[IC] Custom staggerable split ergo plates/PCBs

[suicidal_orange]

I've been thinking about this for a while but don't want to put too much time/effort into it unless people are interested, so here's a vague IC.

Ergonomic column staggered keyboards are supposedly great but they're not a one size fits all solution as everyone's hands are different.  The solution to this seems clear - people should be able to make their own stagger to fit their hands.

Thus I propose using a slotted plate


and Enabler inspired PCB strips to keep the switches properly spaced and reduce the need for handwiring to the rows.


The PCB allows for a 90° rotation of the switch so either you can put it in the normal way and have a top or bottom LED and Bro Cap compatibility, or you can put them in sideways which combined with the slotted plate means you can open them for cleaning or modding.

Thumb clusters need to be considered and I'm not entirely sold on making it in two halves but I'm still not convinced this isn't a completely crazy idea - what do you think?

[joey]

Pretty cool idea!

(I assume the enablers are meant to go be vertical?)

[suicidal_orange]

Yup, that's the point of it!

You can slide each column up and down independently to match your personal finger length

[joey]

Any way to "lock" them into place, once you found a nice position?

[suicidal_orange]

That sir, is a damn good question - one I hadn't really considered.  People who do handwired plate mount builds use hot glue so the switches don't pull out with the caps, there would be room to put some above/below the end switches.

Alternately the PCB could be extended so they are long enough to press against the case side while holding the switch at the top or bottom of the slot, but to maintain top and bottom LED support the extension would need to be at both ends.  Whatever the extension (depends on the ratio of keys on the PCB to the slot length) could be divided into 1/4 key sized sections.  There went the cheap sandwich case option though...

[joey]

When people glue switches, it's beneath the plate. If you glued here, wouldn't it be visible? (and therefore ugly!)

[suicidal_orange]

Doesn't need to be, you could glue the sides of the switches to the bottom of the plate as there are dents in all sides to give it something to grip.  You raise a good point about aesthetics though - having holes at the end of the slits won't look great, and would be a dust trap.

Perhaps the plates need to be custom made per user with the correct stagger?  Could still do the PCBs and the slits should be cheaper than a standard plate (less cutting)  Would be one hell of a job to work out who's is who's to send them out though...

[joey]

You could 3D print some inserts, those would vary in length for everyone but should be easy to do via Shapeways or some other local place.

[suicidal_orange]

Not a bad idea but they wouldn't be flat to the plate and they wouldn't be a perfect colour or texture match.  Unless they were built into a top casing which fitted over the whole plate, but is that going to be crazy expensive?

[TomBodet]

This sounded so familiar I had to go searching.  Found it!

gltovar did a game pad design just like this a while back.  Very slick and he released the design on github.

[suicidal_orange]

Ooh nice!  I'll have to have a read later, thanks Tom

[Data]

Creative.  I like it. 

[primitiveType]

Really cool idea, I might be interested in something like this.