It is about time that I showcased my "SchmergoDox", even though it does not have any case. It is quite modified which I think could be interesting to some.
I had bought only bare PCBs in Massdrop's first run, because I had planned to build a simple and inexpensive board with PCB-mounted switches and reuse caps from old keyboards.
Unfortunately the 1u options for the outermost columns had misplaced pin holes, so I discovered that I needed to drill in the PCBs to fit the switches and use a plate to hold them.
I also found that the thumb keys were too far away... but I found that I could add an extra thumb key on each half, and that also required plates.
Because I think the column offsets on the ErgoDox are too small, I wanted to compensate by using both higher OEM profile and lower SP-profile to get somewhat of a dished effect. I had a rubber dome keyboard from BTC where the alphanumerics are SP-profile and Cherry MX-compatible but the larger keys are not. I ordered a matching set of lasered OEM-profile keys from WASD Keyboards about a year ago. The BTC caps are the same profile as Signature Plastics' keys and used for middle and ring finger columns, but unfortunately they sit higher than the OEM-profile WASD caps so the height difference is not as high as I had anticipated it would be... They were actually retr0brite'd a year or two ago but they seem to have yellowed again.
I based the layout somewhat on that of the µTron.
I made one universal plate design for both halves in QCad, using Litster's blueprints as starting point. I had them laser-cut of 1.5 mm acrylic at Ponoko because the laser-cutter at the local makerspace was broken. I had to wait a few months for my plates from Ponoko, and the first shipment was in the wrong scale even...
The good plates were then somewhat reinforced on the inside and painted. 1.5mm is not too thin for acrylic if there is a PCB and
if you are careful during assembly. Afterwards I realized that I could have sandwiched two 1.5 mm plates, where the lower plate has larger holes for the switches and diodes.
All but the innermost 2u keys have Cherry plate-mount stabilisers. I had made an error with the stabilisers: I had placed them facing the same way as Costar stabilisers would - with the wire on the same side as the diode. So I had to remove the diodes that were beside the stabilised switches and place new diodes inside them.
I cut away the outermost thumb keys, because I wanted a smaller keyboard. I would have cut away some of the outer parts of the PCB also if they had not had mounting holes.
When drilling or cutting a PCB, which is made of fibreglass, it is important that you don't inhale any fibreglass dust - it can literally kill you. I used a vacuum cleaner on full close to the PCB all the time and wore a dust mask.
The TRRS sockets are not the recommended, but the FC68129 with its extra pins snipped off. Because I didn't solder the USB cable to the PCB, I needed to route a wire from the Teensy to the PCB to provide power for the left half: That is not necessary in later revisions of the PCB.
The cables are cheap Chinese cables I got on eBay.
The image below shows how I made the thumbkey mod. One key from the bottom row had to be sacrificed.
I insulated the ground plane in the new drill holes with tinted epoxy. I used one stabilising pin from each switch and snipped the other.
I started on a case, designed in QCad and hand-cut from thin wood... but the wood I got wasn't flat enough and some of the corners were difficult. I could build it from styrene easy enough, but I don't quite like styrene.
I may build one later out of thicker lasercut plywood once I get access to the local makerspace's laser-cutter.
