How to Fix my ErgoDash

[Mr.Thompson]

I have an Ergodox, purchased from someone on this forum -- he built it for me. It has worked great for over 2 years, but now Ctrl-V has become unreliable. Sometimes it doesn't work, other times it executes twice when I click it once.

I think another key is also starting to fail a bit, but I forgot which one right now.

Should I try to replace the switch, even though I have no idea what I'm doing?

I am a software developer, so I can certainly read a tutorial and try, but anyhow any feedback is appreciated.

PS: Other option would be to buy a new keyboard as anyhow I was never so thrilled with this one. But a new one (a good one) is bit expensive...

[Findecanor]

On the original ErgoDox with soldered switches, a switch that works intermittently and sometimes chatter is probably a cold solder joint that has failed (cold solder joints fail sooner or later). In that case there is an easy fix: re-flow the solder joint using a soldering iron.

If it is a keyboard with hot-swap sockets, however, there is the risk that the socket has lifted a pad off the PCB, and in that case there is no easy fix.

[Mr.Thompson]

Sorry, it's an ErgoDash.

[wjrii]

Yeah, that looks like a soldered pcb, and I agree it sounds like a cold joint finally cracked.  Very possible if it's been your daily driver for two years.  Try reflowing the solder at the switch pins before anything else.

[zegonix]

cold solder joint seems likely, however there are other possible causes. i use hotswap boards, but that shouldn't matter. after 0.5-1 year of use i had switches fail me pretty much as you described. replacing the switch, or increasing the debouncing interval both fixed my problem. increasing the debouncing interval is a software change and quickly tested without hardware changes, so i would give it a try.

[Mr.Thompson]

Happy to try to adjust debouncing interval. I have an app called Via and a json file for my ErgoDash, and this is what I see there:

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$ ls -l
total 88
-rw-r--r-- 1 mt mt  4944 Jun  6  2021 ErgoDash.json
-rw-r--r-- 1 mt mt 79611 Jun  6  2021 ergodash_rev1_via.hex
So it seems I should get this file https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/blob/master/keyboards/omkbd/ergodash/rev1/config.h and then add

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#define DEBOUNCE 4
and then run

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qmk compile -kb ergodash/rev1 -km config.h
qmk flash -kb ergodash/rev1 -km config.h
Never done this before, so I prefer to go slow and not break my keyboard more.

The above looks correct?

BTW, the V key sometimes chatters, other times doesn't send a signal at all.

[zegonix]

looks like you are already somewhat familiar with qmk. i only did this within qmk from the cli and don't know about other ways to do it, but here is how i did it:
i put a config.h and rules.mk in my keymap directory. see https://github.com/zegonix/zegonix-qmk-configs/tree/main/zegonix/configs/envoy/keymaps/quaken
with the define in config.h you define the length of the filter (bigger number means slower key detection but better filtering and vice versa), in rules.mk only the last line is relevant, it defines the filter algorithm to use. you can search on qmk docs website for an explanation of the options (just search for debouncing)
then recompile and flash your firmware.