geekhack Community > Ergonomics

Turbodox: My First Ergodox Variant (A Cry for Help)

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maltman:
Does anybody know anything about cutting keycaps? I am pondering if cutting the keycaps on some of the thumb keys so as to cram in the thumb keys as close as possible to the rest of the board. Is it practical to cut the caps? Is it easy?

Also, how does the angle of the thumb in the ergodox feel to you?

TheOtherDave:

--- Quote from: maltman on Tue, 05 September 2017, 22:55:34 ---Does anybody know anything about cutting keycaps? I am pondering if cutting the keycaps on some of the thumb keys so as to cram in the thumb keys as close as possible to the rest of the board. Is it practical to cut the caps? Is it easy?

Also, how does the angle of the thumb in the ergodox feel to you?

--- End quote ---

Find a cheap set of keycaps and get out your hacksaw (a scroll saw would probably be better, if you have one and can safely cut something that small). It’s not particularly hard, but your first few tries will probably be rough. Bring sandpaper or a file or something, else any little bits of plastic at the now-sharp edges will get stabby.

All that said, it’ll probably be easier to just use correctly sized blanks. If you’re planning on mass-producing this, I’d certainly avoid anything too crazy... you don’t want your users to have to hack up an expensive set of custom caps to make everything fit correctly, or have some weird key that they can only get from you (because it won’t match their aforementioned custom keycaps).


The Ergodox thumb cluster’s angle seems fine to me... I wish it didn’t stick out quite as far, and that the upper row of thumb keys was elevated a bit to make it harder to accidentally hit the keys on the 2nd row with your thumb.

PhillyBass:
Maltman, Whatever became of your Turbodox project?  It seems like an excellent idea.

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