[IC] Ergo Compilation

[jolly_gnu]

Those of us using a custom or ergo boards, most of the time, are left in the cold trying to match key caps to layout.  So here’s my proposal for a kind of ergo-compilation set.

Material: PBT

Color:  GDE

Printing: Dye Sub

Profile: DSA

The color I picked because If felt is reasonably professional, neutral, wouldn’t be too bright, and integrates well with the black dye sub.

This set is designed to cover three areas: Maltron, Ergodox, and Kinesis Advantage.

Maltron users will also have a purchase a PBT dye sub number pad set from pmk to fill-out their boards.

Kinesis users will want to check http://sitr.us/2014/05/19/kinesis-advantage-with-dsa-keycaps.html in regards to issues in fitting DSA on the Kinesis.

Deep dish keys cover QWERTY, Dvorak, Colemak, and Malt.  And they’re designed to either use one for each pointer finger or one for each of the four home row fingers.

Function keys are included here because they’re split on pmk and would  require buying a modifier set for the standard keyboard.

It will use the same font as pmk’s dye sub PBT, as it’s designed to integrate with those sets.  If there’s enough interest it’ll be submitted pmk’s launchpad and, if approved by them for listing, the whole thing will come as one lot; so everyone will be subsidizing everyone else.

So far I’ve tried to cover as much ground as I can.  But with the variety in ergodox layouts total coverage may not be possible.  I’ve tried to select what I feel covers the most common uses.

Suggestions, of course, highly welcome.

[braidn]

I would be in for supporting this. I know ortholinear is not directly on here but these sets would cover a Planck and atomic.

[bbrotha]

Interested!

[justnits]

i'm not sure if i can afford this, but i just want you to know that i think this is an awesome project!
i did look through the legends covered, and i can roughly say that this covers about 95% of my ergodox layout (still not finalized)!

[romevi]

Very ambitious. Would like to see how this plays out.

[jolly_gnu]

i did look through the legends covered, and i can roughly say that this covers about 95% of my ergodox layout (still not finalized)!

Care to share that other 5%?  I'll admit that the more I think about it the profusion of ergodox layouts has me wondering if *any* set can cover the majority of usage cases.  I'm also wonder if the symmetrical 1.5x and 1.15x Hyper and Supers may be overkill.  Then there's the question of the vertical keys, which I forgot earlier.

[jolly_gnu]

I've made a few modifications to the set (mostly additions, unfortunately) since http://dox.codeslingers.co.uk/ provided some key-usage statistics.

[ddot]

Interesting idea.

You mentioned this is supposed to integrate with PMK’s dye sub PBT sets.  I didn't find that super clear, but I'm guessing by that you mean integration with their DSA stock sublimated keycap sets that they're always selling.

I guess it'll all come down to pricing, but I'm wondering if the group buy model will get us better pricing on the base keys than they're offering by default.  Maybe you'd be better to take out the keys that are covered in the "standard base set", just focus on the obscure keys, keep the group by portion as small as possible and emphasize that this is just to complement the standard base set and not replace it.  Or maybe the group buy will get better pricing and what I just said was irrelevant.

[againer]

I did buy my ergodox with blank dsa keycaps. But figured out i prefer dcs. So this is not a group buy for me. But for some more individual layouts like I am using. having the numbers without additional symbols printed makes them more universal. Since wrongly printed symbols do distract me more than not printed symbols.

BTW thats why I stay with blank DCS Keycaps on my ergodox

[jolly_gnu]

I did buy my ergodox with blank dsa keycaps. But figured out i prefer dcs. So this is not a group buy for me. But for some more individual layouts like I am using. having the numbers without additional symbols printed makes them more universal. Since wrongly printed symbols do distract me more than not printed symbols.

BTW thats why I stay with blank DCS Keycaps on my ergodox

Yes, the main keys should never have been in there.  So the set would have to be paired with the standard base set of pmk's stock dyesub caps.  But I'll leave the function keys and few 1x keys that are in the standard modifier set for the stock dyesub, because half of those are unusable on anything but a standard keyboard.

I'm also wondering if I should take out the 1.25x kinesis keys.  I don't get the idea many people replace theirs (or at least not with DSA).  It's looking like the ergodox is going to be getting the main play if there is any.  If anyone knows where the 1.15x keys can be useful besides the kinesis, let me know.

[jolly_gnu]

Thanks to everyone who supported or commented on this design.  But, unfortunately, the idea doesn't seem to be interesting enough to fly.  So I'm going to lock this thread. 

It's back to blanks, I guess.  Oh, well.