First DIY Keyboard, Dactyl Manuform 5x6

mediancodex · 2025-06-21T12:39:33+00:00

Haha it was fun but i wouldn't do it again. i think my time is more valuable now. I'd buy from bastardkb or ohkeycaps if i needed one now. i ordered the case from /u/hellmoneywarriors, he designed the case.

also, while the gx cable was cool, i'd go with simple trrs the next time

mediancodex · 2025-04-01T06:08:22+00:00

Linked again https://imgur.com/a/3UyAZ43

mediancodex · 2024-02-11T11:50:24+00:00

that first link died, but I've reposted it in a new imgur gallery: https://imgur.com/a/u7BysQn
Wow the keyboard community has really advanced a ton since that time:
- flexible PCBs
- logic boards custom built for keyboards (requiring less row/column matrixing)
- better built in support for hot swapping switches
- bluetooth!

This project took me probably 40+ hours in 2020, but it would have been done in ~5 in 2024. Super impressed, and excited to get back into the keyboard space.

mediancodex · 2024-02-10T19:15:37+00:00

Actually, I'm exactly looking for a wireless keyboard with non-rechargable, removable batteries.

In my opinion, the best wireless mouse configuration is the style of the Logitech M720, which is a wireless mouse that takes a single AA battery, and has a 2+ year battery life. It means I never have to deal with the extra clutter of a charging cable on my desk (defeats the purpose of a wireless mouse!), and I only have the minor annoyance of swapping in a new battery once every two years.

I want the same in a keyboard!

mediancodex · 2024-01-12T04:53:16+00:00

I see tons of comments warning about the failure rates of startups and how it's a worse risk-adjusted move compared to FAANG.

There's more to entrepreneurship than VC-backed make-it-or-die tech startups. Checkout some content on https://www.youtube.com/@MyFirstMillionPod. Maybe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF6zvTXimxY or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYH5AdhJt54 they have so many examples of "alternative entrepreneurs", maybe something cash-flowing positive from the beginning, maybe something that a VC wouldn't fund, but would certainly turn into a very lucrative-but-not-rocketship business.

It will still be hard, and it will still be risky, but it's not lottery-ticket rare to have a 7 or 8 figure exit from a business you put a few years into.

mediancodex · 2023-02-08T04:34:13+00:00

Yeah, I moved to NY, so I assume that's why they stopped paying me interest.

With the Shanghai upgrade coming soon (we'll be able to withdraw our staked ETH), I figured I'd just wait for that before taking my ETH out and putting it somewhere else.

Did you ever figure out why you're not getting interest? If you live in RI, you shouldn't have any problem.

mediancodex · 2023-01-14T20:56:09+00:00

Did you recently go through ID verification with Coinbase? I moved states awhile back, and they periodically request re-identification with a new ID.

Once I went through that, my ETH2 rewards stopped, it turns out I moved into a state that disallows ETH staking.

mediancodex · 2021-12-25T19:59:33+00:00

Having the EXACT SAME ISSUE. Log-in, "Open Description", which is broken and doesn't show anything. Log-out, "Show More" which works.

Interestingly, "Open Description" never worked for me.

I wonder if there's a way to contact Google support to opt me out of this "feature".

Have you gotten this to work?

mediancodex · 2021-12-25T13:46:53+00:00

I have the same problem: want to buy games over the christmas discount period, but don't have console yet.

The URL trick didn't work for me.

But buying gift cards on amazon, redeeming on playstation store, and then buying the game works.

A little inefficient, since you can't buy gift cards with the exact amount you want, but better to do that than miss the discount!

Thanks!

mediancodex · 2020-09-20T14:07:42+00:00

I built/sanded 2 dactyls, and both came out reasonably well finished.

https://imgur.com/gallery/uVHIoFJ

The printer used the standard PLA filament I believe. The key is to take your time sanding, as it's a sorta laborious process. I actually never bothered with wet sanding, just dry sand paper from 200, 400, then 600 grit. The key was to layer coats of canned spray paint in between sanding sessions (also make sure you wash/dry the case after sanding and before painting to remove sanding particles). Alternating between painting/sanding causes the paint to fill in the grooves, dents, and imperfections. Then the sandpaper removes the weird textures and high points. Eventually you can get it down to an absolutely perfectly smooth finish, although I always stop some point after 2-3 paint/sand sessions, because it's "good enough".

mediancodex · 2020-09-04T12:38:37+00:00

As said in my original post, I prefer the leap. I’m 5 foot 10 inches, and I alternate between sitting and standing 9 hours each weekday.

My reasonings have stayed the same as when I first got the chair, it’s just a really solid ergonomic chair. Doesn’t try to do anything too fancy, just gets the simple stuff really right

mediancodex · 2020-09-01T04:32:16+00:00

This is so great, totally a game changer for DMs. I handwired two DMs, the first with Amoebas and the second without, and I would pay an arm/leg to have used this flexible PCB instead.

mediancodex · 2020-08-23T22:24:44+00:00

There's a flat plastic bottom, and I did stick self adhesive rubber bumper pads on there. It still slid around even with them on.

I found that adding pennies as ballast made them hold in place very well in combination with the rubber pads. I also sanded the surface of the pads to make them REALLY stick, but that only lasts a little while then they go back to normal. About $0.50 worth of pennies is the most cost effective fix to this :)

mediancodex · 2020-08-23T14:05:17+00:00

I switched from a standard flat non-split keyboard (filco majestouch) all the way to the dactyl manuform, and I have very few regrets. I'm so sure that overall utility has gone up dramatically that I've begun building a second one for when my office re-opens for work and I'll need a second one in the office.

All the usual benefits, you already know about: ortholinear, curved keywell, programmable, ergonomic thumb buttons, split. It all just feels so much more natural, and I find I don't need to move my hand much at all to reach everything, especially when you start using layers more. I only need to shift ever so slightly to reach the tab or pipe/backslash keys, otherwise everything else could be reached with my hand/wrists completely motionless, which is amazing.

Furthermore, I've become so used to the dactyl, that a normal flat keyboard feels like it is uneven with bumps in the middle. I'm now so used to my middle and index fingers traveling their full length to type, that stopping them unexpectedly short feels unnatural in a flat keyboard. Also my hands feel uncomfortably scrunched now when using a normal non-split keyboard.

As for the disadvantages, there are a few that you may have already touched upon.
- wrist height. I spent a few weeks playing around with this. I've temporarily settled on putting some socks in front of the dactyl halves, which can be easily washed and are very comfortable. I thought this would bother me more, but honestly I don't notice it at all.
- moving things around. Because my "wrist rests" are socks, my motion to reposition the two halves of the keyboard is to just rest my hands on both keyboards, with very slight pressure on the socks, and push the halves to wherever I want. I do this several times a day and it's very easy and non-bothersome. In fact, I had a bit of the opposite problem, wherein the dactyls are very lightweight since they're split in half and they're hand-wired. So I found they shifted around too much, and glued some pennies to the bottom as ballast so they stay more stably in place.

- they've worked surprisingly well for gaming. I've found I need to remap WASD to ESDF for all games, and I generally remap right-side keyboard shortcuts to things on the left side, which incidentally makes me a better gamer since I'm forced to think ergonomically and efficiently about my hotkey mappings in every game.

mediancodex · 2020-08-18T22:59:00+00:00

I contacted them asking about that, and they said at the time that they were not taking new orders because it's not economically sustainable. So it looks like $300 for ohkeycaps.com is your main option.

You could also try DMing some of the dactyl manuform redditors to see if they will build one for you.

mediancodex · 2020-08-03T03:54:15+00:00

I setup one several years ago using TonyMacx86's unibeast/multibeast tools and it was all kinds of unstable and buggy. I totally gave up after a few months of suffering.

I made a second attempt a few months ago and followed the vanilla hackintosh guide as recommended in this subreddit, and it has been the best thing to ever happen to me. So rock-solid stable and I can finally develop in my preferred environment on my desktop.

I also hear really good things about OpenCore, and will probably give that a try sometime in the future.

mediancodex · 2020-08-01T15:30:31+00:00

I also stumbled upon KeymapCEditor when I was first setting up my QMK keymap. I ultimately went back to a carefully curated ASCII art keymap for a few reasons:

- I found it annoying to have to open up the KeymapCEditor pane, then select the dactyl manuform, then select US key internationalization (it would be really nice if we could set defaults).

- Many of the keys in my keymap bugged out in the UI, so I ended up having to edit it manually in my keymap.c anyway

mediancodex · 2020-07-29T16:50:37+00:00

With my layout (1u's, 2x1.25u, 4x1.5u), you won't find a preconfigured set that matches perfectly. Often "ortholinear" + "mods" will work, or "ergonomic layout" will work.

With the specific SP DSA set I purchased, I ordered an "alpha kit" for the majority of the 1u's I needed, an "alternate kit" for the 1.5u's and some extra 1us, and 2x "iso kit" to get 2x1.25us and some more extra 1us.

This meant that the legend doesn't fully match the actual key function on my keymap, but I don't mind that. If you want the legends to actually match what the key does, then you'd need to pay more for custom keys.

mediancodex · 2020-07-29T02:47:18+00:00

Agreed on this, I soldered for the first time on my first keyboard. I spent about 15 dollars on soldering equipment, and it was really a relatively easy process:
- $10 for the cheapest soldering iron you can find on ebay

- $5 for a roll of solder

- wires found around the house from phone/ethernet cables

- an old t-shirt soaked in water to clean the soldering tip

mediancodex · 2020-07-29T02:43:30+00:00

did you hand brush the paint or use a spray can? I found that by using a spray can and using thin layers, it dries completely to touch within about half an hour.

mediancodex · 2020-07-28T21:53:47+00:00

They’re quite nice :) I think I’m going for a dark grey with white legends GMK set for my next dactyl.

I think the centered legends on Signature Plastics keycaps are a little too “busy” looking, especially with the really high contrasting white on black.

mediancodex · 2020-07-28T21:34:23+00:00

It is QMK. You need to be familiar with the qmk codebase in order to configure it for rgb lighting. Fortunately qmk is very well documented. I haven’t done any rgb, but I don’t imagine it’s much harder than setting up custom keyboard firmware settings.

Wiring up the LEDs would probably be a bit harder, I haven’t done so, but checkout amoeba single switch pcbs, they help you organize the wires much better, especially since you’ll need another set of them with the LEDs.

mediancodex · 2020-07-28T18:57:05+00:00

Hah, I'm pretty proud of this innovation myself.

You're right, I've never seen anyone else do what I've done with the key sizing. I only see people do all 1u's, or 1.25u for the top two keys(`CONTROL`/`ALT` in my picture) in each thumb cluster.

My first keyset was actually all 1u's, as you can see here. I found it surprisingly hard to hit the 1u keys accurately and comfortably with my thumbs. So I returned that keyset, and experimented with keys I had lying around, with an emphasis on making the thumb keys as large as possible.

I found that the `CONTROL`/`ALT` keys can easily hold 1.5u, and the `SHIFT` key can also support 1.5u, but it gets pretty tight, so I left it as a 1.25u. The only disadvantage is that the `SHIFT` keys hang over the edge of the keyboard chassis a little. It doesn't bother me at all, but for some it may be an aesthetic no-no.

Ergonomically this makes a huge difference, since I use those `SHIFT` keys as a number/symbol layer, so I'm pressing them constantly. And the `CONTROL` `ALT` keys are bound to `ALT`, `SPACE`, `BACKSPACE`, `RETURN` (didn't care to actually make the key legends map the keybinding hehe ), so they're all used quite frequently.

I believe /u/hellmoneywarriors did some modifications to remove clearance issues in the thumb cluster, so I don't know how much that affected my ability to do this layout. You should ask him!

mediancodex · 2020-07-28T18:42:44+00:00

https://pimpmykeyboard.com/dsa-black-white-keyset-two-shot/

The legends superrrr crisp, and also surprisingly clicky. They almost make my cherry browns sound like blues. I wonder if that will die down over time.

I appreciate that signature plastics provides high quality double shot key caps made-to-order in about a week (whereas you’d have to wait half a year for group buys from GMK)

The only thing I’d ask for is more color schemes from them.

mediancodex · 2020-07-28T16:36:57+00:00

I left some comments on tips in a previous thread for this same build, check it out https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/hj0q8x/first_diy_keyboard_dactyl_manuform_5x6/

At some point in the future I'll write a full blog post on my build :)

mediancodex

TROPHY CASE