ErgoMechKeyboards

This is an expensive, but worthwhile upgrade. The trackballs now move incredibly smoothly with negligible static friction (stiction). All that this upgrade required was six Bosch ball transfer units (BTUs), two 3D printed trackball holders, two static bearings, and a bit of glue. It is definitely louder than the stock configuration with only static bearings, but not as bad I had been expecting based on comments I had read online. As mentioned, it was rather expensive, costing me about 100€ after shipping for the six BTUs alone. But reading comments from other users who have done similar upgrades, it is well worth the extra cost (over cheaper BTU models) for something that you use daily. Printing the trackball holders (which were modeled by a fellow user) was also extremely simple. Printing certain Svalboard components requires a tightly calibrated printer, but the trackball holders do not. I was able to print these after dusting off an Ender 3 that has been sitting unused on a shelf for a couple years.

After working on it for more than a year, I’m starting to see the finish line of this project. So it seemed like a good time to share an update and some renders on my GitHub development branch. If I don’t hit any major snags, I expect to build the first prototypes in March or April and publish the final design and a build guide later this spring.

How are you guys, gals and catpeople doing this? Are you using Sway or Hyprland for this? Anyone else using udev already?

Recently assembled my first split keyboard - keycaps are from Yuzu Keycaps, and the case is 3D printed in wood PLA and then sanded, stained, and varnished.

Just wanted to share a render for a keyboard I’m making. It’s coming end of this year. I didn’t show it in the pictures, but it would have legends on the keycaps. I’ve used dactyls and dactyl-likes before and I’ve always wanted one that feels solid with high quality injection molded cases instead of the 3D printed ones.

My daily driver setup. Using clamps like this allows me to mount to the chair without having to drill into it (or any other permanent modification like that). My biggest complaint about this setup is the USB cable reaching from the chair to the computer. I always need to be aware of where the cable is when rotating the chair and whatnot.

I’m making a custom keyboard with a Raspberry Pi Pico as the MCU, and i don’t understand what all the different pins are for and how they should be wired up to my key matrix and trackpoint.

I have made myself a wireless, 30-key keyboard, and have decided to make things more complicated by learning a new layout as well. This was my first time ordering PCBs and sourcing components locally, so am feeling a bit chuffed. I had to bolt everything down to a board, as the case snaps around the PCB, and was tight enough to start bowing the sides up, but this fix works and I’m happy with the aesthetic.

My current project is a "Writer Deck," a low-powered computer that boots directly to a text editor or word processor (RPi Zero booting to Wordgrinder, btw). Being the weirdo that I am, I also want to use this as an opportunity to try a split layout again, and see if I can get myself used to something other than the "Advanced Hunt and Peck" that I do now and that tops out at 60 or maaaaybe 70 wpm. The deasign I've come up with is a split monoblock based heavily on a Corne, but with a very modest split angle and the thumb cluster (1) shoved a bit farther under the hands and (2) built around 1.25u keys because they can be adapted to switch-stabilized 2.25u or 2.75u (see the green outlines). The whole thing fits in the Pok3r/GH60 footprint.

Like many of you, I've wrestled with the tap-hold dilemma: set a short TAPPING_TERM for quick holds at the cost of accidental activations, or lengthen it for more reliable tapping, which can make holds feel sluggish. While there are many clever settings to tweak, I often felt I had to significantly adapt my typing style to the algorithm, rather than the algorithm to me.

Alt text: POV you are sitting on a sofa, left half of a split ergomech keyboard resting against the left leg under an angle (tented) while a black cat provides wrist support

Ever since my 1st kit (a Beekeeb Hillside 46 splay) I have been wishing I had gone wireless, for better portability. I also progressed to the point where I wanted fewer keys, and a single board, but still wanted some decent splay. Thanks to keeb supply for stocking Ryan Schenk's Re-gret! It's a lovely compact keyboard, and meets my needs almost perfectly! And...it fits well in a Nintendo Switch case. ZMK was pretty quick to get working as well, though the error message after flashing each time had me worried for a bit. I did have to get a small rubber foot under the translucent cover plate to hold down the controller, as it tended to lift when charging via USB, breaking the touch connection to the battery, but I've got that dealt with now and everything's good.

_Pictured: current TKL below, split ergomech above_

Hi there fellow people,

Something like this? The heavy stagger is great, 42 keys is almost perfect, but the thumb placement is -- for me -- horrible. Having to move my thumb to practically under my palm is just terrible ergonomics.