ErgoMechKeyboards

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Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards

Rules

Keep it ergo

Posts must be of/about keyboards that have a clear delineation between the left and right halves of the keyboard, column stagger, or both. This includes one-handed (one half doesn't exist, what clearer delineation is that!?)

i.e. no regular non-split¹ row-stagger and no non-split¹ ortholinear²

¹ split meaning a separation of the halves, whether fixed in place or entirely separate, both are fine.
² ortholinear meaning keys layed out in a grid

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No excessive posting/"shilling" for commercial purposes. Vendors are permitted to promote their products/services but keep it to a minimum and use the [vendor] flair. Posts that appear to be marketing without being transparent about it will be removed.

No Buy/Sell/Trade

This subreddit is not a marketplace, please post on r/mechmarket or other relevant marketplace.

Some useful links

EMK wiki
Split keyboard compare tool
Compare keycap profiles Looking for another set of keycaps - check this site to compare the different keycap profiles https://www.keycaps.info/
Keymap database A database with all kinds of keymap layouts - some of them fits ergo keyboards - get inspired https://keymapdb.com/

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Is it possible to repurpose the PCB of one half of a split keyboard? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by HypothesisTesting@lemmy.world to c/ergomechkeyboards@lemmy.world

4 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hey, I'm wondering if it's possible to use the PCB of one half of a split keyboard, as a one-handed keyboard?

Since the minimum order quantity at PCB fab shops is usually 5, we'd be able to make 2.5 split keyboards (assuming reversible PCB) if nothing goes wrong. I feel kind of bad for that 0.5 of a split keyboard, and I'm wondering if it's possible to simply rewrite/tweak the firmware, so that it can be used as a one-handed keyboard (something like the Eternal Keypad)?

I tried googling, and it appears that someone has asked this before on reddit, but I don't want to give reddit pageviews :|

Thank you for your time :)

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[–] Necromnomicon@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

AFAIK you can just build/flash per normal and it'll work if it's the left half. There might be a little extra work to get the right hand side working without the left (if you wanted just a right hand)

[–] HypothesisTesting@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow, that's much easier than I expected! :D Fortunately I'll probably use the left-hand side, it'd be very convenient for playing computer games. But for knowledge's sake, how would one go about making it work for a right-hand side? (I'm guessing it's got to do with setting the 'master' half, but I'm not sure.)

[–] obosob@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago

For most it's just a matter of flashing some different eeprom on first flash and that's it. Most qmk splits define the EE_HANDS feature that allows the handedness to be written to the eeprom. So should be as simple as qmk flash -bl avrdude-split-right -kb <keyboard> -km <keymap> or if its a DFU device then swap avrdude for dfu