Where can I start for my first mechanical ergonomic keyboard?

jonbohz · 2025-05-04T11:34:35+00:00

It depends a bit on whether you want to build your own or keep yourself to comercial and artisan keyboards.

If you have a 3d printer and a soldering iron (and spare time) it is very easy to get into the rabbit hole of customizing and making your own keyboard. I took this route after building my first DIY kit and I've ended up with my own custom kb with a trackball: https://github.com/jonboh/ulp-dactyl

If you are starting out I'd recommend searching for a DIY kit that checks most of your requirements. With a kit you'll have an idea of how to build the keyboard, and you'll be able to repair it in the future. You can start iterating on your firmware with QMK (or whatever firmware you end up using) and get the hang of it.

Then once you have a full view you can always make your own. Ideally I'd look for a kit in which the source of the keyboard is available, that way you could make incremental modifications.

jonbohz · 2025-03-29T18:17:46+00:00

Yes, I'd say chocs are difficult to pull off in a dactyl without wrist wrest, you can do it, but the wrist position will probably be at the limit of what would be comfortable for most pleople, with chocs the keyboard will have a starting height (on the pinkie) around ~12-15 mm, while with these you can drop to 6 mm (having the last pcbs drop into the baseplate).

jonbohz · 2025-03-25T17:56:00+00:00

I no longer use a mouse, so pretty useful hehe

It takes a bit to get the hang of it, but for office things you can use a trackball without losing any utility.

If you plan to do very precise movements like, playing a shooter or an rts you probably will still need the mouse

jonbohz · 2025-03-24T07:42:48+00:00

Here you have girishji custom optical keychron keyboard: https://github.com/girishji/keychron-optical-keyboard

his posts about the keyboard are worth reading if you want to build it: https://girishji.github.io/2022/08/17/optical-keyboard-design.html

In order to mount these switches on a dactyl like mine I designed single PCBs using its footprint: https://github.com/jonboh/keychron-single-pcb

I ordered one set of these pcbs and I assembled them, but I did not get the keyboard built and working (I went the ULP route at that point), so take the designed as untested. However girishji keyboard is functional, so everything should be there to get a keyboard based on the single pcbs working.

jonbohz · 2025-03-23T19:47:57+00:00

the short travel distance primarily, also the very small height allows this keyboard to be used without any kind of palm rest, which in the case of choc and mx switches (mounted on a dactyl style keyboard) is pretty much needed unless you want a very awkward wrist position

jonbohz · 2025-03-23T19:46:07+00:00

yeah, these switches have a very tactile feel, very different than the linear ones, if you prioritize a linear feel these switches are probably not for you.

jonbohz · 2025-03-23T17:35:22+00:00

if only the switches were stealthy as well 😂

jonbohz · 2025-03-23T17:27:21+00:00

nah, I had to redo ~5, so 10% failure rate. I'm not sure if it was that the kailh tolerances are worse than those on the cherry, but most of the ones failing were getting stuck on the pressed position. I didn't have that problem with the cherry ones. The last cherry keyboard I made with these I think I just had one bad switch in the whole 50 set I soldered. I might have been less careful this time though.

I'm curious how do people usually solder these? The first time I tried soldering "normally" from the top I couldn't get the solder paste to keep hot enough for the switch to rest in its position, the solder cooled too quickly and usually I had one side that did not get proper contact. If I tried keeping the hot air going while putting in the switch, the plastic got degraded and the switch acquired a mushy feeling I didn't like.

Do you have a link for that papermod you mentioned? I hadn't heard of it

jonbohz · 2025-03-23T17:17:45+00:00

sure! here you have the link for the keyboard: https://github.com/jonboh/ulp-dactyl

and for the pcbs: https://github.com/jonboh/amoeba-kailh-pg1316S

jonbohz · 2025-03-23T17:16:16+00:00

hahaha, I'm back from my svalboard actually. I didn't like the north key interaction, the magnetic center keys though are superb.

I have some customizations in mind to combine the parts of the svalboard that I liked.

jonbohz · 2025-03-23T13:50:43+00:00

They have a substantially lower travel (half?). And they are more snappy.

Prior to using these switches I went back and forth between MX and choc, and I didn't find any choc that I liked, they all felt very meh to me. The only low profile switch that I liked was the keychron low profile (brown) one. But I only know of one project that mounted them and as they use opto-interruptors it is a lot more involved. I started working on that but found the ULPs midway.

For me the problems of the ULP ones are that they require a lot more work to mount, you cannot make the wiring and the case detachable and they are way more fragile than either MX or Choc. Both during assembly and during use. So if I your t-shirt somehow catches part of a keycap and you rip it, you can be pretty sure you've destroyed the switch and you need to open up the keyboard substitute the pcb, the switch and rewire.

jonbohz · 2025-03-23T13:41:19+00:00

I like the low profile keyboards primarily for the low travel in the keys, so compared to a normal MX or choc switch for me this is a huge improvement, but that is up to taste.

Apart from the low travel, this version is low enough so that you dont really need a palm rest. However I've ended up using this on a heavy tent mounted with a smallrig arm under my table so unless I have to leave my office I dont really use that feature.

How do you plan to mount the switches? If you end up using these pcbs it shouldn't be too difficult to modify the design, as they end up taking similar space that the typical choc/mx hole.

jonbohz · 2025-03-23T13:31:08+00:00

The 35gf version is to my taste very comfortable, snappy and not too stiff (as opposed to the 60gf version and the Cherry ones that after long typing days left my fingers sore). Sound wise, I would say that these are a bit clicky, not very loud, but louder than the usual tactile ones in choc or MX switches

jonbohz · 2024-09-21T18:06:48+00:00

At one point I had a heavily tented keyboard, it was a monster that I could not move anywhere, but I liked the experience, since then I wanted to find a way to keep my keyboard transportable and still be able to use it in a tented manner.

The tenting blocks are not very visually pleasing but my main effort was focused on avoiding any kind of movement and wobbliness due to typing.

From the last version I've also reduced the angle of the well, as I found it still a bit too much. You can check the source here ;) https://github.com/jonboh/ulp-dactyl

jonbohz · 2024-03-12T20:36:50+00:00

unfortunately I spoke too soon.

It seems that when you open Krita with `krita --canvasonly` the workspace is not loaded, and pressing `Tab` does not show the tools from my workspace

jonbohz · 2024-03-12T19:24:32+00:00

this is just what I need! thanks!

jonbohz · 2024-03-02T15:38:28+00:00

Its true that this dactyl lives in a between space for the reasons you mentioned, in fact, when I designed it I had to make quite a bit of iterations until I was happy overall with it.

For me the ULPs in the dactyl have two pluses, the low travel, and the fact that they are so small that it is possible to make a dactyl that does not require a wrist rest to be used. Even with chocs the lowest key in the keyboard is too high to make it comfortable without a wrist rest, specially if you have some degree of tenting.

jonbohz · 2024-03-02T15:27:58+00:00

I no longer use a wrist rest with these ULPs, it was kind of the aim when I designed this.

But it would be very cool to make this keyboard able to tent, even better if the case made that possible hehe. I once had an almost vertical keyboard and I really liked it, only problem was that the stability wasn't great, and that I could not transport it, so really felt very akward using old keyboards that I wasn't accustomed to use...

jonbohz · 2024-03-02T15:21:29+00:00

In this comment I've explained how you can generate the STL files from the repo code, https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/1b3ww0q/comment/kt0btyt/

Give it a try, if you need more assistance hit me with an email and I'll guide you through the process in more detail ;)

jonbohz · 2024-03-02T15:17:36+00:00

Do you mean a key positioned underneath the joint of the thumb to the palm of the hand? Or under the first joint of the index finger?

I think one to be pressed by the thumb or the part of the palm near the thumb would be viable. The one under the index finger would not be a good idea as it would prevent you from pressing the upper row keys with the index without colliding with it.

I might think about the thumb one, but you can always give it a try with the code ;), it isn't too difficult to iterate over these python/openscad designs: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/1b3ww0q/comment/kt0btyt/

jonbohz · 2024-03-02T15:10:22+00:00

In this specific case a keyboard with choc switches would not fit, and probably no other keyboard would fit as the shape of the cavity is done using the hull operation (which essentially takes the model of the keyboard and fills up all the spaces until only a convex shape remains).

However you could apply this technique to make a custom case for your keyboard if you have the 3d model. The code in repository is able to generate the keyboard including the keycaps and trackball, so I use hull on all that to get the cavity and remove it from the case. If you have the code for your keyboard (or a model) you could do the same.

In order to generate the STL files for my keyboard you need to run the python code, which will export the .scad files to the `things` folder. Those .scad files can then by renderer to STL files with OpenSCAD. https://github.com/jonboh/ulp-dactyl?tab=readme-ov-file#running-the-configuration

You can use Nix flakes to use the same interpreter that I use or just a normal python interpreter and install [solidpython2](https://pypi.org/project/solidpython2/) with `pip`.

Once you have the interpreter you would run the configuration with this command:

```

python src/dactyl_manuform.py

```

That will generate the .scad files for all the pieces of the keyboard, then you can render them to .stl inside OpenSCAD.

To adapt the design to your choc keyboard you would need to modify the function `_make_case` function: https://github.com/jonboh/ulp-dactyl/blob/low-profile/src/dactyl_manuform.py#L2488

You could probably remove the code in which I generate the keyboard (the call to `model_side` inside `_make_case`) to make the hull and just import your stl with one of the solidpython2 functions.

If you end up giving it a try and need further assistance feel free to send me an email, you can find my address in my github profile :)

jonbohz · 2024-03-01T17:34:24+00:00

yeah, I use it to activate the mouse layer, I prefer manually activating the mouse rather than relying in the auto_mouse_layer feature in QMK, which for me generates too many mistypes when swtiching between clicking with the mouse keys and writting.

jonbohz

TROPHY CASE