Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards
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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Took my sweet time wiring up to not burn myself out, but I think it was worth the wait! My soldering skills certainly improved by the end of it. 😅
Also, big shout-out to Wylderbuilds!
First build?! Jumped right into the deep end huh?
Edit: nice build and desk setup
Thanks! I knew it was a bit ambitious going in but figured it'd be worth it if I managed to pull it off.
Looks siiick! How do you like the trackball, how many keys can you reach with the same thumb comfortably?
So far, so good! I do think I need to tweak the DPI a bit but was actually surprised how quickly it felt normal to use. And I can easily reach all the keys. It's a similar layout to the Kinesis Advantage that I've used for a long time.
Only issue I've discovered so far is that I might need to put some rubber feet on it or something. I found it slides around my desk a little too much. 😅
Really slick! I just recently started browsing ergo and you have me inspired now! I do have to ask, what was your considerations incorporating the trackball on the keyboard as opposed to a separate trackball mouse? And how do you click? Those two arrows underneath?
My main motivator was to stop having to take my hand off the keyboard to use the mouse. It's inefficient and ultimately I was worried I was developing RSI in my shoulder. The alternative would be to have keyboard navigation everywhere but that's not always feasible.
The mouse buttons are the arrows on the left thumb. I was worried putting them on the same thumb for click and drag actions. They're layered for secondary buttons too, so <-||- is Left or when the layer is activated Backward and -||-> is Right or Forward.
The arrows on the right are also layered with PgUp or Home and PgDn or End.
How do you find the right hand thumb keys? How many of them do you need and how many are east and comfortable to reach?
No issue with the right thumb keys. I do think it might be possible to squeeze one more key in, but would be a bit of a design challenge.
I can easily reach all of them comfortably. Depending on the key, I use different parts of the thumb to hit it. For example, space uses the inside of the thumb whereas enter is closer to the pad on my hand.
I'm on the edge of doing a very similar build, but how do you find the buttons in front of the trackball? Is the ball big enough you don't hit those keys accidentally?
Yup! My thumb rests on the enter key but can still use the trackball without triggering it. I do wish there was a little more space between those two keys but otherwise it's fine.
Is that breakout board you're using for the trackball? (I just ordered a raw sensor)
It's the PMW3389. Following Wylderbuilds' trackball guide I soldered a header onto it to make it easier to connect.
Thanks, wasn't aware of the nicer versions on tindie.
Looking really good. How comfortable do you find the left thumb cluster? I've been eyeing that layout for my next build. You don't see too many DM with a full bottom row like that, interesting, what did you use to to make that happen?
The left thumb is pretty similar to the Kinesis Advantage which I've used for years. No issues with comfort there!
The layout is a 5x6 full matrix. Wylderbuilds has the option to print with it, but I think the software used to generate the model supports it as well.
It's a booty!
Holy cow! I'm impressed!
I see your WSAD keys, how is the keyboard for gaming? Would you use just the left side along with a mouse?
I have a similar keyboard and prefer regular keyboard when playing starcraft for example. Most games shourd be fine though.
Haven't tried it yet. The plan going in was to try and ditch the mouse entirely. It may take some tweaks and remapping but I hope to make it work!
A gaming layer with the entire left side "shifted to the right one" so WASD falls on ESDF has worked well for me. I use a quick toggle layer on the right hand side to switch back to my typing layer and then back to gaming if I need to type something up in game.