Thought I would put up a review. I use the Kinesis contoured at work and at home and many other keyboards but the Kinesis ones are 80% of my work.
For my version I have
- MX Blues
- DCS Keycaps
- I bought the spherical home row keycaps from one of the group buys on GH recently
- Full hand version.
COMMENTS:
- First: I REALLY like this set and my comments below while they might be negative don't change the fact that I really like it.
- MD instructions are not the best and I think they could really improve. I think now that I have it built I could easily build it in 2-2 1/2 hours but it took much longer as I constantly rewound WhiteFireDragon's video because I didn't understand something on MD site or I couldn't see it very well. Thank goodness for the high res video.
- MD has been great throughout the process with the parts that are problematic.
CASE:
- The acrylic manufacture must be pretty poor. When I got mine they were burned and several pieces of plastic had huge chips/deformations. I got a second set after sending MD the pictures and this set the holes were too small on a few of the layers for the screws to go through.
- Both my original and replacement have scraps on them. I think I will order top pieces in a solid color as I really don't like the look with all the scratches on the acrylic.
- I knew this ahead of time but I don't really like the block-y look of the hand shape. This is personal preference though. I think when I make new ones I will do something different.
- You need to get some rubber feet or you will scratch your desk up with the bolts sticking through.
- Good hand shape but the thumbs are just wrong (This isn't because they are too low. I will explain more in the layout section).
KEYCAPS (I bought both the DSA and DCS keycaps but only looked at the DCS ones)
- I haven't bought good keycaps before so I don't know the normal quality. These seem fine but they have a few plastic edges and areas where the paint/dye doesn't seem perfectly smooth. When it’s together you can't tell at all so it really doesn't matter.
- These area a PAIN to put together. I really didn’t think this would be tough but I spent about 2 hours getting them together. Also you really need a keycap puller. I used another tool that looks similar but it would often pull up the top of the switch. These keycaps are TIGHT and require considerable force to push on.
- They are very SOLID
SWITCHES:
- They are MX Blue switches (without built in diodes) so nothing different from standard ones. Well other than the fact that they were pretty cheap.
BOARD:
- The board build quality is decent but nothing to write home about.
- Blue color is nice and looks good.
- I personally don't like the giant "ERGODOX" logo but that is opinion. Also it is only half visible so it looks kind of tacky to me but again personal opinion.
LAYOUT:
- Hmmm. Well it is great and really bad at the same time.
- MAIN SECTION (GREAT): The keys are well layered out in the main section where the home row is. Keys fit pretty tightly but plenty of room to slightly move around. Good feel I think for big or small hands. You have to move much more than a Kinesis but that is to be expected.
- THUMB AREA (BAD BAD!): The thumb area is simply too close to the top. I have very large hands and it is a serious strain to reach these keys. They need to be moved down and they should probably be raised up. I have a VERY simple solution for this below in the suggestions. It’s great that it is open source so we can make these changes. This is so much of an ergonomic issue as you have to move your wrist to hit most of the keys and I can't risk messing up my hands as I have already had so many RSI issues and moving the wrist is my big issue.
- I really really miss the extra row of dedicated function keys. You can't really add them in this design if you want it to be ergonomic but I really really miss them. I know I miss them because I miss the Kinesis horrible squishy keys and those are bad. I may get used to it but at the very least I will need side labels to remember where they are on the second layer.
CABLES:
- This layout is BEGGING for right angle 3.5mm connectors. They stick out as is and make it a mess to worry about the wires.
- The cables get in the way more than I thought.
TOOL/PARTS FOR ASSEMBLY:
Note: this is my recommendation you can certainly do with less
1. Decent soldering iron. You really do need a decent one or this will take a while. I use the FX-888D at home but there are other great ones.
2. Solder paste: (if you are using SMD diodes). You can use solder but you will need a pointy tip to make it easily plus the paste makes it easier to hold the SMDs in place until you can heat them. By the way if you need it now Frys, MicroCenter have this in stock. Also note The HACK (Radio Hack) doesn't have it anymore.
3. 45 degree Tweezers: IF you are using the SMD or anything really small you need these anyway. Just go get them. Note they may not be called tweezers but that is all I can think of right now.
4. Keycap Puller: if you are using these keycaps they are really tight. Also you will probably put them down in the wrong spot if you are using the DCS ones and have to move them around.
5. Solder: Obviously. Get some good solder because you will be soldering a lot.
6. Wire cutter: You need one meant for cutting very close to the board to make it all fit (especially if you are using through hole diodes) and at least a decent one as you will be cutting a fair amount of wires. Not tons.
7. I'm probably not thinking of something
TIPS:
- When using SMDs: put your solderpaste on the pin and then move towards the through hole diode pin so that you don't get the paste under the smd. This will make it much quicker as you can be less precise. When I resoldered one had it took almost no time using this method.
- Use a soldering near the paste to harden it not a heat gun. I know WhiteFireDragon use some sort of heat gun but even my low flow one would move these extremely light parts. You could probably use the toaster oven reflow method if you did this first.
- Use purel or some hand sanitizer to clear your hand plates. Mine came and they were very dirty (I don't know how as they were covered in paper but they were). This will clean them up and should evaporate fast enough to leave no moisture even if you don't get them 120% dry.
CONCLUSIONS:
- IT is a great design. It needs some fixing I think to make it truly ergonomic.
- I really really like it.
SUGGESTIONS
1. Move the thumb section it simply requires too much wrist movement to be ergonomic. (See my recommendation below)
2. Elevate the thumb section a small amount. (Seem my recommendation below)
3. Backlighting: This set is begging to be backlit. I would really like to do this myself as I have been backlighting another keyboard that wasn't designed to be backlit. Since we have the PCB this job should be relatively easily and really just a case of board layout. If anyone is interested I have some ideas on how to drive this and some low (relatively) cost boards for handling dimming/individual addressing of leds, balancing, etc.
3.Get right angle 3.5mm cables to reduce cable clutter and management issues. (you can do this now).
THUMB KEYS MODIFICATION (PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG):
- Since this is a 2 layer simple board I think you can cut the current board into two pieces and connect them with wire. In future PCB revisions make holes for the 12 wires on either side of the area to cut. Or make two boards but that drives up the cost.
- Create a new Second layer of acrylic that is similar to the third layer currently but only for the thumbs. Then you can just have the keys raised up a small amount. You could actually repeat this until you have them as high as you want with little change to the current board.
- Provide two (or more) recommended second layer acrylic designs which allow for the user to put the keys where she/he wants them. This should not drive the cost up too much at all.
- I really thing the above solutions would require little work and am interested in feedback. It seems like the biggest complaint is the thumb section and I think you can fix it with maybe $2 in wire and $15-20 in new acrylic for the new second layer. In fact I would imagine someone could easily cut the current board to do this.
- I hope this was helpful and please give me feedback especially on the thumb section and backlighting modification sections.
