It’s a split keyboard in 4 parts and 101 keys, though i could move the number pad and control pad to outside of the thumb keys if making a 4-piece keyboard is too hard or complicated.
Left thumb gets space, control, and super. Right gets space, hyper (just a 3rd layer), and alt. The keys next to T and N are repeat keys. Above Fn is escape and sleep. Above power is compose.
The control pad has cut, copy, paste, open, select all, save, undo, and redo.
I think that’s every key i’ll need, especially with a compose key and so much extra space available on the hyper layer.
Is there anything i’ve forgotten to consider? Anything i should know about split keyboards, or custom shapes in general?
More specific question, are 0.5u switches and caps available anywhere for all my small keys? I could replace most of them with full size keys fairly easily, but the 101st key on the number pad would make the layout asymmetrical.
Wow, that’s suuuuper custom. What firmware? Are you going to hand-wire it first to test? The only half size mechanical switches I’ve seen were alps, but I don’t know if they’d be available for sale anywhere these days. Nor caps. If it were me I’d probably just mock up the layout in cardboard with switches and stuff to see how it feels, then go from there.
Probably QMK, since that’s the only firmware i know even a little. I’m still pretty new to mechanical keyboards and i’ve only had one ever.
I figure i’ll cut it out of paper or cardboard to make sure the keys aren’t positioned way off from where they should be and i can reach most of it from the home row, then i’ll probably go straight to having a circuit board printed. I’ll look into getting help with that part since i haven’t made a circuit board before and don’t know the process for going from a picture in Inkscape to a printable file.
Shame about the half size switches. I suppose i could just use the regular function keys on my laptop’s built in keyboard and move some symbols from the number pad to other keys. The other modifications to fit more full keys aren’t too bad.
If you’re new to pcb design, I’d recommend learning KiCad! I haven’t designed a keeb pcb in a few years so my skills are rusty, but I learned the basics with this series on youtube called ‘getting to blinky’. There may be better or more up to date ones available these days, though. I’d maybe just take one of the side macro pads and just make that as a standalone to get the hang of it first before going hog wild with the whole thing. Honestly though, despite how tedious it is, handwiring a matrix isn’t too too bad!
QMK is a pain in the Ass for Split boards unless they added support for esp32s while I didn’t look. The problem is that if you really want to use most qmk features like hot taps, macros, layers AND rgb you will quickly run out of flash storage on AVR chips like the pro micro. This would be a non issue on the black pills but last I checked they couldn’t do split boards
I don’t see what’s so bad about a wired split keyboard. I don’t need many layers or any RGB. Wouldn’t multiple independent keyboards covering different parts of my layout work as a split keyboard and be easier to set up as long as i have enough ports to plug everything in?
split keyboards are usually connected with a TRRS cable because you need to be able to communicate between the two MCUs to be able to do stuff like shifting layers, tap dances and chording that can start on one half and end on the other. If you dont want to use the full feature set of qmk then yes, you could just plug in a couple of HID usb devices.
Or just buy a kinesis advantage2 …
I will admit I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard of a split keyboard that was viewed as one unit by the host device AND that had more than two parts. I don’t think the usual suspects for firmware will support that, though I could be wrong. That said, if you can live with more cords there’s no particular reason you couldn’t make it a split keyboard and two macro pads, or two split keyboards. To the computer, “keypresses is keypresses” for the most part. In any event, this could work out fine in several different approaches.
I’ll echo @junderwood@lemmy.world and say that I don’t believe there are any commercially available half-height keyboard switches with proper keycaps, though I’m sure there are various pushbutton switches that could give you the basic functionality. Still, I might write that one off for now.
For the layout, your stagger looks modest but fine; that’s very much a personal thing though, and I completely borked it on my first (and only) split board. One other thing I didn’t love about my split was having two vertical tiers of thumb keys. Thumbs are strong but short and move differently. Clearly it can work, but more often you’ll see the arc extended rather than stacking. In any event, I’d recommend at least printing up a full-size copy of the layout and seeing how your fingers will need to move to hit everything you’d like. It’s far short of a full mockup, but it would have a great value-to-effort ratio. :-)
For the numpad, I don’t know your use case but backslashes aren’t commonly used for math (right?) or data entry so I might move the dot/comma separator onto that group of four and park backslash somewhere else. The keymap beyond that should be fully programmable, so maybe just don’t spend big on custom keycaps until you’re sure you’ve settled in on something you like. A lot of people at !ergomechkeyboards@lemmy.world (and elsewhere) will use all blanks or blanks on the mods.
You can extend the matrix across so it becomes one board, but it means custom wiring the connector.
See here: https://trashman.wiki/keyboards/caravan-2
Does mean more pins for large matrix
Chidori also can have three parts to the split using i think ic2, was a while since I built mine, see the expansion option
https://github.com/kagizaraya/chidori_build_guide/blob/master/README_en.md
You can extend the matrix across so it becomes one board, but it means custom wiring the connector.
Yeah, physically that will work. I should have mentioned that, as it’s what I did (permanently wired) on my failure of an ergo split to get it split at all with one MCU, but electrically it worked perfectly fine. Proper USB-C/Thunderbolt like the caravan 2 seems like it would be a good solution for a PCB, and I’m curious what issues the mini HDMI produced (crosstalk maybe, or just complaining about sourcing mini to mini cables?). Ethernet or DB9 should do for hand-wired, though obviously bulkier.
I’ve also never heard of a split layout in more than two pieces. Reddit says it’s been done (https://old.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/13dkk8g), but it certainly doesn’t seem like a common thing.
I can get by without the small keys. I could move backslash and caret to letter keys, set up Fn+number pad for my function keys, and do something similar for caps lock if i don’t omit it entirely. I’m a little surprised there’s not more demand for small keys. I guess people prefer layers/chords or some other kind of button.
My current layout for an ANSI board has my fingers on the top 3 rows and my thumb on the bottom two row with symbols and space/modifiers, where QWERTY has ZXCV… and its thumb row. My thumbs already do this so i figured it would be fine as long as the thumb buttons aren’t too high up. I’ll watch out for that when i make a physical model. As for the stagger, i based it on how my hands rest when they’re not at a keyboard. A bigger stagger sounds uncomfortable to me but i guess i won’t know until i’ve tried more different keyboards.
Backslashes are pretty rare for me, especially because i don’t use Windows. I just put that there because it’s on shift-slash on my current layout. I’ll move them if i need the space for something else, but i don’t see it coming up.
Have you ever had a split keyboard before? I use a readily available one and the split does take getting used too.
Why do you want the pads? I work with layers for things like numpad and other specific keys and that works fine. I do come from full sized ISO, so I get why numpad is attractive, it does kinda negate part of the benefits of the split though.
I’ve never had a split keyboard before. I have a Chouchou board that’s clearly divided into halves but is a single board.
I want the pads mostly so i can move them. My current keyboard has the number pad and arrow keys touching next to where i put my mouse and reaching there with both hands to change numbers throughout a document or moving my right hand off the home row for a number in the middle of a sentence is uncomfortable. I’d prefer to be able to use whichever hand is more convenient in the moment. And the control shortcut keys are things that are sometimes uncomfortable when a program expects me to be using QWERTY.
What are the benefits of a split keyboard besides freedom in how far apart your hands are? Would two more split sections really mess that up?
Personally I do reposition throughout the day, but that is personal preference.
It is more and issue on how you do the connections between parts so everything can speak with everything else.
My commercial split has a master half that I could use standalone, the other half needs that master to function though. I imagine that also applies on a scale and then you run into problems on how to do the matrix without compromising nkey-rollover.