ErgoMechKeyboards

If you scroll down a couple of posts, you’ll see the daily driver I’ve been using for a year or so. This is the next stage in the journey.

I’ve made it a single board, as I got annoyed with the two side moving independently. It might have been fixed by simply adding more weight, but that wouldn’t be as fun as a new build!

I’ve kept the key positions the same as before, however moved to columns of two keys instead of three. I’ve basically removed the home row. To get to the home row, you’d simply press both top and bottom together. So it should lead to less finger travel, but I’m interested to find out how well it works in practice.

Oh my goodness, I would love to see the keymap for this.

Once it’s up and running, I’ll be sure to post. It’ll be a Dvorak layout, as that’s what I’m comfortable with.

As an example though, take the left index finger. When resting over the home row on a standard keyboard it would be on the U key. The P key directly above and the K key directly below (QWERTY would be F with R above and V below). I’m planning to remove the home row. So the left index finger would have the two buttons - P & K. If I wanted to press U, I would simply press both buttons, so P & K together.

In all honesty, I have a concern that pressing both buttons will be double the spring weigh, and that might not be ideal on the home row where I spend most of my time. But, I’m currently using choc whites which have an operational force of 50g, and planning to use sunsets on this which are 40g. So while 80g across two switches is obviously more than 50g, it’s not double, and I’m hoping it’ll be workable. We’ll see!