylic finish and shiny black trackballs. If you squint a little, it might tingle your spidey-sense. It's a beautiful build and a real joy to type on.

And it's that time of year when we celebrate all things Ireland! Which is nice!

But, I have to ask, what about poor Iceland? Doesn't Iceland deserve some love, too?

Bjordagur, Beer Day, was on March 1st, but let's go with that! From now until midnight of March 18, the day after St. Patrick's Day, we're celebrating beer in general with 15% off all orders over $100 at Wylderbuilds! Just use code BEER_BEER_BEER at checkout!

Full Dactyl Manuform Builds (wired and wireless) https://wylderbuilds.com/shop/p/dactyl-manuform-build

DIY Dactyl Manuform Build Kit https://wylderbuilds.com/shop/p/manuform-diy-kit

Resin Dactyl Manuform Case Prints https://wylderbuilds.com/shop/p/dactyl-manuform-resin-print

PLA Dactyl Manuform Case Prints https://wylderbuilds.com/shop/p/made-to-order-dactyl-manuform-cases

If you'd like to try a Dactyl Manuform case on for size, we sell "sizing prints" of our C stock keyboard cases so you can actually try a case in hand to gauge how it feels.

https://wylderbuilds.com/shop/p/hand-size-print

Skál!

Andy @ Wylderbuilds

I've been looking around for one; search (in my Lemmy client) doesn't find one, and while there seems to be at least one in Reddit, the only communities listed on qmk.fm are Reddit and Discord.

Is there a good place to ask questions in the Fediverse?

I've been busy building a few Mantis v0.3.3 builds for friends and family. It took me way longer to build these than I had planned, and I still have a few more builds to go before I work on the next version of the design. But I'm getting better at this, and very happy with how these turned out. It's nice to try out different switches. On these boards I used Choc Sunset, Pro Red and Pink switches. They all work great with the sculpted key caps.

The two keyboards in the front use clear acrylic case plates and key caps made of two different resin materials to highlight the home keys. They are translucent enough for the backlight. The one in the back is made with birch plywood plates, painted with 3 coats of shellac to bring out the wood grain and lightly sanded for a matte finish. The key caps are grey nylon. The small holes in the skirts work great for letting the backlight shine through those opaque keys.

I used KB2040 controllers from Adafruit for all these builds and loving the extra space for building the firmware with Vial support. My old v0.3 prototype with a ProMicro also works with Vial, but I had to disable some features and lighting effects to squeeze it in.

And then I moved colon and semicolon to layers and re-assigned that outer pinky key to my rarely used AltGr key.

Hello to all keyboard enthusiast here on the Fédiverse.

For the longest time, I have used a TypeMatrix 2030 as my daily driver, most of which was spent daydreaming of finding a close approximation that would be mechanical. Failing to find one, I procrastinated in researching how I could build my own, which was an error.

Now, my good old TypeMatrix is showing signs of dying, and I still don’t have even started on its mechanical replacement. So, I would like help and counsel on how to make one.

I don’t need it to be identical, (I don’t need the rightmost column on the actual TypeMatrix, for example) but I DO need the middle column with “del”, “backspace” and “enter” keys.

Would anyone be willing to help me, please?

I have been using a piantor built for me by beekeeb.com, and am enjoying the more agressive stagger than my previous Ergodox. However, my typing experience is being spoiled by how tight the key spacing is. I have large hands, and can span an octave on a full-size piano; the Piantor is downright cramped.

In looking for a possible replacement (the Kyria was my primary option, but I guess splitkb.com has entirely given up on selling pre-builts, and I don't solder), what should I be looking at for specs to get some wider spacing on the keys? Is it simply "key spacing?"

Most commercial keyboards are fine; my prior was an Ergodox and the spacing was fine. The Piantor supplies that - it might even be a touch too much, but it's still better than the tepid stagger on the Ergos.

What was your beginner keyboard and which keyboard are you using now? It seems, that a lot of people tend to prefer smaller keyboards with layers. I myself am a bit intimidated by them, and would much prefer a somewhat more traditional number of keys, like the Lili58 or the Sofel has (as for now, I think I will get a Lili58).

Do you "regret" buying your first keyboard and would have preferred to start directly with your current keyboard (e.g. for saving money), or do you think that your beginner keyboard was necessary/important for you, to get into Spit-Ortho keyboards?

I want to get a corne keyboard, but I have a few questions, before I dare to dig deeper into the topic.

1. Can I use the keyboard wired and wireless? Meaning, when I plug in a cable, that it (turns of its wireless connection and) uses the cable connection?
2. Can I also just use one site at a time, meaning that the other side is turned off/unplugged?
3. Which version (corne-classic, corne-cherry or corne-chocolate) should I use when I want to use Gateron Hot-Swap Switches (not low-profile)?
4. Do I have to pay attention when buying keycaps, e.g. to also get special sized caps?

Is it Godzilla?? An active volcano?? A runaway nuclear reactor??

Well, no, clearly not.

But it IS a brooding 6x7 Dactyl Manuform keyboard build with a dark navy gray resin case and RGB underglow LEDs. Add a purple trackball, dual OLEDs, and dual rotary encoders, and you've got an (ergonomic!) weapon of ginormous productive power.

It's running QMK firmware with all the whistles and bells. Full Vial support so you can easily tinker with your keymaps, monkey around with macros, and choreograph your tap-dances.

We also offer fully wireless builds running ZMK firmware with all of its whistles and bells! Just be prepared to carry around a car battery if you want ALL the features.

There's only a week left to our WINTER DOLDRUMS sale! Get 10% off any order of $100 or more with discount code DOLDRUMS_2024! Sale ends at midnight, February 29th.

Full Dactyl Manuform Builds (wired and wireless) https://wylderbuilds.com/shop/p/dactyl-manuform-build

DIY Build Kit https://wylderbuilds.com/shop/p/manuform-diy-kit

Resin Case Prints https://wylderbuilds.com/shop/p/dactyl-manuform-resin-print

PLA Case Prints https://wylderbuilds.com/shop/p/made-to-order-dactyl-manuform-cases

If you'd like to try a Dactyl Manuform case on for size, we sell "sizing prints" of our C stock keyboard cases so you can actually try a case in hand to gauge how it feels.

https://wylderbuilds.com/shop/p/hand-size-print

Cheers!

Andy @ Wylderbuilds