Author Topic: Best Portable Ergonomic Solution  (Read 1866 times)

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Offline madereth

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Best Portable Ergonomic Solution
« on: Thu, 13 February 2014, 20:42:21 »
I recently completed an ErgoDox build:

http://adereth.github.io/blog/2014/02/12/building-an-ergodox/

My hope was that by making the case as tight as possible and figuring out a good solution for mounting it on my laptop, I'd have a portable ergonomic keyboard.

Unfortunately, the ErgoDox isn't working out for me for comfort reasons.

I have a couple ideas and I wanted to know if anyone has done anything like this or knows of any commercial solutions:

1. I'm thinking of using the wells from the Kinesis Advantage and building a minimal case around them that mounts/rests nicely on top of my laptop keyboard.  I think this will be the most comfortable, but I'm concerned about the bulk when traveling.
2. I'm also thinking of building a keyboard with a columnar layout similar to the ErgoDox, but using scissor switches.  I know it's blasphemous and I love me some Cherry MXs, but I find the Apple keyboard to be acceptable and I think that a better key arrangement might be enough of an improvement that maintains portability.

Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated!
Kinesis Advantage LF - Kinesis Advantage with Cherry MX Blues - ErgoDox with Cherry MX Blacks - Cherry MX 8100

Offline vivalarevolución

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Re: Best Portable Ergonomic Solution
« Reply #1 on: Thu, 13 February 2014, 21:00:15 »
Are you familiar with the microTron keyboard (µTron)?  It is split and have Topre switches.  You will have to use an import service to get the keyboard from Japan.

http://xahlee.info/kbd/uTRON_keyboard.html

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Offline lcs

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Re: Best Portable Ergonomic Solution
« Reply #2 on: Thu, 13 February 2014, 21:05:09 »
I think my typematrix 2030 is a very decent keyboard to bring with me. It's a nice RD, it has a decent layout.

Offline Findecanor

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Re: Best Portable Ergonomic Solution
« Reply #3 on: Thu, 13 February 2014, 23:35:58 »
Building your own scissor-switch keyboard would be hard.. and I would love to see someone do it.
You would need to make custom membranes and a custom bottom of sheet metal to hold the scissors.
Another option would be Cherry ML switches. They are PCB-mounted low-profile mechanical switches that feel a bit like scissor switches, but scratchier... but maybe they could be lubed.  Not as low profile as scissor-switches, but easier to prototype with.

Offline davkol

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Re: Best Portable Ergonomic Solution
« Reply #4 on: Fri, 14 February 2014, 06:25:23 »
Or ALPS harvested from old laptops.

I think dumblob was working on something like that.