I'm currently in the process of a building a custom split ergo board. After I've had great success with swill's plate building tool for my last custom 40% the initial plan was to use this tool for creating the split board as well.
Unfortunately, after messing around with Libre- and FreeCAD to get the initial DXF files from swill's builder to my liking, I quickly came to the conclusion that I really don't like working with those CAD programs.
So I set out to do the design for the case in OpenSCAD. This is what this post is about. A bunch of OpenSCAD files that can be used to create custom split "ergo" keyboard
sandwich cases for keyboards that will be handwired.
There's still a few things missing, like creation and placement of cutouts for ports or automatic screw hole placement. But with the change of just a few settings you can easily customize the case that's being created.
For example, changing the thumb cluster to only three keys and moving it 1u to the right involves changing exactly two configuration values (
num_thumb_keys and
thumb_keys_position).
Don't want staggering, a column less and a key more on the outermost column? No problem:
Simplicity!
While changes like these are really easy there are still some limitations. For example the thumb keys have to move along an arc of a circle, there's no easy way to change the overall shape of the case or to make sure there's enough room for the microcontroller.
Also there are no sanity checks in the code to prevent messing up things by changing settings that are interdependent.
So before adding more fancy stuff I figured it was a good idea to ask if there's any interest in a "ergo sandwich case generator"? What do you think? Would this be of use to you? Should I publish the code? Any ideas what should be included?
