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geekhack Community => Ergonomics => Topic started by: bmiww on Sat, 15 December 2018, 18:12:47
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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?
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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 (http://matias.ca/ergopro/pc/)'s cursor keys, but he does not sell them.
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I’ve used Cherry ML switches several times. Their key caps are made for .7” spacing vs the .75” standard.
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I can see why smaller keys would make sense for the pinky, especially on a split or ergonomic layout. Cherry ML sounds worth looking into since the smaller spacing could give you more room to experiment. The main challenge seems to be finding compatible keycaps, though.