geekhack

geekhack Community => Ergonomics => Topic started by: songcq on Sun, 19 January 2020, 08:24:23

Title: lil38 with squeezed thumb cluster
Post by: songcq on Sun, 19 January 2020, 08:24:23

After itching for a long time, I built my first keyboard recently (https://imgur.com/gallery/aZdTiLD (https://imgur.com/gallery/aZdTiLD)). I thought that would be the endgame, but I just immediately fell into another rabbit hole: the ergonomics.

After about 1 million hours of research, I became very intrigued by the Lil38 https://github.com/dotdash32/Cases/tree/master/Lil%2038 (https://github.com/dotdash32/Cases/tree/master/Lil%2038). So I started print out the layout on paper and tried to play with it. My only concern was the thumb cluster took more horizontal space that it needs to be. Take the left hand side as example, the 1st key to the left was a bit hard for thumb to reach, then the last key to the right was too far to reach. So I came out this layout and it fits my hand pretty well. http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/a8f7457c37a6073972769ea8fd0e4207 (http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/a8f7457c37a6073972769ea8fd0e4207). I will need to grind the caps for thumb keys to make them fit, but that's not a big problem.

Does anyone have experience with similar boards? Do you have any suggestions before I started to cut a switch plate for handwiring?

Thanks

Title: Re: lil38 with squeezed thumb cluster
Post by: nevin on Sun, 19 January 2020, 17:03:48

Look at the  keeb.io rorschach. Very similar, minus the column stagger.