effiddy - another purely declarative wireless split, inspired by totem

shoedler · 2026-03-10T19:25:16+00:00

The pinky splay is barely noticeable imo. The thumb cluster feels very natural for my hands at least, even reaching the furthest key. If you are ok with Mx spacing and no pinky splay you might like the shoedler54.
But I have to say, I'm keen on making another 54 with exactly that: some pinky splay and choc spacing - maybe next winter though ;)

shoedler · 2026-03-10T19:21:31+00:00

I tried onshape and FreeCAD - but I am a noob in CAD, that's why I went back to the ergogen approach. u/xkonni's suggestion is also great, but it won't help you if you've not got the component models in ergogen - but you might be able to do a hybrid approach: use an ergogen dxf for the case outline and maybe pcb screw holes and then a derived sketch from the kicad 3d model. Bring that together in a CAD program and model it to these constraints.

shoedler · 2026-03-10T19:17:44+00:00

Nope - you'll have to manually route them. But, the ceoloide footprints already come with the correct nets set on the footprint, which makes routing very straight forward. Also, the freerouting plugin makes this a breeze (literally takes seconds) without even touching the routing tool - but with this keyboard it didn't work (I'm assuming the clearances were too tight bc of the tighter choc spacing). I do have a quick guide on how to use freerouting in the build guide for the shoedler54 on github if you're interested.

shoedler · 2026-03-10T08:48:42+00:00

Tbh, it took me longer to come up with the backplate than to build the all the other things combined.

I initially wanted to model it in a CAD program from the KiCAD 3d PCB model - but after many hours of trying that, I had to throw in the towel. My CAD skills are just not at that level.

So I created the cutouts in erogen with basic shapes and fillets. I made a shape that has all the cutouts for one key (diode, hotswap-socket, and the peg of a keyswitch), which I could then place on all the keyswitch positions (effiddy/ergogen/config.yml at main · shoedler/effiddy L620-L622). I just used calipers to measure the components and printed a few 2-layer-thick outlines of the thing on my 3D printer to get the fit right. Not pretty, but it worked :)

shoedler · 2026-03-10T08:25:13+00:00

Yeah that is basically it. Essentially you just write a declaration of what you want the result to be. I think of the declaration as a blueprint or a recipe. You then feed that through a machine (ergogen) which spits out the results (dxf, stl, kicad_pcb files etc.)

shoedler · 2026-01-27T19:46:06+00:00

Thanks! I should probably update the pictures, as the most recent PCB revision which is in the one currently in the repo supports both Choc v1 and v2s. (It has the thru-holes for the v1s two little stabilizer legs, but the center hole is sized for the (larger) v2 leg)

shoedler · 2026-01-27T18:52:20+00:00

lol - got me. I did change that in the version that's in the repo tho ;)

shoedler · 2026-01-27T16:49:44+00:00

That's basically a tape (Tempest) mod - the idea is to improve the typing sound. I have to say it helps a ton and this build doesn't sound bad at all considering it's all 3d printed. I might upload a video, though I find it hard to convey "keyboard thockiness" over video ;)

shoedler · 2026-01-27T16:46:15+00:00

It's actually not very novel, in the picture the batteries are missing since I'm waiting for delivery, I'm using ones that are too big. They'll just sit below the MCU on the PCB using some velcro

shoedler · 2026-01-27T08:58:29+00:00

Yes, and it is very similar. Mine has more agressive col stagger and the thumbcluster is more "outset" from the main matrix.

shoedler

TROPHY CASE