I'm new here, having been mostly lurking over the last couple of months, but I wanted to share my new Ergodox build and hope that it encourages someone who is on the fence about whether they can build it to give it a shot. I had done some soldering 20+ years ago, but this is by far the most extensive soldering work I've ever done. I'm pleased to report that after a couple of nights of work, my Ergodox worked on the first try! If I can do it, you can do it.
Thanks to everyone on Geekhack who has posted encouragement and guidance over the years. In particular, the Soldering thread was invaluable. The many pictures of all of the amazing projects people here have built was incredibly motivating.
Here's just a few pics:
Whee, look what showed up in the mail from Massdrop!
Progress after the first night. I got my work area setup and soldered the first 15 surface mount diodes, I actually spent a couple hours practicing on a surface mount practice kit I found on Amazon before diving into the Ergodox. I was happy I did, it was a complete writeoff but it let me get comfortable with the tools.
It's alive! First full test! I did some basic tests with just a few keys soldered on to verify the Teensy worked, the I/O expander worked, and so on.
Keycaps! I had to improvise here and order some temporary caps earlier in the week because the Massdrop kit shipped earlier than expected and my caps from the Granite groupbuy aren't here yet.
One last shot, inside the belly of the beast. If I can do it, you can do it.
