New Budget Split Ergo keyboard - Uniquek Diverge

[byker]

Interesting and hopeful. Options.
From my perspective (I take a global approach) I feel this is a huge step. I'm hoping this develops over the next couple months to a trouble-free ergo board with programming features. If so, it will really turn our perspective around on the ease and resources needed to bring these projects to the user market.

At this point, I feel I'm a supporter, and want to see the direction this goes. If there's room I'd consider lending muscle.

Yeah I am waiting to see how the programming goes. If it is successful I may get one!

[juyanith]

I was tired of carrying my Ergodox back and forth from home and work so I grabbed one of these to try out. I bought my Ergodox assembled so this was my first time soldering but it went well with some help from a friend.



In general, I'd say the build quality is about the same as the Ergodox. The keycaps are not the best but they were not costly either. My Ergodox has cherry clear switches but I like blues and in some ways the unique keyboard seems a bit nicer to type on because of them. I'm not sure how I feel about having the "extra" keys on the outer (pinky) side rather than the inner (index finger) side but I'll wait to see how that works out. I was surprised to get labeled keycaps; all the photos had blanks other than the alpha keys. Unfortunately, this is not good for me as I use colemak on the Ergodox. I wanted to just switch the keys around but since the function actions are on the keys this won't be correct. It's a minor thing but not what I wanted. The default modifier key layout is also not to my taste and, as others have mentioned, you can't (currently) update the firmware so I won't do much typing on it for a while.

Overall, I'm quite pleased assuming that we get the ability to reflash soon. I don't really care if it is just source code that I need to modify and compile and honestly that's preferable. I'd like to thank Blahlicus for creating this and look forward to more from him in the future. 

[technomancy]

If I can re-program this I'll snap one up immediately.

Indeed. For me, one of the biggest draws of the ErgoDox was the ability to program the whole keyboard however I wanted. All I really need is the source for the firmware and the layout file. I'll definitely keep an eye out on this one.

If it's actually got arduino compatible controllers onboard then it's reprogrammable; you don't have to wait for him to release the source. I'm sure you could easily adapt TMK to it: https://github.com/tmk/tmk_keyboard

It's just a matter of declaring which rows and columns are attached to which pins on the controller. You could do this either by opening the case and tracing the connections or even just by trial and error if you were patient.

[Hairball]

If it's actually got arduino compatible controllers onboard then it's reprogrammable; you don't have to wait for him to release the source. I'm sure you could easily adapt TMK to it: https://github.com/tmk/tmk_keyboard

It's just a matter of declaring which rows and columns are attached to which pins on the controller. You could do this either by opening the case and tracing the connections or even just by trial and error if you were patient.

Interesting.  Not sure why I didn't think of that, but I think you're totally right.  I might have to give that a shot - thanks!

[naz]

so i received my diverge keyboard today. I switch it  to colemak using the microsoft keyboard layout creator, so far the matrix layout isnt a problem (i dont tend to twist mi wrist while typing on a regular keyboard, so it feels almost as usual). On the other hand, dont having backspace and enter on my right pinky is real hard to get use to (but this is what i wanted  in the first place, so is ok).  still, the online configurator will be most useful to asign more keys to the thumbs (ctrl, shift  and supr).

my diverge has some scratches out of the box (nothing big) and all of the keys have leyends, wich are just awful, in less than an hour a few are completetly erased (i was planing on change them all along, but still...).

so far i like it!
regards!

[bowji]

The Diverge keyboard seems very promising. Personally, not a fan of split keyboards but this is more appealing than the alternative.
Im hoping to see some more detailed reviews about it 

[naz]

ok, so i have a real problem now with my diverge, the s keeps doubling, look:

s ss s ss ss s s s ss s ss s ss ss  s ss s s s s

see! 8 out  20 times the s doubles..... i'm really desapointed with this....

 any advice?

[Hairball]

ok, so i have a real problem now with my diverge, the s keeps doubling, look:

s ss s ss ss s s s ss s ss s ss ss  s ss s s s s

see! 8 out  20 times the s doubles..... i'm really desapointed with this....

 any advice?

Sounds like something's not soldered well with the "S" key.  Wouldn't be too hard to fix (if it's what it sounds like) with a soldering gun, but definitely a shame if you paid for assembly

[jacobolus]

Likely some combination of chattery switch or bad debounce routine in the firmware, or possibly a bit of each.

[naz]

i put it out and  clean it, the s key seems to be working better now but im still getting doubling from time  to ttime on many others  keys (like the "t" and space i  just wrote)

starting to haate  this thing (again! doubling "a" and space) 




 

[daerid]

I was sooooo close to pulling the trigger on this thing. If only the first two thumb buttons were one 2x thumb button, it'd be damn near perfect.

[Sagii]

Has anyone got any updates on this project? or the remapability (if that's a word) for that matter

[hoggy]

You can check his blog here.  http://blog.uniquekeyboard.com

No mention of the remapping stuff just yet.

[Sagii]

You can check his blog here.  http://blog.uniquekeyboard.com

No mention of the remapping stuff just yet.

Oh, thanks ! My bad for not seeing that ^^'

[naz]

tried to contact the seller several times now, but he does not respond.... i was hoping for some kind of support or a replacement or a refund, but nothing...

tried to start a paypal dispute, but is over 45 days since payment so that won't help.

so far it seems that i wasted 195 USD

[Hairball]

tried to contact the seller several times now, but he does not respond.... i was hoping for some kind of support or a replacement or a refund, but nothing...

tried to start a paypal dispute, but is over 45 days since payment so that won't help.

so far it seems that i wasted 195 USD

Honestly, I've had a lot of interaction with the developer and it's been positive.  He's been out of touch this week and I suspect he's unavailable right now.  If that continues for much longer I would get more concerned/frustrated.  I'm not really using my Diverge keyboard at all until we get the remapping software from the developer (I did take a run at remapping on my own, but hit a stumbling block trying to push to the Arduino controllers.)

I understand the frustration, but I don't believe there's anything deliberate or nefarious going on.  Hope I don't get proved wrong!

[Hairball]

Thought it worth adding this in a separate post.  2 new blog entries on the Diverge Keyboard developer's blog that explain his hiatus the last couple weeks as well as a release date for the key remapping software.

Was very sick for a few days, all is well now

UniqueK Arduino Keyboard IDE to be released on the 15th, this is a newbie friendly IDE for programming keyboards, including all uniquek keyboards

So we should hopefully have the initial software in a week.  For naz here who has been trying to contact the developer, see if you can get through to him now.  I'm not sure what contact method you used, but honestly the only way I've ever gotten timely responses has been through reddit where the developer is most active.  I definitely understand your frustration.  Unfortunately I'm just another customer, but I can at least relay what I know.

This is the developer's reddit username:  http://www.reddit.com/user/blahlicus

[juyanith]

Thanks for the updates. I'm really looking forward to remapping the layout so I can put the keyboard to use.

[Hairball]

v1 Firmware Released - here's the developer blog post with instructions and download links:
The UniqueK Arduino IDE and Diverge firmware is now ready! get your own copy now

I'm at work and haven't had a chance to test this out, but I'll be trying it when I get home and I'll post back with my results

edit: having an issue uploading my modified Arduino sketch.  It looked like an annoying driver issue on my computer (maybe it's just my setup, not sure.)  I've posted where the developer will see with details and hopefully he'll be able to say "oh just try this other thing" to fix it.

In case anyone is curious or also runs into a problem, here's my info.

Windows 7 x64

Everything looks good until I upload the sketch within the Aruidno IDE.  It compiles the sketch, then goes to actually upload and I can see in Device Manager that it briefly exposes an "Arduino Leonardo" device which doesn't have or find a valid driver, so it isn't usable by Windows and *that's* the piece that's needed to actually flash the updated firmware to the board.  The upload eventually errors with this message:

Code: [Select]

Binary sketch size: 14,502 bytes (of a 28,672 byte maximum)
Found programmer: Id = "B¯J"; type =
    Software Version =
avrdude: error: buffered memory access not supported. Maybe it isn't
a butterfly/AVR109 but a AVR910 device?
However it really looks like that's just the result of the failed "Arduiono Leonardo" driver so the upload can't communicate with the board.

Once I get more info and hopefully a successful keymap upload I'll post again.

[naz]

Hi, i had the same problem during uplouding. i seach a bin and i found the following solution:

press upload and keep an eye on the device manager, then follow this steps:


5) In the Device Manager window, I saw the Micro listed (still on the same COM14 port in my case) but this time with a yellow triangle icon indicating a hardwarer issue.  (The yellow hardware issue icon did not appear befor I had reset the Micro.)
6) While the Micro was still in this mode showing the yellow hardware issue icon in Device Manager, I right clicked to Update the Driver.
7) I was careful to manually select the Micro's driver from my Arduino 1.0.3 (latest released version as of this writing) driver directory (not the FTDI subfolder).


after that i tried again and it worked!

hope it helps
source http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=135988.0

[Hairball]

5) In the Device Manager window, I saw the Micro listed (still on the same COM14 port in my case) but this time with a yellow triangle icon indicating a hardwarer issue.  (The yellow hardware issue icon did not appear befor I had reset the Micro.)
6) While the Micro was still in this mode showing the yellow hardware issue icon in Device Manager, I right clicked to Update the Driver.
7) I was careful to manually select the Micro's driver from my Arduino 1.0.3 (latest released version as of this writing) driver directory (not the FTDI subfolder).

after that i tried again and it worked!

LOL I ended up doing the same thing and also getting it to work.  What's weird is that it *didn't* work for me last night even after quickly updating the driver for that "temporary" device.  Tried it several times after that with no luck.  Went to do it again this morning intending on taking a screen show of my device manager to show the developer... and it just worked!  I don't know what changed in the 6 hours whiel I slept lol.  I'm just glad it's working now.

[juyanith]

For what is worth, I had the same issue. My guess is that once you get the driver uploaded you won't see the error again. Now that I've got the keys remapped it's time to get some typing time on the new toy!

[naz]

so i have good news and somo awful news.

The good news is that after the firmware upload, i didn't get any double key presses. The awful news is that after 15 minutes of typing deligth, i accidentally gave a good pull on one of the cables and broke the damn thing.... (micro usb conector pop out).

i have no idea how hard is to fix it, i have a friend who works with electronics, i'll ask him tomorrow what can be done.

so close....

[Hairball]

so i have good news and somo awful news.

The good news is that after the firmware upload, i didn't get any double key presses. The awful news is that after 15 minutes of typing deligth, i accidentally gave a good pull on one of the cables and broke the damn thing.... (micro usb conector pop out).

i have no idea how hard is to fix it, i have a friend who works with electronics, i'll ask him tomorrow what can be done.

Oh man that sucks   It might be relatively easy to fix.  Hopefully it can be resoldered, but I dunno without seeing the carnage - sorry, minor damage - inside

[naz]

Well, my left hand diverge is an the hospital (my friend tells me it should be fine after the repair, hope he is right).

Anyway, i'm playing with the rigth size and i was wondering: in order to have a "ñ" caracter asign to a key, i have to write "key kñ('ñ',0);" on the keydeclaration sheet so it will be available on the keylayout sheet???

[juyanith]

@naz I don't think that will work since I think you have to send altgr + n. Sorry I'm not familiar with entering non-english characters.

I do have a question of my own for everyone however. Do the fn and pm modifiers work across the two halves? I was playing around with the notion of making fn + space = tab when I noticed this wasn't working for me. Looking at the code, it seems like there could be serial communication between the two halves but it doesn't look complete to me. (It has been a long time since I had to deal with c so perhaps it is just me.) I reset my changes but still see the same behavior. I thought I checked this when I first assembled the keyboard but now I'm not sure. Can someone else check to see if it is working?

[naz]

i figure how to asign ñ to a key without using altgr+n. i notice that if your os is set in usa english, then averything fits. But, since in my case my os is set in spanish, some of the keys didn't match. So all i did was to see what the english equivanlent key for ñ was and it was semicolon. so i program semicolon on my diverge where i wanted the ñ caracter and ta-daaa!! that did it.

[juyanith]

I'm glad you found a solution! I don't suppose you could check to see if fn or pm keys work for you across the two halves? I suspect that they don't but I'm trying to verify that it's not something I did (or didn't do) on my end.