minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra

[bearcat]

still prototyping this one, want to do a few iterations before i build the case.  And my mill isn't very good (DIY) so, we'll see what kind of accuracy i can keep producing

[philpirj]

Let us know how it goes.
Is that a 1.5mm plywood plate? Definitely it's a good idea not to poor coffee/beer on it or use some water-resistant liquid.
What is the space between holes? Looks more that 5mm.

[metalliqaz]

looks cool.

[bearcat]

3mm plywood, yeah.  I will use a nicer material once I get the layout finalized.  The hole spacing is 6mm to make a nice 20mm unit, but that's also easy to change later :-)

[obra]

Cute. What layout are you thinking about?

[bearcat]

Similar to the three layer layouts Suka has posted. Without a number row you definitely need three layers

I also share the distaste for loading the pinky with 2x the keys as the index.  Anyway I'm going for portable and minimal.

Have you had any further thoughts on your Mk 5?

[obra]

Yeah - I'm not entirely thrilled with the innermost and outermost thumb keys. And I'm finding I want the pinkie keys pushed out a bit further. I'm looking at trying something closer to the traditional Tron TK1 next.

[sordna]

Ok, suka is here
but is obra jesse ?

[bearcat]

Interesting! Looking forward to your next round of pics   are you also set on not having two halves?

Personally I'm keeping the thumbs to only 3-4 keys, and leaving vanilla shift on the pinky for ease of transition... I'll try and get some pics up tonight of v2 v3

[obra]

Ok, suka is here
but is obra jesse ?

Yep. I'm Jesse Vincent - http://blog.fsck.com / http://twitter.com/obra

[obra]

Interesting! Looking forward to your next round of pics   are you also set on not having two halves?

I am. I work with a keyboard in my lap much of the time. Split-adjustable keyboards are awesome except when they aren't

I have some ideas about how to get myself the best of both worlds, but I'm not there yet.

[sordna]

jesse/obra, your projects are amazing! Glad to see you on GH, I especially like your Mark 5 keyboard which I saw on Deskthority.

[obra]

jesse/obra, your projects are amazing! Glad to see you on GH, I especially like your Mark 5 keyboard which I saw on Deskthority.

Aw, Thanks! I'm definitely happier with the Mark 5 than what came before.

I'm working toward something that I think is "worth" distributing. Once I get it right, I'm planning to kickstarter a production run of fully assembled keyboards.

[sordna]

Well, I'll be more than happy to provide feedback!  I've never built a keyboard from scratch, but have done some ergonomic improvements to my Kinesis Advantage, and am especially happy about palm keys... maybe you can consider this idea in your own stuff!

[obra]

Well, I'll be more than happy to provide feedback!  I've never built a keyboard from scratch, but have done some ergonomic improvements to my Kinesis Advantage, and am especially happy about palm keys... maybe you can consider this idea in your own stuff!

I've thought about palm keys, but have been hesitant to pull the trigger on em. What do you map yours to?

[sordna]

They are mapped as shifts... and occasionally keypad shift (to access my "keypad" layer which I am using to control pointer movement with mousekeys in linux). I also have F keys mapped on the number row of the keypad layer, so they can be touch typed.

[bearcat]

Made some progress on this; after tinkering with my mill a bit i was able to get some better reliability;  i cut out some sides and put keycaps on the one i kicked this thread off, but i moved around some of the keys.


After that, i tried milling it out of a single piece of wood; currently just cheap project wood until i figure things out   I'm still working on the right way to use the CAD/CAM software to get the right effects.


You can tell one of them is much improved over the other


I was trying to get it all done before the ergodox got here (thanks massdrop for taking so long ) but it just arrived yesterday.  darn!
These are still substantially smaller than the ergodox; i've got it next to my kinesis freestyle for reference.

[jfb]

Nice job !

Do you have enough room under the keyboard to put the controler or will you put some IO expander under the plates and add a third box otherwhere ?

You maybe not have to mill that much on the sides, sides seem to be very thin. Moreover, each part seems very light. Will you fix them on something ?

For my wood tests (http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/following-the-wood-fashion-t5380.html) I prefered to mill both faces in order to dig a bit the keycaps in the keyboard. First because I use a kind of low profile keycap, but I think I will keep that idea if I get regular keys (DSA for example).

What kind of tools did you used for this try ? CNC ? wood router ? Do you have some step by step pictures ?

[bearcat]

I think i will have plenty of room; the top layer is very thick, the pins on the switches barely stick out, so i think i will have plenty of space.

The sides look thin but there isn't any flex whatsoever; they're very sturdy.  i will mill out a bottom piece and probably put some rubber/grippy stuff on that, but it's TBD.

I saw your wood tests!  They looked really good   I am not planning on milling wood keys; the precision isn't there for me yet, and i'm still figuring out a way to do two-sided cuts; i don't have limit or homing switches, but i could probably work something out with a jig.

I use a shapeoko (www.shapeoko.com) which i've modified a bit. 

I don't have many step by step pictures because there aren't many steps   Model, CAM the model into toolpaths, wait for it to cut, and there you have it

Although right now i'm resizing almost all of the holes because they're all just a *hair* too small.  Argh.

[metalliqaz]

You Shapeoko did that?  Wow that's awesome

[bearcat]

Yep.  I'm thinking of trying aluminum next.

with the keycaps on they look ok!    Now if only I had nicer keycaps :-/

[calavera]

How do they connect to each other and which side has the cable output? I ask because the ergodox seems to have it on the right side and I simply prefer left.

[bearcat]

they're symmetric, the teensy would fit in either side.

I'll wire this one up by hand, and probably connect them by hauling all the wires across with some kind of rainbow cable.

Once i've typed on it a while and i'm sure about the layout, i'll probably do a similar thing as the ergodox with an I/O expander & the 3.5mm cable w/ I2C.  That was genius whoever came up with that.

[calavera]

If it's symmetric, is wireless possible so each side is independent of one another? Like, the PC could treat it as two separate keyboards?

[bearcat]

yes, i thought of that.  I think if you do it as two separate keyboards, then the shift-keys are isolated from each other; e.g., shift w/ left hand, letter w/ right hand wouldn't work.

[calavera]

I don't think the shift will be isolated. If both sides have a controller each so each one is recognized as it's own there shouldn't be a problem.

If you have multiple keyboards, try typing on two keyboards at the same time with each hand on one of them. You'll see the shift is recognized by both. I just tried it and it works just fine.

[bearcat]

interesting.  i just tried that using keyboard & laptop keyboard and it did *not* work   Maybe OS dependent?

[calavera]

What OS are you on? I just tried the same thing using my laptop and it worked fine.

[bearcat]

Osx, you?

[sordna]

I can say that on linux 2 keyboards work fine, I can hold shift on one and type a capital letter on the other.

[calavera]

Osx, you?

I'm on Windows 7 on both my laptop and PC. So it looks like it could be an OSX issue.

[TheQsanity]

how much did your diy mill cost you?

[wolfv]

Similar to the three layer layouts Suka has posted. Without a number row you definitely need three layers

Hi bearcat,

Nice looking board.  I like the way your thumb keys blend into the finger keys.  It is so easy to touch finger to thumb, so there should be no wasted space between thumb keys and finger keys.

Where are the  three-layer layouts that Suka posted?
Also, what software will you use to program the teensy?

Thanks

[bearcat]

QSanity, i spent about $250 for the mechanicals, $100 for the electronics, and another $50-80 on a beefier spindle and other mill ends.  I'm getting a lot of use out of it, though, so i think it's worth it

wolfv:
Suka has a number of good posts about his layouts.  They're based off a german layout (AdNW and Neo), so they'll need some modifications, but here are some links:
http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=40649.msg810237#msg810237
http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/best-ergonomic-keyboard-and-key-layout-for-disabled-user-t5222.html
http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/the-decent-keyboard-layout-discussion-thread-matrix-t2898.html

To program the teensy i'll probably adopt the ergodox software and/or write my own.  If it gets to the point where i'm building my own boards i'm probably going to put the controller right on the board & basing it on an open bootloader. 

[wolfv]

bearcat,

Thank you for the informative links.  I see the resemblance to Suka's BlueCube.
How do you hit the long bar next to the thumb keys?

Are you a fan of the Grumman F8F ?

[bearcat]

I hit the long 2x under the middle fingers with my whole hand, as an enter, and i hit it emphatically.  Actually, i'm not quite sure what the final layout will be...

I tried wiring this up tonight, and wiring by hand is going a bit harder than expected.  I might end up skipping straight to laserjet etched PCBs because space ended up a little tight.

off to a good start...


but then, some prior planning would've prevented this piss-poor performance...


(sigh)
ok, time to regroup and figure out what the next steps are!

[wolfv]

Awesome design.  Like the modern form with old-school point-to-point wiring.  Point-to-point construction is very appropriate for a small board like this.

Get load of this television chassis from 1948, all Point-to-point construction:

[obra]

Nice progress so far!

I started with a wiring technique much like yours. What I've found goes much, much faster is to use 26-30 gauge magnet wire to wire my rows. the solder will melt through the enamel coating and the wire is much, much more flexible. If you're adventurous, try a wire wrapping tool rather than just making a single point of contact between the wire and the pin.

Leave a lot of play in between each connection - that will cut down on busted solder joints due to stress.

Use the square pegs to do the row wiring (especially if using a wire wrapping tool).


It looks like you're wiring your diodes in series. You really want them in parallel.

I started off wiring the legs of diodes to each other. It seemed like a useful way to avoid extra solder joints. In the end, it just made things brittle and very hard to solder or fix.
What I've found works pretty well is to clip the leg nearest the black end of the diode to about 1/4 inch and solder those to the big flat pins on the keys. then wire the columns up with magnet wire much like I do the rows.

[bearcat]

Nice progress so far!

I started with a wiring technique much like yours. What I've found goes much, much faster is to use 26-30 gauge magnet wire to wire my rows. the solder will melt through the enamel coating and the wire is much, much more flexible. If you're adventurous, try a wire wrapping tool rather than just making a single point of contact between the wire and the pin.

Leave a lot of play in between each connection - that will cut down on busted solder joints due to stress.

Use the square pegs to do the row wiring (especially if using a wire wrapping tool).

thanks!  I was just getting to the conclusion that this was not going to work, at all, and that i was gonna need to switch to a higher gauge wire. 

My other conclusion was that i was going to need to use header pins rather than solder directly to the teensy; broken hookup wire in the teensy throughholes was just miserable.

On the other hand, the solder joints on the rows/columns were bombproof

It looks like you're wiring your diodes in series. You really want them in parallel.

oh, balls.  It seemed way too easy.

I started off wiring the legs of diodes to each other. It seemed like a useful way to avoid extra solder joints. In the end, it just made things brittle and very hard to solder or fix.
What I've found works pretty well is to clip the leg nearest the black end of the diode to about 1/4 inch and solder those to the big flat pins on the keys. then wire the columns up with magnet wire much like I do the rows.

Thanks very much, i'll try that!  Got any pictures?  Worth the proverbial 1k...

So, i got as far as wiring up just the left hand here, then i tried flashing the ergodox firmware & checking if anything worked; the I2C pins aren't connected anywhere, the LED pins hadn't been connected anywhere... anyway, i got nothing.  Even shorting a row/column together...nothing.  My guess was something was crashing the teensy before i could even get the shorted pins to register -- how did you go about troubleshooting?

[obra]

Hi. Sorry. I fell offline when my laptop ate itself in Taipei.

Try http://www.slideshare.net/obrajesse/2013-osdcmadeakeyboard

[bearcat]

Thanks a bunch!  Those are some very helpful pics

I ended up tearing all the diodes out and resoldering them in parallel.

I also took your suggestion on using magnet wire.  I used sandpaper to get the enamel off, but i'm not super happy with it.

Here's what it looks like after re-doing the left half; hopefully after redoing the right half it'll actually work


Looking forward to your next blog post

(more atrocious pictures here: http://imgur.com/a/9zYE1)

[obra]

There's no compelling reason you need to get both sides going before you start testing In a lot of ways, it's much easier to get one hand working before you tackle the other one.

[bearcat]

Hmm, maybe i should.  I fried my last teensy, not sure how or when, but my theory was that because i had some pins floating and was just using the straight ergodox-querty firmware, something blew up.

It'd be way easier to test just this side first, though -- is there any harm in say, not having the LEDs hooked up to anything?

i'm working entirely off the schematic here:
https://raw.github.com/benblazak/ergodox-firmware/master/src/keyboard/ergodox/circuit-diagram.svg
which is missing notably the optional capacitor.

[obra]

I've had a lot of luck with the humblehacker firmware. I'd be kind of surprised if you actually toasted your teensy. I still haven't managed to ruin one. Despite some serious idiocy.

If you don't have a multimeter yet, it's totally worth picking one up for debugging.

[bearcat]

Oh, definitely got the multimeter; also went through the process of assembling one of the MD kit ergodox   All the switch/diode assemblies show good current.

IIUC, the humblehacker is not built to do I2C w/ the I/O expander, right?  Which means hasu & HH are out as firmware options.

[obra]

Well, it's out as a final firmware. it's totally plausible as a first-half-of-the-keyboard testing firmware.

[bearcat]

Ah yes... the first half of the keyboard, unfortunately, is the I/O expander half   I'm soldering up the other half right now, however.

[obra]

Doh

[bearcat]

wired everything up, plugged it in -- nothing.  Not a damn thing.  Maybe i should take a break from this project for a while.

[obra]

Debugging is painful, but you're getting really close.

The first debugging step is to figure out if it's a software or hardware problem.  Take a wire and see if you can generate a keystroke by shorting one of the column pins to one of the row pins. If that works, I can talk you through the next step of multimeter testing.