Author Topic: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra  (Read 27797 times)

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Offline bearcat

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minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« on: Thu, 07 March 2013, 00:59:17 »
still prototyping this one, want to do a few iterations before i build the case.  And my mill isn't very good (DIY) so, we'll see what kind of accuracy i can keep producing ;)

« Last Edit: Tue, 02 April 2013, 18:56:36 by bearcat »

Offline philpirj

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #1 on: Mon, 11 March 2013, 04:47:00 »
Let us know how it goes.
Is that a 1.5mm plywood plate? Definitely it's a good idea not to poor coffee/beer on it or use some water-resistant liquid.
What is the space between holes? Looks more that 5mm.

Offline metalliqaz

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #2 on: Mon, 11 March 2013, 07:22:56 »
looks cool.

Offline bearcat

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #3 on: Mon, 11 March 2013, 11:36:51 »
3mm plywood, yeah.  I will use a nicer material once I get the layout finalized.  The hole spacing is 6mm to make a nice 20mm unit, but that's also easy to change later :-)

Offline obra

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #4 on: Mon, 11 March 2013, 20:52:14 »
Cute. What layout are you thinking about?

Offline bearcat

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #5 on: Tue, 12 March 2013, 09:50:13 »
Similar to the three layer layouts Suka has posted. Without a number row you definitely need three layers :)

I also share the distaste for loading the pinky with 2x the keys as the index.  Anyway I'm going for portable and minimal.

Have you had any further thoughts on your Mk 5?

Offline obra

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #6 on: Tue, 12 March 2013, 19:29:24 »
Yeah - I'm not entirely thrilled with the innermost and outermost thumb keys. And I'm finding I want the pinkie keys pushed out a bit further. I'm looking at trying something closer to the traditional Tron TK1 next.

Offline sordna

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #7 on: Tue, 12 March 2013, 20:20:12 »
Ok, suka is here
but is obra jesse ?
Kinesis Contoured Advantage & Advantage2 LF with Cherry MX Red switches / Extra keys mod / O-ring dampening mod / Dvorak layout. ErgoDox with buzzer and LED mod.
Also: Kinesis Advantage Classic, Kinesis Advantage2, Data911 TG3, Fingerworks Touchstream LP, IBM SSK (Buckling spring), Goldtouch GTU-0077 keyboard

Offline bearcat

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #8 on: Wed, 13 March 2013, 11:48:42 »
Interesting! Looking forward to your next round of pics :)  are you also set on not having two halves?

Personally I'm keeping the thumbs to only 3-4 keys, and leaving vanilla shift on the pinky for ease of transition... I'll try and get some pics up tonight of v2 v3

Offline obra

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #9 on: Wed, 13 March 2013, 21:03:53 »

Offline obra

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #10 on: Wed, 13 March 2013, 21:05:22 »
Interesting! Looking forward to your next round of pics :)  are you also set on not having two halves?


I am. I work with a keyboard in my lap much of the time. Split-adjustable keyboards are awesome except when they aren't ;)

I have some ideas about how to get myself the best of both worlds, but I'm not there yet.

Offline sordna

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #11 on: Wed, 13 March 2013, 22:01:34 »
jesse/obra, your projects are amazing! Glad to see you on GH, I especially like your Mark 5 keyboard which I saw on Deskthority.
Kinesis Contoured Advantage & Advantage2 LF with Cherry MX Red switches / Extra keys mod / O-ring dampening mod / Dvorak layout. ErgoDox with buzzer and LED mod.
Also: Kinesis Advantage Classic, Kinesis Advantage2, Data911 TG3, Fingerworks Touchstream LP, IBM SSK (Buckling spring), Goldtouch GTU-0077 keyboard

Offline obra

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #12 on: Wed, 13 March 2013, 22:05:32 »
jesse/obra, your projects are amazing! Glad to see you on GH, I especially like your Mark 5 keyboard which I saw on Deskthority.

Aw, Thanks! I'm definitely happier with the Mark 5 than what came before.

I'm working toward something that I think is "worth" distributing. Once I get it right, I'm planning to kickstarter a production run of fully assembled keyboards.

Offline sordna

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #13 on: Wed, 13 March 2013, 22:16:33 »
Well, I'll be more than happy to provide feedback!  I've never built a keyboard from scratch, but have done some ergonomic improvements to my Kinesis Advantage, and am especially happy about palm keys... maybe you can consider this idea in your own stuff!
Kinesis Contoured Advantage & Advantage2 LF with Cherry MX Red switches / Extra keys mod / O-ring dampening mod / Dvorak layout. ErgoDox with buzzer and LED mod.
Also: Kinesis Advantage Classic, Kinesis Advantage2, Data911 TG3, Fingerworks Touchstream LP, IBM SSK (Buckling spring), Goldtouch GTU-0077 keyboard

Offline obra

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #14 on: Wed, 13 March 2013, 22:37:58 »
Well, I'll be more than happy to provide feedback!  I've never built a keyboard from scratch, but have done some ergonomic improvements to my Kinesis Advantage, and am especially happy about palm keys... maybe you can consider this idea in your own stuff!

I've thought about palm keys, but have been hesitant to pull the trigger on em. What do you map yours to?

Offline sordna

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #15 on: Wed, 13 March 2013, 23:02:28 »
They are mapped as shifts... and occasionally keypad shift (to access my "keypad" layer which I am using to control pointer movement with mousekeys in linux). I also have F keys mapped on the number row of the keypad layer, so they can be touch typed.
Kinesis Contoured Advantage & Advantage2 LF with Cherry MX Red switches / Extra keys mod / O-ring dampening mod / Dvorak layout. ErgoDox with buzzer and LED mod.
Also: Kinesis Advantage Classic, Kinesis Advantage2, Data911 TG3, Fingerworks Touchstream LP, IBM SSK (Buckling spring), Goldtouch GTU-0077 keyboard

Offline bearcat

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #16 on: Sun, 31 March 2013, 01:32:29 »
Made some progress on this; after tinkering with my mill a bit i was able to get some better reliability;  i cut out some sides and put keycaps on the one i kicked this thread off, but i moved around some of the keys.


After that, i tried milling it out of a single piece of wood; currently just cheap project wood until i figure things out :)  I'm still working on the right way to use the CAD/CAM software to get the right effects.


You can tell one of them is much improved over the other ;)


I was trying to get it all done before the ergodox got here (thanks massdrop for taking so long :D ) but it just arrived yesterday.  darn!
These are still substantially smaller than the ergodox; i've got it next to my kinesis freestyle for reference.

Offline jfb

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #17 on: Sun, 31 March 2013, 04:11:58 »
Nice job !

Do you have enough room under the keyboard to put the controler or will you put some IO expander under the plates and add a third box otherwhere ?

You maybe not have to mill that much on the sides, sides seem to be very thin. Moreover, each part seems very light. Will you fix them on something ?

For my wood tests (http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/following-the-wood-fashion-t5380.html) I prefered to mill both faces in order to dig a bit the keycaps in the keyboard. First because I use a kind of low profile keycap, but I think I will keep that idea if I get regular keys (DSA for example).

What kind of tools did you used for this try ? CNC ? wood router ? Do you have some step by step pictures ?

Offline bearcat

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #18 on: Sun, 31 March 2013, 14:59:31 »
I think i will have plenty of room; the top layer is very thick, the pins on the switches barely stick out, so i think i will have plenty of space.

The sides look thin but there isn't any flex whatsoever; they're very sturdy.  i will mill out a bottom piece and probably put some rubber/grippy stuff on that, but it's TBD.

I saw your wood tests!  They looked really good :)  I am not planning on milling wood keys; the precision isn't there for me yet, and i'm still figuring out a way to do two-sided cuts; i don't have limit or homing switches, but i could probably work something out with a jig.

I use a shapeoko (www.shapeoko.com) which i've modified a bit. 

I don't have many step by step pictures because there aren't many steps ;)  Model, CAM the model into toolpaths, wait for it to cut, and there you have it :)

Although right now i'm resizing almost all of the holes because they're all just a *hair* too small.  Argh.

Offline metalliqaz

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #19 on: Sun, 31 March 2013, 22:19:03 »
You Shapeoko did that?  Wow that's awesome

Offline bearcat

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #20 on: Sun, 31 March 2013, 22:36:31 »
Yep.  I'm thinking of trying aluminum next.

with the keycaps on they look ok!    Now if only I had nicer keycaps :-/

Offline calavera

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #21 on: Tue, 02 April 2013, 19:14:31 »
How do they connect to each other and which side has the cable output? I ask because the ergodox seems to have it on the right side and I simply prefer left.

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #22 on: Tue, 02 April 2013, 19:20:54 »
they're symmetric, the teensy would fit in either side.

I'll wire this one up by hand, and probably connect them by hauling all the wires across with some kind of rainbow cable.

Once i've typed on it a while and i'm sure about the layout, i'll probably do a similar thing as the ergodox with an I/O expander & the 3.5mm cable w/ I2C.  That was genius whoever came up with that.

Offline calavera

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #23 on: Tue, 02 April 2013, 19:24:37 »
If it's symmetric, is wireless possible so each side is independent of one another? Like, the PC could treat it as two separate keyboards?

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #24 on: Tue, 02 April 2013, 19:28:42 »
yes, i thought of that.  I think if you do it as two separate keyboards, then the shift-keys are isolated from each other; e.g., shift w/ left hand, letter w/ right hand wouldn't work.

Offline calavera

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #25 on: Tue, 02 April 2013, 19:42:41 »
I don't think the shift will be isolated. If both sides have a controller each so each one is recognized as it's own there shouldn't be a problem.

If you have multiple keyboards, try typing on two keyboards at the same time with each hand on one of them. You'll see the shift is recognized by both. I just tried it and it works just fine.

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #26 on: Tue, 02 April 2013, 19:50:39 »
interesting.  i just tried that using keyboard & laptop keyboard and it did *not* work :(  Maybe OS dependent?

Offline calavera

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #27 on: Tue, 02 April 2013, 20:02:16 »
What OS are you on? I just tried the same thing using my laptop and it worked fine.

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #28 on: Wed, 03 April 2013, 12:17:07 »
Osx, you?

Offline sordna

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #29 on: Wed, 03 April 2013, 13:07:27 »
I can say that on linux 2 keyboards work fine, I can hold shift on one and type a capital letter on the other.
Kinesis Contoured Advantage & Advantage2 LF with Cherry MX Red switches / Extra keys mod / O-ring dampening mod / Dvorak layout. ErgoDox with buzzer and LED mod.
Also: Kinesis Advantage Classic, Kinesis Advantage2, Data911 TG3, Fingerworks Touchstream LP, IBM SSK (Buckling spring), Goldtouch GTU-0077 keyboard

Offline calavera

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #30 on: Wed, 03 April 2013, 16:36:19 »
Osx, you?

I'm on Windows 7 on both my laptop and PC. So it looks like it could be an OSX issue.

Offline TheQsanity

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #31 on: Fri, 05 April 2013, 22:27:24 »
how much did your diy mill cost you?
SmallFry! <3

Offline wolfv

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Re: inspired by ergodox, suka & jesse
« Reply #32 on: Fri, 05 April 2013, 23:39:55 »
Similar to the three layer layouts Suka has posted. Without a number row you definitely need three layers :)
Hi bearcat,

Nice looking board.  I like the way your thumb keys blend into the finger keys.  It is so easy to touch finger to thumb, so there should be no wasted space between thumb keys and finger keys.

Where are the  three-layer layouts that Suka posted?
Also, what software will you use to program the teensy?

Thanks
« Last Edit: Fri, 05 April 2013, 23:43:19 by wolfv »

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #33 on: Fri, 05 April 2013, 23:52:40 »
QSanity, i spent about $250 for the mechanicals, $100 for the electronics, and another $50-80 on a beefier spindle and other mill ends.  I'm getting a lot of use out of it, though, so i think it's worth it :)

wolfv:
Suka has a number of good posts about his layouts.  They're based off a german layout (AdNW and Neo), so they'll need some modifications, but here are some links:
http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=40649.msg810237#msg810237
http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/best-ergonomic-keyboard-and-key-layout-for-disabled-user-t5222.html
http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/the-decent-keyboard-layout-discussion-thread-matrix-t2898.html

To program the teensy i'll probably adopt the ergodox software and/or write my own.  If it gets to the point where i'm building my own boards i'm probably going to put the controller right on the board & basing it on an open bootloader. 
« Last Edit: Fri, 05 April 2013, 23:55:28 by bearcat »

Offline wolfv

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #34 on: Sat, 06 April 2013, 18:16:04 »
bearcat,

Thank you for the informative links.  I see the resemblance to Suka's BlueCube.
How do you hit the long bar next to the thumb keys?

Are you a fan of the Grumman F8F ;D?
« Last Edit: Tue, 16 April 2013, 23:30:41 by wolfv »

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #35 on: Tue, 16 April 2013, 22:14:39 »
I hit the long 2x under the middle fingers with my whole hand, as an enter, and i hit it emphatically.  Actually, i'm not quite sure what the final layout will be...

I tried wiring this up tonight, and wiring by hand is going a bit harder than expected.  I might end up skipping straight to laserjet etched PCBs because space ended up a little tight.

off to a good start...


but then, some prior planning would've prevented this piss-poor performance...


(sigh)
ok, time to regroup and figure out what the next steps are!

Offline wolfv

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #36 on: Wed, 17 April 2013, 00:06:33 »
Awesome design.  Like the modern form with old-school point-to-point wiring.  Point-to-point construction is very appropriate for a small board like this.

Get load of this television chassis from 1948, all Point-to-point construction:
« Last Edit: Wed, 17 April 2013, 00:09:55 by wolfv »

Offline obra

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #37 on: Wed, 17 April 2013, 00:37:42 »
Nice progress so far!

I started with a wiring technique much like yours. What I've found goes much, much faster is to use 26-30 gauge magnet wire to wire my rows. the solder will melt through the enamel coating and the wire is much, much more flexible. If you're adventurous, try a wire wrapping tool rather than just making a single point of contact between the wire and the pin.

Leave a lot of play in between each connection - that will cut down on busted solder joints due to stress.

Use the square pegs to do the row wiring (especially if using a wire wrapping tool).


It looks like you're wiring your diodes in series. You really want them in parallel.

I started off wiring the legs of diodes to each other. It seemed like a useful way to avoid extra solder joints. In the end, it just made things brittle and very hard to solder or fix.
What I've found works pretty well is to clip the leg nearest the black end of the diode to about 1/4 inch and solder those to the big flat pins on the keys. then wire the columns up with magnet wire much like I do the rows.

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #38 on: Wed, 17 April 2013, 00:53:20 »
Nice progress so far!

I started with a wiring technique much like yours. What I've found goes much, much faster is to use 26-30 gauge magnet wire to wire my rows. the solder will melt through the enamel coating and the wire is much, much more flexible. If you're adventurous, try a wire wrapping tool rather than just making a single point of contact between the wire and the pin.

Leave a lot of play in between each connection - that will cut down on busted solder joints due to stress.

Use the square pegs to do the row wiring (especially if using a wire wrapping tool).
thanks!  I was just getting to the conclusion that this was not going to work, at all, and that i was gonna need to switch to a higher gauge wire. 

My other conclusion was that i was going to need to use header pins rather than solder directly to the teensy; broken hookup wire in the teensy throughholes was just miserable.

On the other hand, the solder joints on the rows/columns were bombproof ;)

Quote from: obra
It looks like you're wiring your diodes in series. You really want them in parallel.
oh, balls.  It seemed way too easy.

Quote from: obra
I started off wiring the legs of diodes to each other. It seemed like a useful way to avoid extra solder joints. In the end, it just made things brittle and very hard to solder or fix.
What I've found works pretty well is to clip the leg nearest the black end of the diode to about 1/4 inch and solder those to the big flat pins on the keys. then wire the columns up with magnet wire much like I do the rows.

Thanks very much, i'll try that!  Got any pictures?  Worth the proverbial 1k...

So, i got as far as wiring up just the left hand here, then i tried flashing the ergodox firmware & checking if anything worked; the I2C pins aren't connected anywhere, the LED pins hadn't been connected anywhere... anyway, i got nothing.  Even shorting a row/column together...nothing.  My guess was something was crashing the teensy before i could even get the shorted pins to register -- how did you go about troubleshooting?

Offline obra

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #39 on: Wed, 24 April 2013, 00:00:59 »
Hi. Sorry. I fell offline when my laptop ate itself in Taipei.

Try http://www.slideshare.net/obrajesse/2013-osdcmadeakeyboard

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #40 on: Mon, 29 April 2013, 01:38:12 »
Thanks a bunch!  Those are some very helpful pics :)

I ended up tearing all the diodes out and resoldering them in parallel.

I also took your suggestion on using magnet wire.  I used sandpaper to get the enamel off, but i'm not super happy with it.

Here's what it looks like after re-doing the left half; hopefully after redoing the right half it'll actually work ;)


Looking forward to your next blog post :)

(more atrocious pictures here: http://imgur.com/a/9zYE1)

Offline obra

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #41 on: Mon, 29 April 2013, 19:46:10 »
There's no compelling reason you need to get both sides going before you start testing :) In a lot of ways, it's much easier to get one hand working before you tackle the other one.

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #42 on: Mon, 29 April 2013, 19:54:14 »
Hmm, maybe i should.  I fried my last teensy, not sure how or when, but my theory was that because i had some pins floating and was just using the straight ergodox-querty firmware, something blew up.

It'd be way easier to test just this side first, though -- is there any harm in say, not having the LEDs hooked up to anything?

i'm working entirely off the schematic here:
https://raw.github.com/benblazak/ergodox-firmware/master/src/keyboard/ergodox/circuit-diagram.svg
which is missing notably the optional capacitor.


Offline obra

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #43 on: Mon, 29 April 2013, 20:32:44 »
I've had a lot of luck with the humblehacker firmware. I'd be kind of surprised if you actually toasted your teensy. I still haven't managed to ruin one. Despite some serious idiocy.

If you don't have a multimeter yet, it's totally worth picking one up for debugging.

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #44 on: Mon, 29 April 2013, 20:44:40 »
Oh, definitely got the multimeter; also went through the process of assembling one of the MD kit ergodox :)  All the switch/diode assemblies show good current.

IIUC, the humblehacker is not built to do I2C w/ the I/O expander, right?  Which means hasu & HH are out as firmware options.

Offline obra

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #45 on: Mon, 29 April 2013, 21:07:52 »
Well, it's out as a final firmware. it's totally plausible as a first-half-of-the-keyboard testing firmware.

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #46 on: Mon, 29 April 2013, 21:19:41 »
Ah yes... the first half of the keyboard, unfortunately, is the I/O expander half ;)  I'm soldering up the other half right now, however.

Offline obra

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #47 on: Mon, 29 April 2013, 21:35:04 »
Doh :)

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #48 on: Tue, 30 April 2013, 01:45:40 »
wired everything up, plugged it in -- nothing.  Not a damn thing.  Maybe i should take a break from this project for a while.

Offline obra

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #49 on: Tue, 30 April 2013, 20:14:27 »
Debugging is painful, but you're getting really close.

The first debugging step is to figure out if it's a software or hardware problem.  Take a wire and see if you can generate a keystroke by shorting one of the column pins to one of the row pins. If that works, I can talk you through the next step of multimeter testing.

Offline Glod

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #50 on: Tue, 30 April 2013, 21:16:59 »
take a break but never give up, this thing looks crazy cool

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #51 on: Tue, 30 April 2013, 21:25:42 »
Thanks for the kind words!  I already tried shorting two i/o pins and no dice.

I was worried i was back at square one, where nothing happened, the teensy didn't blink, and i had no idea where to go from there.  But, a good night's sleep and talking the problem over makes things look much better.

I went back and RTFM'd and found that yes, indeed, a jumper cable ties the onboard LED pin to ground.  (headdesk)

With that and hid_listen, i've been able to ascertain that the teensy isn't ****ed, which means the firmware is the next step.

I'll start by fixing up my layout, removing all the stuff that deals with lighting up LEDs, and hopefully putting some of the usb_debug_putchar traces will at least give me some clues about where it's dying.

And any multimeter advice would be great as well :D  I've tested connectivity and all the diodes and they seem ok.  Nothing more sophisticated than that.

Offline obra

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #52 on: Tue, 30 April 2013, 22:14:50 »
Just to reassure yourself, you might want to use the multimeter to verify that you can see current flow through the correct pins when you hit each key. That'll help reassure you that you should keep going.

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #53 on: Wed, 01 May 2013, 01:03:07 »
Ok!  Got everything working!

Apparently i either don't understand my multimeter, don't understand my diodes, don't understand which way electricity goes, don't understand the 1/0 on the "drive rows/drive columns" constants, or the code is actually backwards, but changing from driving columns to rows did it.  Every key works.  Awesome.

For people looking to troubleshoot, i strongly recommend switching out the src/lib-other/pjrc/usb_keyboard library to the src/lib-other/pjrc/usb_keyboard_debug library. 

In a matter of minutes i was able to determine that
a) the firmware was booting
b) that it was entering the scanning loop
c) that it was not hanging/crashing
d) that it was not detecting *any* keypress events.

Very handy.

Now on to the layouts!

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #54 on: Thu, 02 May 2013, 18:53:32 »
Now, if only the raindrop set or the DSA retro set would hurry up & get here, i'd be set ;)  WASD red & orange are a bit disappointing :(



and not on a wooden background


ETA: gallery link: http://imgur.com/a/9zYE1
« Last Edit: Thu, 02 May 2013, 19:13:27 by bearcat »

Offline esoomenona

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #55 on: Thu, 02 May 2013, 18:54:07 »
That looks really sweet. Good work!

Offline nubbinator

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #56 on: Thu, 02 May 2013, 19:11:43 »
That looks amazing.  I wish I knew where to start with designing a circuit path for a keyboard like that.

How does that bottom row work for you?  The innermost two seem comfortable, but I'm having a hard time with the red one and key next to it.  They strike me as just off enough that you'd want to use your middle or index finger with them.

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #57 on: Thu, 02 May 2013, 20:33:03 »
Of the the innermost two are definitely the easiest to hit, very natural.
The one next to the horizontal 2x is also really easy to hit with your thumb.

That horizontal 2x is a little weird looking -- but it's about as easy to hit as alt or command, and easier to hit than the red/orange keys in the innermost column.

I'm definitely still tweaking the layout, though

And, i used the circuit from the ergodox -- there's a diagram at https://github.com/benblazak/ergodox-firmware/tree/master/src/keyboard/ergodox/circuit-diagram.svg .  So easy even a shmoe like me could figure it out ;)


Offline kurplop

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #58 on: Thu, 02 May 2013, 23:09:27 »
Nice work on the split keyboard design. How is the oak holding up through the process? I've done a fair amount of wood carving and it can  be frustrating having a piece almost done and accidentally breaking a foot or a hat brim off. I know the piece was cut by CNC but just pressing in keys could present problems with an open grain wood like oak. I ask because I'm thinking about making a wood case for an ErgoDox and would invite your input.

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #59 on: Fri, 03 May 2013, 00:54:51 »
It's turned out really well for what was supposed to be a quick prototype.  I had some 1/2" planks that were on sale and thought i'd try it out; Red oak isn't my favorite, but better to test on this than on some fancy 1/2" hardwood.  You're quite right that the wood was a bit finicky; broke off a thin bit right by the USB connector, which was frustrating.

The top is probably way too thick, just over 1/8" (marked at 0.15, but probably ended up 0.16).  It's very stable, there isn't much flex at all in the top part, i have to really bend it apart.  (Am testing this on a spare)

The holes all came out slightly too small, and i spent a lot of time dremelling/filing them down, which was a huge pain and made me wish i was working in something soft. 

I'm not sure if i'll make the next case the same way, or if i'll do a more traditional four mitered sides & a lid & a bottom.

I'd also love to make a wood case for the ergodox i bought, but i'm definitely not a professional cabinet maker :-/  I saw that assembly you did and it was *gorgeous*.  Be sure to post pics of anything you end up doing ;)


Offline regicide

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #60 on: Fri, 03 May 2013, 17:38:45 »
Wow nice work, that wood looks astounding.
For a prototype this thing looks fantastic.

Best of luck.
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Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra [v2]
« Reply #61 on: Wed, 23 October 2013, 01:13:12 »

Update.  The version shown here was my daily driver from May thru August.  It eventually broke and i made a half-assed attempted to fix it, but decided to build a new one to fix some of the things that were bothering me, namely:

1. Pinky column needed to be lowered even further -- 'p' was the worst letter to hit bar none.
2. Extra index column not very useful.
3. Vertical 1.5u keys on the outsides gave up prime real estate
4. Hand wiring in the small case was a pain.
5. I missed having an LED, at least for diagnostics!
6. The single piece milled case was nice but required a lot of post processing.

After a lot of thought, the final case pieces for v2 arrived tonight!  The case tries to hide as many of the joints as possible, with the top aluminium cover plate and the mitered corners.  This version also experiments with the matte acrylic sheets they sell at ponoko -- i really like how it looks.  I've also got a draft PCB in to check for depth -- which checks out! :)  Will go with DSA caps for the final assembly, i think -- vertical DCS feel funny to me.

Album





(the case in the background is a plywood prototype with mitered corners)

Sorry about the potato pics & thanks for looking :)

Offline Oobly

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #62 on: Wed, 23 October 2013, 02:48:33 »
This is looking great! I like the angled thumb key caps and I think the matte acrylic looks good, but not as good as your original oak case.

Good work, I look forward to the next update!
Buying more keycaps,
it really hacks my wallet,
but I must have them.

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #63 on: Wed, 23 October 2013, 03:43:16 »
Thanks!  Glad to hear you liked the oak :)  Maybe after get better at using my mill...

BTW, the matte acrylic will just be visible from the sides.  The aluminium plate will fit right on top of the acrylic and hide the joint.

Offline kurplop

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #64 on: Wed, 23 October 2013, 04:32:30 »
Very nice, clean look. I like the direction you went with this. Keep posting.

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #65 on: Mon, 18 November 2013, 01:31:28 »
Just an update, another productive weekend, and I think i've finished the PCB.  Gonna have a friend look at it and hopefully ship it out to seeed this week  I have a newfound respect for PCB designers...

http://imgur.com/a/otJ6u#4

Offline lkong

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #66 on: Fri, 22 November 2013, 21:11:50 »
Thats exactly what I want for my coffee shop gear.
Little ergo and tablet.

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #67 on: Fri, 22 November 2013, 23:13:13 »
Thats exactly what I want for my coffee shop gear.
Little ergo and tablet.

That usecase is my thought as well :)  Hopefully this set of PCBs will work out ok!

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #68 on: Sun, 08 December 2013, 03:09:59 »
small update, the PCBs arrived!  Digikey order should land sometime this week so hopefully i'll figure out how badly i messed it up soon! :)




And if you know anyone who has any extra 3.5mm 4-wire TRRS connectors (same as ErgoDox) -- i really need a few!

Offline yasuo

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #69 on: Sun, 08 December 2013, 22:24:41 »
I think with dsa caps better particulary on thumb cluster IMO
nah,like this :D
« Last Edit: Sun, 08 December 2013, 22:31:17 by yasuo »
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Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #70 on: Tue, 10 December 2013, 00:08:29 »
Yes, definitely DSA caps!  Definitely will get DSA caps for the finished version :)

Offline jeffgran

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #71 on: Tue, 10 December 2013, 11:29:34 »
I have to say that wood case is one of the coolest looking cases I've seen too. I wish there was an easy way to use CNC or something to make a custom 3D design out of wood...

Offline CPTBadAss

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #72 on: Tue, 10 December 2013, 11:36:13 »
Oooo, those PCBs are looking good bearcat! Now build them up!

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #73 on: Tue, 10 December 2013, 12:20:40 »
Oooo, those PCBs are looking good bearcat! Now build them up!
Digikey shipment arrives today :)  Should get above freezing this weekend too -- my "soldering station" is an unheated shed  :eek:

I have to say that wood case is one of the coolest looking cases I've seen too. I wish there was an easy way to use CNC or something to make a custom 3D design out of wood...
I've been thinking about how to mill your case, and i think i'm getting to the point where i might be able to do the two halves in two passes each.  It'd be a lot easier if the keytray was a separate piece that could be made from e.g. aluminium or acrylic sheeting.  Otherwise, to do it all as a single case I'd need a 4-axis machine which is a bit out of budget ;)
If you're working in jscad & come up with any STLs, let me know!  I have a lot of mill improvements to make over the holidays...

Offline jeffgran

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #74 on: Tue, 10 December 2013, 20:47:37 »
Oooo, those PCBs are looking good bearcat! Now build them up!
Digikey shipment arrives today :)  Should get above freezing this weekend too -- my "soldering station" is an unheated shed  :eek:

So is mine (well it's in the unheated garage), but I got this little radiant heater and put it above my workbench and it works pretty darn well for just heating up your work area where you're standing (I had to take my outer layer off cause I was too hot, and it was like 20F outside): http://www.amazon.com/Ceiling-Mounted-Workshop-Heater-Halogen-Light/dp/B002VMKCWQ/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1386729775&sr=8-15&keywords=radiant+heater

I have to say that wood case is one of the coolest looking cases I've seen too. I wish there was an easy way to use CNC or something to make a custom 3D design out of wood...
I've been thinking about how to mill your case, and i think i'm getting to the point where i might be able to do the two halves in two passes each.  It'd be a lot easier if the keytray was a separate piece that could be made from e.g. aluminium or acrylic sheeting.  Otherwise, to do it all as a single case I'd need a 4-axis machine which is a bit out of budget ;)
If you're working in jscad & come up with any STLs, let me know!  I have a lot of mill improvements to make over the holidays...

Cool man! I don't know much about milling or manufacturing or anything. You're probably right though, if we could make the basic case shape out of one or two pieces and lay the keyswitch plates on top that might be a better technique than the all-in-one I've got going on so far. You can have a look at my code here (I checked in the built STLs too): https://github.com/jeffgran/ergo56-hardware (apologies in advance if you look at my code -- it's still pretty messy and needs some refactoring).

PS Sorry to derail your thread. But I'm watching your build with interest too. Have you thought about what you're going to use for the firmware? I've been playing with hasu's TMK on my ergodox and it's pretty sweet.

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #75 on: Wed, 11 December 2013, 12:12:22 »
Jeffgran, nice space heater!  I have one out there already but it's pretty ineffective.  We'll see!

Re: milling & whatnot, there's basically two very different sets of tolerances; whatever planar face has the holes in it needs +/- .1mm accuracy.  (the "plate", i guess).   But, whatever holds that planar face can have much looser tolerances.

WRT the mill, i need the plate to be perpendicular to the toolhead, and the rest of the case can be angled however.  Plus, if i need to work one face, then flip it over, then it's probably easiest to do the plate-face first.  I'll check out the code tomorrow night :)  Which jscad are you using?


As for the firmware, i was planning on adopting the ergodox firmware, but, since i don't have a teensy, i need to figure out the bootloader first.  No idea yet.  But once it gets to software it's back in my area of expertise, uh, moderate competence, so i'm looking forward to that.

Offline jeffgran

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #76 on: Wed, 11 December 2013, 14:07:02 »
WRT the mill, i need the plate to be perpendicular to the toolhead, and the rest of the case can be angled however.  Plus, if i need to work one face, then flip it over, then it's probably easiest to do the plate-face first.  I'll check out the code tomorrow night :)  Which jscad are you using?

What I do is drag and drop the entire root directory of my project into the little target box at the bottom of the openjscad.org page.  It automatically looks for the "main.jscad" which requires all the other files that it needs and executes the project.

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #77 on: Wed, 11 December 2013, 18:41:55 »
ok, openjscad.org then :)  I know there are some forks floating around... thanks!

Offline bearcat

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #78 on: Fri, 18 April 2014, 20:13:01 »
After a long hibernation, I finally verified that the logic on my main half works, but the half with the 23018 is a little dumb... i threw an LED on 3 extra pins there without understanding the ramifications of "open drain" collectors  :(  Hopefully i can just switch the LED from common cathode to common anode and whitewire it across...

BUT!  The complicated half works :)

https://imgur.com/n26X5wE

Now to assemble! :D

Offline Melvang

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #79 on: Fri, 18 April 2014, 23:49:28 »
I can say that on linux 2 keyboards work fine, I can hold shift on one and type a capital letter on the other.

Works fine in windows 8.1 as well between 3 keyboards.  I have tested all combinations between my Das, Razer Orbweaver, and my Razer Naga Epic.
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Offline OverKill

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Re: minimal split ergo, inspired by ergodox, suka & obra
« Reply #80 on: Fri, 18 April 2014, 23:57:26 »
I am jealous of your lighting. The lighting in my house sucks.