The Darkstar Keyboard

[skullydazed]

Lately I've been fantasizing about what could possibly replace my beloved fc660. I think a more ergonomic columnar layout is the only thing that I could want, so I spent a while playing around in keyboard-layout-editor and came up with a design I like. Using swill's tool I had it cut at a local machine shop, and then I painted it with rust-oleum:



Now I have a hard decision, which switches to use?

[Evo_Spec]

This looks interesting, I'm keeping an eye on this =)

[berserkfan]

Somehow I have great difficulty figuring out how your design is ergonomic...

There's no numpad, thumb keys seem kinda uncomfortable, function keys presumably must be in a hidden layer, triggering the control, alt and win keys probably harder now, not sure what you plan to do with the stabilized keys on the right side, etc...

[skullydazed]

Mostly it's the vertical (instead of horizontal) staggering that makes it more ergonomic, plus it being a split keyboard so I'll be able to setup negative tenting, etc. The key layout is almost exactly the same as the fc660m. You will need an fn layer for a handful of keys, but 98% of the time I won't have to activate the fn layer.

Personally, while designs like the ergodox and atreus are interesting to me I'm not convinced they strike the right balance between ergonomics and usability. You have to rely on the fn layer for way too much and so the usability suffers. Maybe I'll change my mind after my infinity ergodox arrives and I use it a while, but for now my belief is that this is a much better compromise.

[skullydazed]

I decided to pop the blues into this board. I get a second copy from the shop today (they were supposed to make two in the first place but only made one) and I'll put the clears into that. A little work with keycaps and soon I have this:



(Now I just need to find 4 more 1.25u keys)

The reason I'm using the gaterons for both boards is that I didn't plan ahead well enough, and getting alps keycaps to fit this design would be pretty difficult. So, a little time back at the drawing board and I land here:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/bc1744aa93d4d33d14ee670f6ba4ab04

This leaves the left shift (1.5u R4) as the only oddball key, and everything else can be harvested from standard alps boards.

[derezzed]

I like it.  I already had to address the issue of Cherry MX-compatible key cap sizes and profiles for a design.  I thought about making an Alps version but I hadn't considered how much more difficult it would be to acquire the necessary Alps-compatible key caps.  Maybe the number of layout options for custom Alps boards will grow once Matias starts selling Alps key caps.  You mention the availability of a 1.5u left shift as being an impediment to an Alps build.  Does a Dvorak layout present an even bigger barrier to acquiring the correct key caps or did you just put a Dvorak layout on the board because the availability of key caps for Cherry MX switches makes it more viable?

[skullydazed]

I like it.  I already had to address the issue of Cherry MX-compatible key cap sizes and profiles for a design.  I thought about making an Alps version but I hadn't considered how much more difficult it would be to acquire the necessary Alps-compatible key caps.  Maybe the number of layout options for custom Alps boards will grow once Matias starts selling Alps key caps.

At least with cherry there are some good uniform profile options available in the form of SA, and there are lots of oddball keyboards out there so SP has a lot of mold sizes available. With alps everything is sculpted differently per row (which is nice in a lot of ways, but not so much for those of us using something other than qwerty.)

You mention the availability of a 1.5u left shift as being an impediment to an Alps build. Does a Dvorak layout present an even bigger barrier to acquiring the correct key caps or did you just put a Dvorak layout on the board because the availability of key caps for Cherry MX switches makes it more viable?

Yes and no. Mostly I touch-type anyway, so blanks are fine. However, it's nice to have labels, particularly if I'm browsing the web with the kid on my lap and can't touch-type. Once I settle on a design I like I'll probably label the keys in some way, even if I just use a sharpie to write my own front-labels.

[skullydazed]

I got the matrices wired up tonight:



Unfortunately the kid is asleep so I couldn't use the heat gun on the right hand side, but I'll hit that tomorrow. Now I just have to connect everything up to a teensy 2 and figure out firmware.

[tjweir]

I got the matrices wired up tonight:

Show Image

Unfortunately the kid is asleep so I couldn't use the heat gun on the right hand side, but I'll hit that tomorrow. Now I just have to connect everything up to a teensy 2 and figure out firmware.

Looks pretty dang clean!

Nice work.

[skullydazed]

Lots of work done, but it feels like I went backwards. I had both matrices wired up and ready for code, but when I loaded my firmware several keys were being held down permanently. Thinking it was a hardware problem I ended up unsoldering every wire on the teensy, only to find that it was still happening. Grab a fresh teensy, load the hex... same problem. ****.

At this point I decided the best way forward was to scrap my current wiring and go with the same setup everyone else uses, so a little bit of work later I had this when I noticed a problem:



Have you spotted it yet? If you guessed that my diodes were the wrong way around you're correct! Sigh, pour myself a scotch, and start working again:



Once I had the right side wired up again I stopped and spliced header ends onto all the wires of the keyboard, and put headers onto my teensy. This will let me move wires around as needed, at the cost of having to do a bit more wire management. I then connected the headers and columns to the same pins as the gh60:





Plug that in, press a few keys, and success! All columns and rows are working. I'm hoping that by early next week I'll have found enough time to wire up the other half, then I can start working on the software side of things.

[CPTBadAss]

Looking good!  Can't wait to see it in action

[skullydazed]

Thanks to everyone who has chimed in to say they like it. It's been a lot of fun so far and I am learning a lot.

Over the last few days I got everything wired up.





I ran into some problems getting the software right. Everything seemed to work but the keys weren't outputting the correct letters. So I Set about trying to figure out what was going on. My meter confirmed that the rows and columns were connected where I thought it was. So I started writing out the letters that the keyboard was outputting.

About halfway through I realized it had picked the colemak layout. I'm not sure how to change that in TMK so for now I've just made all the layouts qwerty.

A week ago I got a set of nuclear data from someone on mechmarket, so I was able to put on some pretty nice caps:



This entire post was written on the keyboard, so I guess I can call it a success. Now I just need to find a good way to put feet on it. I'm thinking maybe bolts for now, and when I do V2 I'll find a better case option, as well as a better way to link the two halves. I could use TRRS like everyone else does, but I also like the idea of something wireless.

[suicidal_orange]

Needs more orange

Seriously though this looks like a great cross between ergo stagger and standard layout with minimal learning curve.  Now you just need to work out what to do with all those wires...

[Vizir]

Very cool!

[derezzed]

Nuclear Data looks great on your board.  I like how you chose your wiring to complement the plate and the key cap set.  And while having the wires loose like that would probably drive me crazy if I had to look at it on my desk everyday, it's visually stimulating and it gives your board character.

[skullydazed]

Thanks for your kind words everyone.

Nuclear Data looks great on your board.  I like how you chose your wiring to complement the plate and the key cap set.  And while having the wires loose like that would probably drive me crazy if I had to look at it on my desk everyday, it's visually stimulating and it gives your board character.

Do you see how messy my desk is?

The wire color was more accident than anything else. It's just what I had around. And don't worry, this isn't this keyboard's final form, I'm already planning out the build of Darkstar Mk2 (with gateron clears) with the sectioned plate I had cut. And I'm actually already working on a new design for Mk3, which reduces the amount of vertical stagger (1/4u is way too much, I always miss J and W too much (C and , for you qwerty people) and uses the same set of caps as an FC660M with the exception of left shift.

[suicidal_orange]

...
 uses the same set of caps as an FC660M with the exception of left shift.

Doesn't the FC660 have a couple of strange size caps which people often complain about on group buys?  If so it wouldn't be my first choice to copy...

Looking forward to seeing mk2 and 3 anyway

[skullydazed]

Doesn't the FC660 have a couple of strange size caps which people often complain about on group buys?  If so it wouldn't be my first choice to copy...

Looking forward to seeing mk2 and 3 anyway

The only really weird key on the fc660m is the right shift, which is 2.25 instead of 2.75, so you have to come up with a second shift key. Since my left shift will be 1.25 that problem is solved for me. The other oddity on the fc660m is the 1u alt key, but my new design uses 1.25u keys there so again no problem.

[derezzed]

Thanks for your kind words everyone.

Nuclear Data looks great on your board.  I like how you chose your wiring to complement the plate and the key cap set.  And while having the wires loose like that would probably drive me crazy if I had to look at it on my desk everyday, it's visually stimulating and it gives your board character.

Do you see how messy my desk is?

The wire color was more accident than anything else. It's just what I had around. And don't worry, this isn't this keyboard's final form, I'm already planning out the build of Darkstar Mk2 (with gateron clears) with the sectioned plate I had cut. And I'm actually already working on a new design for Mk3, which reduces the amount of vertical stagger (1/4u is way too much, I always miss J and W too much (C and , for you qwerty people) and uses the same set of caps as an FC660M with the exception of left shift.

As a workspace, it's a nightmare.  As a composition, I like it.  In its current state, it looks like you took the control panels out of a console.  It doesn't look practical to use, propped up on wood blocks, but it looks good.

[skullydazed]

As a workspace, it's a nightmare.  As a composition, I like it.  In its current state, it looks like you took the control panels out of a console.  It doesn't look practical to use, propped up on wood blocks, but it looks good.

As with everything in my life it's a work in progress. While I'm in the throes of a project my desk gets taken over, then I clean it off and have a blank slate to start making messy again. So it will be with this keyboard, I'll constantly be finding ways to make it better. The wood blocks for example are just temporary, I need to find a better way to keep the delicate keyboard matrix off the desk.

[TD22057]

Very nice work.  After seeing the results, I'm definitely going to paint my plate when it's done.

How do you like the vertical stagger between the fingers?  I've been experimenting with various amounts and was a little concerned that if I move the pinky finger down as much as you did, it might make it harder to hit the shift keys.  Have you used your board enough to tell whether or not you like the stagger you selected?

[skullydazed]

The pinky has been great, if anything I think there's too much stagger for the middle fingers. I've adjusted the mk2 to have about half the vertical difference. In fact, after 2 days of typing on my prototype with SA keys I had to switch to an AEKII for today. My speed was at about half of what it normally was and I couldn't take another day of frustration.

I couldn't even type on my fc660m with SA keys as it was just too similar to the staggered keys, and I kept making typos. So I guess for now I'll switch between the darkstar keyboard and this AEKII, until I get around to swapping the caps on my fc600m.

[TD22057]

The pinky has been great, if anything I think there's too much stagger for the middle fingers. I've adjusted the mk2 to have about half the vertical difference. In fact, after 2 days of typing on my prototype with SA keys I had to switch to an AEKII for today. My speed was at about half of what it normally was and I couldn't take another day of frustration.

I couldn't even type on my fc660m with SA keys as it was just too similar to the staggered keys, and I kept making typos. So I guess for now I'll switch between the darkstar keyboard and this AEKII, until I get around to swapping the caps on my fc600m.

Thanks for the info.  I'm working through some design ideas (https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=71446.0) and after making a cardboard prototype with a similar stagger to yours, I think I agree with you.  I'm tempted to adjust my design back to no vertical stagger since I know that will work fine.