Firstly, I went to the old Subreddit and the last post is over 2 weeks ago. This community must be one of the first to totally abandon Reddit.

Secondly, to the point, I would love a premium ergo board, like the cornish zen. I see that Boardsource has an aluminum Lulu but its got about 20 keys too many for me. I'm currently using a Corne with 36 keys.

What are others thinking about premium boards? Or asked another way, what keyboards are you dreaming about today?

Only changes have been to remove the outer most column and so move from 40 keys to 36, plus a change of keycaps and some angled risers for the keycaps on both top and bottom rows.

Over the past half year or so, I have been using two cornes as my main drivers. One at home, the other at my workplace office. I tried four different kinds of switches. I'd like to share how I feel about them.

The switches are:

• Kailh choc v1 pink (linear, 20 gf)
• Kailh choc v1 white (clicky, 50 gf)
• Kailh choc sunset (tactile, 40 gf)
• Kailh choc v2 brown (tactile, 55 gf)

I used all of them with hot-swap adapters, so they just sit directly on the PCB. No case, no top plate. I attached a piece of children's sponge rubber to the bottom of the PCB to protect the diodes.

For those unfamiliar with it, trampolining is a modification of the switch where you take the switch apart and insert a small object into the tube of the switch's stem, preventing the switch from being pressed all the way down.

Kailh Choc v1 Pink

These switches are way too easy to press by accident, either by just resting my hands on the keyboard, or not correctly hitting the center of a switch, touching a neigbour switch.

When you start to push them down, as soon as they leave their resting position, they become very wobbly and shaky, not moving down in a guided, straight line. This, combined with the low switch force, makes a horrible typing experience. I made many typing mistakes, just because of how mushy the keys feel. I used them for two days, and put them back in the box. Praise the hot-swap sockets.

Kailh Choc v1 White

They have some pre-travel before a slight tactile bump, and the click happens just after the the tactile bump. After the click, there is almost no post-travel until they bottom out. I like my switches with as little pre-travel as possible, so theoretically I shouldn't like them. The tactile feeling, combined with the click feels and sounds good though, they feel responsive and springy.

My problem with these switches is that the actuation point is before the tactile bump, so if you press them only slightly, they actuate without bump or click. Typing on these switches requires a certain sense of passion, every keypress should be a continuous, swingful movement all the way over the click.

Trampolining is not possible, becasue there is not much post-travel after the click.

Both at home and at work, I'm sharing my office with others, so unfortunately clicky switches are a no-go for me, because of the noise they make. I used them for a day at home, liked the feel, but they have too much travel overall, can't be modded, and are too noisy.

Kailh Choc Sunset

These switches have no pre-travel before the tactile bump, the tactile bump starts exactly at the switch's rest position. This feels really great. There is some post-travel after the tactile bump until they bottom out. Trampolining is possible.

I trampolined the switches with 1 mm ceramic mill balls. My sister got a sampler of such balls at an exibition, and was kind enough to give them to me. 1 mm reduction of the post-travel is not enough, there is still too much post-travel for my liking. Bottoming out on ceramic feels a bit harsh, but at the same time crisp and defined. The sampler also included 2 mm balls, but those don't fit in the stem holes of the keys.

My biggest gripe with the sunsets however, and this is a bit hard to discribe, is how scratchy they feel. It is as if the tactile bump itself is not an entirely smooth hill, but there is an ever so slight roughness to it. Maybe comparable to swiping over a mirror with a wet finger. It just feels a bit off. The roughness can be felt both on the way down, and on the way up. The switches came factory-lubed, you can see the lube shining on the stem. Not sure if it has anything to do with the lube.

I have been using the switches for about half a year now. They are much better than the pinks and whites, but definitely not my endgame.

Kailh Choc v2 Brown

This is endgame material. Just like the sunsets, the tactile bump starts all the way up at the switch's resting position. Contrary to the sunsets, the tactile bump is smooth and satisfying. The switches activate just after the hardest point of the bump, but before the bump is completely over, exactly how it should be. After the bump there is quite some post-travel until bottom-out. These are by far my favourite switches of the batch I bought, especially with trampolining.

The biggest problem with these switches is finding the right keycaps. Since the switches are lower than reguler MXs, standard MX keycaps tend to touch the switch housing. I have two sets of keycaps, one a bit larger than the other. The larger ones go over the switch housing, but just barely. While pressing a key, the inner wall of the keycap scratches along the switch housing. That's a very unpleasant experience. The smaller keycaps don't scratch like that, instead they hit the small black rim of the lower half of the switch housing. That happens after the bump, and doesn't feel too bad.

I tried to trampoline them in two ways, with the 1 mm ceramic balls, and with small sections cut from rubber o-rings. The o-rings were included as dampeners with one of the keycap sets. Again, the ceramic balls are a little bit too small to reduce the post-travel in a meaningful way. With the rubber pieces you are more flexible in how much travel you want to reduce. I made them long enough that the switch bottoms out just after the tactile bump. Sometimes I made the piece too large, preventing the switch from actuating. This is easily fixed though, by taking the rubber piece out and cutting a thin slice off of it with a sharp knife.

Modded like this, both sets of keycaps don't touch the switch housing anymore, the switches bottom out just after the tactile bump, before the walls of the keycaps come near the housing.

I tried some other materials for trampolining, but none of them worked properly. The sponge rubber I used as bottom layer for my cornes is too soft to stop the key. Bamboo toothpick tips didn't cut off cleanly and splintered in unusable pieces. Some floral wire I had was too thin.

Rubber o-rings are the way to go. They create a very pleasant rubbery bottom-out feeling. On the pictures you can see the bigger keycaps. The left key has no trampoline and no o-rings. The middle key has a trampoline and three o-rings. The right switch has a trampoline but no o-rings. There is no difference between no o-rings and two o-rings. Only with three o-rings there is a difference. The middle key sits a bit higher than the right key, but the overall travel distance and bottom-out feeling is the same, and is entirely determined by the trampoline. You can see that neither of them goes over the black rim of the switch housing, while the left key goes over the switch housing when pressed.

This is a one-off build, a mint-green resin 5x6 Dactyl Manuform with 5-key thumb clusters, OLEDs, and RGB underglow. It came out pretty spiffy.

Bluetooth wireless builds are now available! Some features aren't yet supported with wireless (ie. trackball, underglow), but all sizes and other options are there.

[https://wylderbuilds.com/shop/p/dactyl-manuform-build](Wylderbuilds Custom Builds)

THE VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN SALE IS STILL HAPPENING.

https://wylderbuilds.com

Get 10% off all orders through Bastille Day (July 14th) with discount code: FUSPEZ.

Viva la bluetooth and keep typing!

Cheers!

Andy @ Wylderbuilds

Long time lurker, first post. More pics here.

My design has elements we are familiar with: columnar stagger, the Dactyl "scoop" (concave shape), and some splay (columns angled outward). But I've added an element I haven't seen in any keyboard before (though I did get some hints from this community).

Try this: look at your nails with your palm facing toward you (so your fingers will be pointing down toward your wrist). Notice that the tips of your fingers form a curve like a smiley-face. 🙂 That's the "scoop".

Now notice the angle of your fingers - they point inward. This is what your fingers do when they are curled over the keyboard (photo). Sculpted boards I've seen either have none of this angle, or they follow the concave scooped shape and set it in the opposite direction.

Keen to hear your thoughts, and I'm open to name suggestions!

EDIT: Changed photo

EDIT: Don't like how loud the hollow body sounds, going to explore a quieter body design.

tl;dr

Shine through

Normal alpha keys

Sculpted (? R0-R4)

non-alpha keys are blanks with a line through for light (or, translucent blanks)

I've got a moonlander with the default qwerty caps and would like to trick it out a bit. I'm having a hard time finding exactly what I want though. The closest I've come is something like this ymdk board

Which would be perfect, visually, if the pgup/pgdown/f1... keys were all blanks (with just a line or something for shinethrough, like on the moonlander defaults). Translucent keys would be okay as well although I prefer the solid + line for shinethrough.

Additionally, I think i'd like to try sculpted(? R0-R4) keys, which seems hard to find along with backlit. Thanks for your help and the suggestions!

I'm also leaning towards trying cherry caps but no clue if I'd really rather those over the OEMs that come with this board.

Hi friends, I have been using the KA360 Pro (with ZMK and bluetooth) for a week and I wanted to share some thoughts on it. My brief overall review is that I love this board and it is very nearly endgame for me. It is outrageously expensive but it fulfills every need I have in a board. My only gripe is with the Gateron Brown switches. Eventually I will probably de-solder and replace these. The overall board is also kind of loud but that's also personal preference.

vs KA2

• very similar to the KA2 but a significant upgrade in build quality.
• fully split (KA360) vs unibody construction (KA2). My poor posture greatly prefers fully split.
• KA2 does not support ZMK but has great on the fly remapping
• KA2 is slightly angled towards you like a conventional keyboard, so your wrists cannot be in negative tilt and relaxed.

vs Ergodox EZ

• curved keywells (KA360) vs flat (Ergodox). As someone with small hands curved keywells work better for me
• Ergodox build quality is ok. The plastic molding reminds me of low quality children's toys. But it is remarkably sturdy and has survived many a cross country move with me, and is the only ergo board in my current collection that I know I can reliably plug in to a computer and start using, which is the primary reason I've continued to keep it.
• it has cherry mx brown switches, which I hate. It can be ordered in hot swap, which I would recommend for anyone that is considering this board or the Moonlander (I did not get that option though!)
• Best configuration, customization, and flashing software I've ever tried
• Tenting kit is poor quality. I need to use books and towels to get it to stay somewhere. It also doesn't go very high.
• The Moonlander did not exist when I got this. I think the Moonlander is better, but I have never used it personally.

vs Dactyl Manuform

• Customizability is the biggest differentiator here. The Dactyl is a completely customizable open source clone of the KA curved boards. You are really able to configure this to almost exactly how you want it.
• It's completely hand built, which comes with major downsides. The 3D print quality leaves much to be desired. If your Dactyl stops working (like mine did), you will need to figure out how to solve this problem yourself. Mine only lasted 4 months before one hand stopped working entirely.
• Unless you completely source and build it yourself, the price tag of this product will closely approach the 300-500s.
• Is the effort worth it? One of the best and most comfortable typing experiences I've had when it's all said and done, but the lack of proper support for it makes it hard for me, as someone inexperienced with building, to go back to using it as my regular daily driver. At the very least I need to have a backup plan for when it inevitably goes dark.
• IMO, the KA360 is what I wished the Dactyl Manuform was going to be. Even though the KA360 is less customizable, its build quality is significantly better and I can rest easy knowing that if/when the board has issues, Kinesis is just an email away.

vs Gergoplex

• A hand built low profile ergo keyboard with an exposed PCB.
• The build quality of this product is very poor, especially without a case. Mine is a bit older and predates the recent explosion of low profile offerings, and I find the LP switch/keycap experience leaves much to be desired.
• I have no idea how to flash this thing. It seemed to only do it by random chance. It comes with very little/no support at all. It eventually stopped working and faces the same maintainability problem that the Dactyl does.
• Despite this, it is by far the comfiest flat board I have used with its ergodox inspired layout, compacted choc spacing, and 12 g choc switches. I experienced 0 pain in the months I used this board. If you have an active injury I very much recommend this board, or considering other low weight low profiles.

vs Corne-ish Zen

• I consider the Corne-ish Zen to be the pinnacle of this hobby. A true enthusiast's board with high quality manufacturing and parts. Darryl, the builder behind this, provides active support on Discord and is constantly innovating new ideas in the low profile world.
• It has an aluminum body that is just chef's kiss. It also comes with its own travel case. IMO, the body is better than the KA360.
• All in this board is close to 450 with switches and keycaps. If you want the ability to tent this board it will add on another 100 at least.
• The quality of the case is let down by the overall lower quality that low profile switches and keycaps tend to be. But there are some really interesting offerings that Darryl is working on that keeps me interested. Unfortunately you cannot get 12g springs for this board -- that is a specialty that only the Gergoplex provides.
• I find the layout of the Corne not to particularly work for me. I have pain from crossing my thumb underneath my wrist (damn the Mac command key!).
• The eink displays are not particularly useful on this board and I could do without them.
• I will probably keep this as a travel board for when I need to go onsite for work or when I want to work in other places, but it is not quite daily driver material.

So I'm trying to follow the instructions from the old reddit community to build the miryoku firmware for [seeeduino_xiao_ble, chiper36, Colemak, default, Mac, flip, default, default, default, default].

https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/12tvpsf/workflow_build_for_miryoku_with_the_revxlp_and/

But I'm new to github and don't quite get it. How do I select zmkfirmware/zmk/main build actions? I only see master as an option.

For the last few months, I've been daily driving a Corneish Zen, a split keyboard with choc spacing. I find it very pleasant to use, but wanted to try a split keyboard that isn't flat, like a Dactyl.

The Skeletyl looked like it was right up my alley, having a similar layout as the Corne and the same number of keys, so I tried printing a half and was surprised at how big it seemed. Maybe I just have smaller hands, but the spacing between keys seemed really far.

My question is, are there any variants of Dactyl keyboards that were designed to be used with choc switches/keycaps? While I could try modify the Skeletyl step files, I'm not that confident in Fusion360 and just wanted to see if there was something done first.

I’ve been slowly accumulating knowledge to build my own custom keyboard.

In order to do that I wanted to use some other people’s designs. In the process I made a 3D printable case for my first ergo mech keyboard.

This case is for the standard Sofle 2.1 Choc with nice nano controllers and nice view displays, setup as fully wireless.

I’ve not managed to get the right encoder to play nice yet, I suppose that’s part of the fun.

In any case, I hope someone may also find this case useful either as is or a basis for something better.

https://www.printables.com/model/522579-wireless-sofle-choc-21-case-with-niceview

Hey all, I type all day as many of us do and I've been finding some pain in my wrist and tingling in my fingers lately and want to know the best keyboard I can throw my favorite switches into and try to avoid/mitigate these symptoms. Hoping to keep it under $200 and I've never sodered before but willing to try it if the kits well laid out.

So I've built my Ergodash Mini and it's pretty much everything I could ask for as far as the button layout goes (apart from not having the full 58 keys). It's not perfect as is but will certaily stay as my main keyboard for a very long time. I used to use Ez, but it was very bulky, I never used the tilters, the number row was unecessary and it was a pain to clean. Ergodash Mini is perfect in these regards.

What it is missing is a few added features:

• Dactyl-like body
• wireless
• full 58 keys, no double sized keys
• optionally per-key RGB

There are a bunch of designs that do these, but none of them include the leftmost extra column, the 3 bottom keys on the outer-lower (ctrl, super etc.) side and the 2 extra keys on the inner sides. Extra column on the left can sometimes be found, but not the other two. Dactyl-like body is also something I've never tried, but seems like an obvious ergonomic improvement.

Would any of you happen to know if a solution exists to achieving any or even all of the extra 4 features? Thanks in advance.

Cross-posting from mechs:

I picked up a glove80 ergo mech, coming from a regular split keyboard, and am having a hard time adjusting. Got a couple questions. 1. For those of you that use tiling window managers like i3 or sway, or anything with a mod key, what do you use for your mod key? The “System” key on this board is so far away that my thumb really needs to stretch to get to it; not sure if there are similar issues with other thumb clusters. 2. are there any good typing practice sites or games you would recommend, especially those that emphasize special characters, numbers, and mod keys in the thumb cluster?

This took me like 5 minutes to type lol

I am looking at building a Sofle V2.1 to swap from my Logitech Ergo K860. Tell me why I shouldn't or why the Sofle is wrong.

The things I am looking for in an ergo keyboard

• split design
• rotary encoders look interesting
• fewer keys but more than 35 to transition
• I want to hook it up with a NiceNano! and Nice Views

Hello Fediverse!

Wonderful to see how quickly this community migrated. I figure my first post had better be something useful. (I was /u/sixdeuces on that other place.)

Anyway, I'm having a big 'ol sale on my store this week. Starting today:

• Get 15% off store-wide
• Whopping 50% off of in-stock printed cases. We just added 24 new cases to inventory this week. (Seriously, I need the space in my workshop.)

No need for codes or jumping through hoops, prices have simply been slashed store-wide.

So, if you've been looking to get into a Dactyl, Corne, or Sofle for a reasonable price then this is a good opportunity.

https://www.diykeyboards.com

Also, there's free shipping in USA for orders over $49.99 and 50% off international over $99.99. We are located in and ship from Pennsylvania, USA.

Thank you!

Heyo

I want to switch to a split keyboard setup, but I really don't want to spend $400 only to end up hating it. Are there any cheaper options that I can get as a temporary board while deciding?

EDIT: Massive thank you to all the replies I got. All of the suggestions and advice are great and have been very helpful. That being said, I will likely be going for the Momoka Ergo due to it having free shipping to South Africa and includes switches and keycaps. (Switches are extremely expensive here (around $250 for a set of Cherry switches for example))

I've really enjoyed the trackball in the center with my split Helix setup. Switches: Sunsets (shout-out to lowprokb!) Keycaps: MBK with printed LDSA thumbs because they're so comfy Basic case designed and printed by me.

I forgot to buy batteries for my new split keyboard. Is there any good place to buy the 301230 3.7v 110mah battery, to get it within a week in Norway, or is it expensive to not buy it from China with 30 day shipping? If it is not possible to buy it: Are there any other good replacements which are compatible with the nice!nano and Ferris Sweep?

I made a mistake while ordering the parts for the Ferris Sweep: I only ordered one 301230 battery. I ordered the other one, but the >1 month delivery time is a bit long. I am wondering if it is possible to solder and build the keyboard now, while only installing battery in one of the sides, and use the only side only with USB-C. If yes, I have two more questions:

1. Which side should I install the battery in? From my understanding, one of the sides usually works as a "hub" for the other side
2. Is it easy to add the battery to a already assembled keyboard in the future?
3. Are there any good tutorials for assembling the wireless variant of the Ferris Sweep? I have mostly been able to find resources for the wired versions.

Any tips or tricks? I’m excited to ascend from my QK60 HHKB to a split columnar stagger! Got the default TRRS cable that comes with it from Keebmaker but would you recommend I get one that’s a bit longer? If so, any preferred custom trrs cable makers?

Ximi:

• integrated RP2040 controllers
• left Cirque trackpad
• right trackball (golden trackball from Perixx)
• dual rotary encoders
• dual haptic feedback
• audio buzzer
• 3 way thumb switches
• Gazzew U4 switches
• MT3 Pulse keycaps
• MJF nylon case printed by JLCPCB

I'm trying out the miryoku layout. Let's see if I last more than 30 seconds.

For my first ergo split keyboard im waiting for the release of the keeb.io Iris rev 8. I am planing to experiment with layouts and will be moving my key caps around a lot. Therefore should I be looking for flat profile caps like XDA, DSA and KAM or are there any big downsides to them?

Currently I am using a Keychron K3, could I use the low profile keycaps on the Iris?