Oddball - a split keyboard with trackball

[grubnatius]

The Oddball Keyboard


Version 2


Version 1

I shared this around a few places, but thought it'd be good to document on geekhack. I've finished my second build/version of my design, following up from one I made earlier in 2020, which I dubbed the Oddball.

Features

• trackball (supports both PMW3360 or ADNS9800 sensors)
• split design
• columnar stagger
• 5° typing angle
• 8.5° tenting angle
• separate plane for thumb clusters
• USB-C to host (PC)
• TRRS to link halves

Links

• Documentation (GitHub pages) https://atulloh.github.io/oddball
• v2 gallery https://atulloh.github.io/oddball/v2/gallery-high-quality
• v2 build log https://atulloh.github.io/oddball/v2/build-log
• v2 build guide https://atulloh.github.io/oddball/v2/build-guide
• v1 gallery https://atulloh.github.io/oddball/v1/gallery-high-quality
• v1 build log https://atulloh.github.io/oddball/v1/build-log
• source code https://github.com/atulloh/oddball
• QMK https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/tree/master/keyboards/oddball

[jamster]

That's brilliant- great colour scheme and overall theme too!

I am surprised that you get by with so few thumb keys. Guessing that one of the left thumbs is a layer activation key, but is there another somewhere else?

[grubnatius]

...

I am surprised that you get by with so few thumb keys. Guessing that one of the left thumbs is a layer activation key, but is there another somewhere else?

Yep, you guessed it, layer 1 on the left thumb, layer 2 on the right. I've changed it slightly since this pic, but the basic layout is:

[jamster]

Interesting to see that your Fn and number(pad) keys do not overlap at all.

[suicidal_orange]

Impressive that you can get by with to few keys, your mapping looks crazy to me (alt on home row over backspace, space outside ; and gaps between home end pg up and down for a start) but you have your reasons no doubt.

Looks great too

[jamster]

Huh, Enter is on a layer... I've got two thumb-actuated Enter keys and use both.

[ergonaut]

It looks absolutely glorious, well done!

For my own taste, there's way too few thumb keys, but as long as it works for you...

[grubnatius]

Huh, Enter is on a layer... I've got two thumb-actuated Enter keys and use both.

It looks absolutely glorious, well done!

For my own taste, there's way too few thumb keys, but as long as it works for you...

Yep, seems a common opinion people bring up. The code is pretty easy to tweak, so I'm thinking of generating some files with 3 thumb keys on the left and 2 on the right, and adding the files to the repo.

[kurplop]

Very nice and unique design. Well executed.

[darryldh]

love this board so much!