this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2023
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ErgoMechKeyboards

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Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards

Rules

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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No excessive posting/"shilling" for commercial purposes. Vendors are permitted to promote their products/services but keep it to a minimum and use the [vendor] flair. Posts that appear to be marketing without being transparent about it will be removed.

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This subreddit is not a marketplace, please post on r/mechmarket or other relevant marketplace.

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

It looks great! How much were the total costs? I'm considering building something similar

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm in Australia so this will be in AUD with Australian shipping.

I got the PCB's from JLPCB for $23.85

The keycaps diodes microcrontroller switches etc came to $50.17 total. I just used the ones linked in the github, as well as probably knockoff holy pandas and a knockoff soya milk set? They were both super cheap hahah.

So that's $73.22 AUD total, so a bit less than $50 USD!

https://github.com/tompi/cheapino

I've done some soldering in the past but never built a keyboard or anything like this. I was quite nervous but it was quite easy! Hardest part was making sure the switches were straight, but following the build guides tips I managed to do that pretty well (better on the right half then the left half I tried first hahaha.) Highly recommend this keyboard and project.

Really happy with the end result, I plan on building a Charybdis nano or Flow36 in the future to replace my trackball mouse but this is a great first step.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wow, that's way less expensive then I thought! Seems like a fun project as well!

Thank you so much for all the info. This project is really compelling to me, so I might end up building something similar :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah crazy cheap, if you’re in Australia I’ve got 3 spare pcbs (JLPCB has a minimum order of 5) I’d be happy to send them to you with my spare rotary encoder and diodes

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thank you for the offer, that's very very kind of you! I'll have to pass though, as I live on the opposite side of the world. But I can give you a suggestion: If they are collecting dust anyway, you could use them yourself for a cool little macropad and bind whatever you want to them. Could be a nice gift for friends/family as well :)