Author Topic: Smaller diameter keyswitches for pinky?  (Read 3535 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline bmiww

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 1
Smaller diameter keyswitches for pinky?
« on: Sat, 15 December 2018, 18:12:47 »
Hey ya'll!
Been dropping by from time to time ever since I split My keyboard in half,
and since I'm slowly beginning to descend into madness,
I've been slowly getting bad ideas about trying My hand at prototyping a keyboard myself.

But I'm not doing this post as a making stuff together (not yet at least) - I'd like to ask if anyone here knows of the existence of commercially accessible mechanical keyswitches boasting a smaller diameter?
I've been reflecting on My daily kb usage and I'm feeling like one of the improvements I could be making - would be less travel distance for the pinky finger,
and it feels like the pinkies wouldn't suffer too much of a precision loss on a smaller key.
Maybe someone has already experimented with this?

Offline Findecanor

  • Posts: 5036
  • Location: Koriko
Re: Smaller diameter keyswitches for pinky?
« Reply #1 on: Sat, 15 December 2018, 18:38:11 »
Welcome to Geekhack!

Many switches could be put a little bit closer together, and don't need 19.05 mm. (3/4"). A Cherry MX switch is really 15.6 mm wide. An Alps switch is 14 mm on the vertical.

... But the real issue is getting keycaps for it.
Matias made smaller-height keycaps for the Matias Ergo Pro's cursor keys, but he does not sell them.

Offline kurplop

  • THE HERO WE DON'T DESERVE
  • Posts: 992
Re: Smaller diameter keyswitches for pinky?
« Reply #2 on: Sun, 16 December 2018, 14:50:11 »
I’ve used Cherry ML switches several times. Their key caps are made for .7” spacing vs the .75” standard.