this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
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ErgoMechKeyboards

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Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards

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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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Built half a keyboard (first prototype for my custom design) (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by anaumann@lemmy.world to c/ergomechkeyboards@lemmy.world
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This is the right half of my first custom design. Not available yet as its still in prototyping phase.

Features:

  • Fully wireless, running ZMK
  • Case with fixed tenting angle (not shown in the picture as I am currently designing it)
    • Provides space for large battery
    • Bottom-facing MCU, here a Seeed Studio Xiao
  • Reduced pinky keys
  • extra keys below middle finger column and next to inner column
  • thumb keys aligned with grid (for me, this was the most comfortable position anyways, your mileage may vary)

Basically a 42 (-2) keyboard: One pinky key less and the 6th column has been moved to more ergonomic positions (no pinky stretching or hand bending outwards)

Pic shows the right half with MBK Legends keycaps along some custom keycaps made with FKCaps' custom keycaps generator. I am using a slightly modified Colemak-DH layout where I Q and Z to the left and all punctuation to layers so the left pinky only has to operate a homerow key (and caps word / num lock).

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[–] choas@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

QAKJH9

(I couldn't find the possibility to rotate 1.5u keycaps by 90 degrees)

[–] anaumann@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Looks like you might have wanted to reply to this thread

[–] choas@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

thank you - and sorry (and I'm not the only one 🤔)

[–] rooq@lemmy.zip 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Looks great 👍 How did you decide on the stagger? Did you measure your hand or did you play with different positions on a piece of paper?

[–] anaumann@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Dipping the fingers in dyed water and laying them on a piece of paper, measuring, printing and checking on the printed sheet.

It appears to me now that this method does not acknowledge how well your fingers are able to find their home row key while typing, or that the optimal stagger might be different for different tenting angles. Would strongly recommend to 3D print / laser cut the PCB design first and trying it out with actual switches beforehand.

I will do this for the next iteration before designing the case, and also look at some popular keyboards with a more aggressive stagger for hints. Will definitely reduce the middle finger column stagger as it is way too aggressive right now.

For some columns I slightly deviated from measurements deliberately, e.g. the inner column should be slightly lower than the index column, but it's a minor difference.