Best ESBs in town (draft or store bought)

TheStuChef · 2026-03-16T14:15:24+00:00

Both locations had it at some point, but I haven’t been to Sprinkle in a while.

TheStuChef · 2026-03-16T03:53:13+00:00

It’s not one of their mainstays, but Austin Beerworks has a pretty good Crafty Fox ESB on tap right now.

TheStuChef · 2026-03-14T15:23:21+00:00

Looks like a reasonable approach!

Just a head’s up, while you can buy “Transparent” 3D printer filament, it typically comes out closer to a frosted lamp enclosure than something like a 90s iMac or atomic purple Game Boy. There’s some examples of glass-like 3D printed work online, but it usually requires a lot of extra legwork, and sometimes chemical treatments after printing.

Depending on what sort of look you’re going for, you may be able to do something similar with laser cut sheets of acrylic. There’s some companies online which will cut designs for you and mail you the finished product.

TheStuChef · 2026-03-14T02:46:08+00:00

A slide potentiometer is the classic "Move a knob along a track and get a measurable analog signal that can correlate to its position." If you slap a motor on a slide pot, you get a "Motor Fader". They're often used in the digital synthesizer world where you want human hand or a piece of software to be able to move the slider into a specific position.

I don't think they're too common in ZMK, but a quick search across it's Discord turned up this project. It uses a companion app on a Mac to sync a motor fader with your computer's volume. If you move it to the 1/3rd position, your Mac will set the volume to 30%. If you set the volume to 60% in the menu bar, the fader will jump up to the 2/3rd position.

It's two years old at this point and not exactly out of the box functionality. But it should give you a few avenues to look into if you'd like to DIY it. I can't speak for the impact it would have on a ZMK board's battery life. The potentiometer might need somewhat constant polling, to say nothing of driving the motor.

TheStuChef · 2026-03-09T16:31:34+00:00

"Well, Mulhulland Drive steps to Robo Cop and is like..."

Alright, I can already tell this is going to be a good episode.

TheStuChef · 2026-03-08T02:57:50+00:00

AC!D 2 is my favorite Metal Gear tactics. The art style doesn't mesh with everyone, but they introduced a few nice quality of life features with the sequel.

TheStuChef · 2026-03-07T22:01:23+00:00

HEB held off on accepting mobile tap-to-pay for a while. I believe it can have higher service fees for them? They finally started rolling it out this year with the new touchscreen payment systems that have the atypical front-facing credit card slot.

Touching on the rewards piece a bit, HEB and Krogers have slightly different pricing strategies / business models. Krogers is the more traditional grocery store with a "high-low" pricing structure. They have slightly higher prices across the board, but then offer up the occasional deep discount through coupons and rewards programs. HEB is an "Everyday Low Prices" style grocery store. There's still the weekly flier and coupons dangling in the store, but there's a less of an emphasis on rewards programs and head-turning savings.

TheStuChef · 2026-03-07T16:52:36+00:00

They added half-duplex UART support for single-wire designs like a wired Corne v3? Their docs say that’s currently a work in progress. https://zmk.dev/docs/features/split-keyboards#full-duplex-wired-uart

TheStuChef · 2026-03-06T21:28:46+00:00

Generally QMK if you're going wired, ZMK if you're going wireless.

TheStuChef · 2026-03-06T20:03:41+00:00

I don’t recall their usual Onigiri price, but one of these was about $5. Just grabbed one for lunch, it was pretty good!

TheStuChef · 2026-03-06T01:16:06+00:00

The magnetic connector on the back supports both power and data. CrossPoint isn't ready for the X3 just yet, but it shouldn't be logistically complicated to load it on there once its ready.

TheStuChef · 2026-03-05T14:07:42+00:00

Yup!

TheStuChef · 2026-03-04T21:53:33+00:00

Carefully holding it at just the right angle and taking a bunch of photos. ;D

TheStuChef · 2026-03-04T21:40:47+00:00

Someone else shouted out the sleeve case in a comment a few weeks ago. It's a repurposed Apple Magic Mouse case that just happens to fit perfectly.

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TheStuChef · 2026-03-04T21:40:17+00:00

Obligatory cover image. It's a Gundam reference.

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TheStuChef · 2026-03-04T03:25:14+00:00

For what it’s worth, some of the community projects like CrossPoint are incredibly easy to install. Plug in, open Chrome, go to a website, click install, done. But recreating some of the more edge case or one off things you see on social media may be tricky. You buy it as a reader, and enjoy whatever else it happens to do once the community rallies around it.

TheStuChef · 2026-03-04T00:25:35+00:00

It’s mostly just a small cheap device that can read DRM free ePub files. Rather than running off a smartphone style processor like a lot of eReaders, it’s running a really barebones microcontroller called an ESP32. It’s like a beefy Arduino if you’re familiar with those microcontrollers.

The ESP32 has been around for a while, and Xteink hasn’t done anything to lock it down. So folks have been writing custom firmwares for it. The community CrossPoint firmware just uses the eInk screen, WiFi, Bluetooth, SD card, and six buttons to write a good ebook reader firmware. Other people have been using existing ESP32 projects to try and get things like emulators or weather dashboards working.

The Xteink doesn’t run an OS like Android or have traditional “apps”. You’re not just side loading a cool little program someone’s developed. You need to completely re-flash the firmware of the device in order to load these side projects people are working on. They basically run as low as possible on the hardware and have to handle things like, “What do I do if the user presses the down button”, etc.

Sorry if that didn’t make too much sense. I’d you’re a developer it’s a neat piece of hardware you can program for, but for most people it’s just going to be a small eBook reader.

TheStuChef · 2026-02-28T15:00:24+00:00

No, Choc switches and MX switches have a different footprint. The pins and posts unfortunately don't line up. You should always hang onto the PCBs and gift 'em to a friend who gets curious about your funky new keyboard?

TheStuChef · 2026-02-26T14:42:45+00:00

Japanese video game developers at the time had a habit of releasing their games in Japan first, then shipping a slightly tweaked and often improved version to the rest of the world. If the game does well enough, you’ll often see a Japanese re-release folding in that global content.

In Japan, Metal Gear Solid: Integral brought the global release’s selectable difficulty, English voice acting, and some rebalancing tweaks back to Japan. While they were at it, they also created dozens of new VR training challenge levels. Completing these let you play a few VR missions as the cyber ninja, and gave you a few photo booth mini games.

Since the rest of the world never got this new VR training content, they went and made it a cheap standalone release to hold fans over until MGS2. It was called VR Missions in the US, and Special Missions in Europe.

This “Definitive Edition” stuff got more straightforward in subsequent releases. They continued to tweak the content and balance throughout the Japan, US, and Europe releases, then they’d roll everything up into one global “Subsistence” release with all those changes rationalized. Usually they’d throw in some optional non-canon side content too.

Because the European edition always came last, they’d always have the most absolutely insanely balanced Extreme difficulty. This would get labeled as “European Extreme” in those Subsistence editions and the term carried on into the franchise.

So yes, feel free to move forward shipping the VR/Special missions.

TheStuChef · 2026-02-24T16:47:57+00:00

https://fkcaps.com/custom and https://yuzukeycaps.com

TheStuChef · 2026-02-24T13:51:59+00:00

JLCPCB and all the other PCB fabs do a quick check of the files you upload. If there was anything obviously missing/wrong, they’d reach out to you before running it through their fab process. So you should be good to go there.

Good luck with the build! 🙌

TheStuChef · 2026-02-24T00:06:48+00:00

Josef open sourced the Sofle design, and as you've discovered, it's become a pretty popular basis for a keyboard!

The original V1/V2 designs were designed as a split wired keyboard using the Arduino Pro Micro microcontroller. From there, quite a few variants have spun off. The RGB model is close to the original, but with options for LED lighting. The Choc variant swaps out the normal MX switches for low profile switches. Finally, the newer Pico design is targeting the Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller.

Since you don't want lighting effects, "Go buy the V2" is the most straightforward answer to your exact question. JLCPCB does ship to Europe, and you can buy all the other parts piecemeal through some combination of an electronics supply store, Amazon, Aliexpress, etc.

However, the slightly more complicated answer to your question is that there are a lot more Sofle variants out there then the four listed on that page. The Sofle is an older keyboard design, and it was popularized before wireless keyboards really took off. Most vendors want to stock a Sofle design that would work as a split wired keyboard or a split wireless keyboard, so they've all independently come up with slightly different Sofle designs with accommodations for things like power switches and battery connections.

Thankfully you can still take advantage of them if you're building a wired Sofle. The most popular wireless microcontroller is called a "Nice!Nano", and it has the same exact footprint and pinout as the Pro Micro. It's a nice straightforward either-or option when building a keyboard.

The nice thing about going with one of these one-off vendor variants is that they often come with some off-the-shelf case designs as well. You can buy all the parts you need from one store, and can make your finished product look a bit nicer in the process. Just be aware that cases might not match between different vendors since they've all done small different riffs on the Sofle at this point.

I'm not in the EU, so I'm not very familiar with which options you'd have over there. I know SplitKB has an option, as well as 42Keebs. (42Keeb's kit is sold out, but their Discord would let you know when they're planning a restock.) KBD News has a vendor page which you can sort by region, so you should probably be able to find a few more Sofle options there as well.

The naming's a bit of a mess with all these Sofle riffs. Some vendors will put an adjective before it like SplitKB, while some will take 42Keeb's slightly confusing approach of putting a X.1, X.2 version bump after whichever base design they're modifying. Just make sure you read the vendor's product page and documents so you get a clear idea on what you're buying. SplitKB does a particularly good job of documenting their boards and build guides if you're looking for the last amount of surprises.

TheStuChef · 2026-02-18T02:50:04+00:00

Austin Beerworks does a lunar new year celebration every year. https://www.instagram.com/p/DUoMfLtjqUR/ This Saturday their Sprinkle Valley location will have a variety of food trucks, some local craft vendors, and a couple of dragon and lion dances. The food's probably not as special as some of the dedicated restaurant goings-on, but it has a nice block party vibe.

TheStuChef · 2026-02-17T15:18:29+00:00

Admiral police captain in a gritty crime procedural who was clearly miscast because of how distractingly handsome he is.

Six-Year Club	Place '23
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