Hello folks,
TL:DR - I need help building a LP wireless corne keyboard. I described my core requirements below and I'd apprecchaniiate if you could take a look at them.
this is my first contact with the world of ergonomic keyboards and the world of mechanical keyboards in general. I have never dealt with electrical engineering or similar tinkering before either, so I neither know how to solder properly nor do I have any other technical skills. I am willing to learn tho :)
So I'm a minimalist, foss enthusiast and a constant life optimizer. I am therefore a big fan of the swiss army knife principle: multifunctionality, modularity, compact, portable and aesthetic design. If possible, I try to combine several things with a single capability into one modular, multifunctional gadget: The result is a multi-purpose device that takes up less space and is characterized by a well thought-out design.
This process just happened to me with keyboards. I have a fairly large keyboard at home and I always carry a laptop with me to university. I'm not a big fan of their fixed parts, the qwerty layout they come with, the standard switches, the huge space they take up and their overall inefficient design. The search for more freedom of use first led me to the world of mechanical keyboards, then to the 40% keyboards, which still suffered from the unergonomic staggered layout, via the olkb planck, which, I realized, has the hands too close together, and finally to the corne keyboard. And what can I say, it was love at first sight... ^^
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So I took a closer look at this keyboard and came across many great implementations that inspired me to design my own. I'll list everything I've thought about so far:
- 6 row corne PCB (42 keys), LP (choc red)
- Boardsource Unicorne aluminum case (very minimalistic, few edges, robust and still lightweight) with magnetic back + Boardsource legacy plate
- Wireless (BLE) connectivity
- MCU: Nice!Nano/Supermini NRF52840
I'm thinking of a mix of Boardsource's Unicorne LP case, their Legacy plate and the presoldered wireless corne pcb from typeractive, similar to what this reddit user did. I will probably have to make a bigger cutout on the side to fit the reset button. Also I'd like to put some magnets on the inside of the case to make it stick like seen here. Regarding the MCUs they should be all supported by the zephyr project so I'm assuming they will work with ZMK too?
I'm not exactly sure if the pcb fits the unicorne case though, as it only has room for a usb port on the side and the wireless pcb has the power heads there. alternatively there is also the regular corne aluminum case from boardsource, which was also used in the above post, but which I personally don't find as pleasing to the eye as the unicorne one.
Now I turn to you: What do you think about it? Have I overlooked something? Are the sources I have given solid? Is it safe to shop there?
Thanks in advance! (and sorry for the long post)
