this post was submitted on 18 Jul 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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This is the first time I built a keyboard!
A cheapino!
It took a little bit of time to get everything figured out, but I was able to finish that build relatively easily.
However, I am having trouble customizing the layout... I can't load it in the qmk.fm tool and when I upload a json file it gives me something that doesn't match my keyboard.
Also, the encoder currently types 'y' when turned right, I got 2 thumb keys working as spaces and I don't have a modifier key.
As far as I can tell, everything is soldered right, the diodes are in the right direction...
Did I mess up my soldering or is the cheapino firmware buggy?
Any app that can help me flash/customize my keyboard? I'll keep googling.
Thanks!

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Hey, thats a very nice build!

Im only using Mac, so I mapped the encoder to undo/redo, which on mac is LGUI+KC_Y/Z, but unfortunately not the same on windows. On windows gui(win)+y/z just equals "y/z", so thats why you get y and z when you turn the encoder.

Like @[email protected] says, you need to edit the encoder.c file to tweak it to what you want. If you cant figure it out, let me know how you would like it and Ill send you some code.

I checked the default keymap, and there is indeed double space there, I guess nobody has ever used it...

Anyway, what you want to do is go into keyboards/cheapino/keymaps and copy "tompi" to e.g. "chracoon", and then upload the keymap.json file to the configurator. When you are finished tweaking, download to same place and flash with "make cheapino:chracoon:flash"

Let me know if anything doesnt work.

And like @[email protected] says, I did indeed make a little bobo when routing the reversed RJ45, but fortunately it was pretty easy to fix in software, the matrix has to be custom anyway... There are some ghosting issues which I have not found the root cause for, but havent really hade the time to dig into it(just fixed the ones I found in software...) I suspect these are related to my choice of doubling the columns of the duplex matrix, instead of the usual row-doubling...

[–] Ar7h 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hey! Nice to see you here! Thanks again for your awesome design. Once I have some more spare time, I'm going to make a revision of my board that I based on Cheapino, that will fix the mistake with the RJ45 and some things I wanted to add, and I will open source my design (gotta come up with a name too, and maybe some silkscreen art). Once I do that and test the new prototype, I might apply the same fixes to Cheapino. Would you be interested in a pull request? Again, I don't want to promise anything, since I have very little spare time lately, but I think your board is awesome and it would be awesome if we made it a little easier for people trying to build it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Of course, that would be awesome. I am going to Make a v2, with hotswap and 5 pin support and fix some other small stuff.

The coolest thing would be if you made the reversible RJ45 available as a footprint, then anybody can use it without making the same mistake i did ;)

[–] Ar7h 3 points 1 year ago

That's actually a neat idea. I'll try to implement it once I get to it. Thanks for the suggestion.

[–] Chraccoon 3 points 1 year ago

Omg, thanks! I really liked the design/cost and it made me want to try the whole ergomech keyboard idea instead of just looking at pictures.
Your post explains so many things!
I'll jump on it as soon as I get back from work and I'll see if I can solve my issues.
Do you plan on updating the design? No push, just asking.

[–] hansamann 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

also just fininshed the hardware build and now - for the first time - try to get qmk on it. I cloned the repo just as in build guide and also installed qmk as per qmk docs. but when I issue

make cheapino:default:flash

I get

QMK Firmware 0.15.18 make: *** No rule to make target 'cheapino:default:flash'. Stop.

Any idea? I am also on Mac...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hey. Cool! Send some pics!

Since there is no official qmk support for cheapino, you need to use my fork: https://github.com/tompi/qmk_firmware/tree/cheapino

I should maybe try to get my fork merged into official qmk…

For your question about miryoku, there isnt a super easy way. If you are confident with git and c, you can try merging my cheapino fork into miryoku.

I based my own keymap on miryoku, so if you start with «make cheapino:tompi:flash» you should be pretty close.

[–] hansamann 2 points 1 year ago

This sounds excellent. Will give it a try in a few hours and let you know. Maybe we can ask manna to include it into the official Miryoku builds, too.