My first design! Github link to the repo with pcbs and 3d printed components: https://github.com/dnlbauer/corax56-keyboard
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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ErgoMechKeyboards
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Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards
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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!?)
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Some useful links
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- 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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This is awesome, I have a similar design coming from JLPCB this week (it is a bit more Corne like though).
Any advice or important lessons you learned?
The main lesson I learned was probably to start thinking "in hardware" and not software. Like you design something and it fits on paper but in reality, it might not be ideal. For example, my diode placement is very close to the hotswapsocket (i fixed that for rev 1.1). On paper it war fitting, but its kinda hard to solder when you need room for your solder iron in between - this is something kicad won't tell you.
Thanks. I must admit I am curious to see what mistakes I’ve made this coming weekend. My first KiCAD PCBs should arrive this week, then the penny shall drop I suspect.
If you’ve not tried it yet I’d recommend having a go at reflow soldering with a hot plate. It makes some aspects of assembly easier.
I haven’t yet had a chance to get two rotary encoders working under ZMK yet either. Did you have a good resource to use for that or did you need to figure it out yourself?
(Appreciate I’m asking a lot of questions sorry).
EDIT: I see you’ve posted your ZMK config, nice 😊
There is a zmk pull request open that adds split encoder support. If you use that to build your firmware if should work.
To be honest I have not tried it with this board so technically one scrollwheel is not working right now. Though I'll change that soon. I used a fork that supports split encoder with zmk on my sofle and it worked, so you could use this config for some inspiration (here: https://github.com/dnlbauer/sofle-zmk-config).
Awesome, thank you.
I have a Sofle to test with ahead of assembly. Also “my design” is based on the Sofle (electrically at least), this is super helpful!