i spent sleepless nights watching live stream and builds on youtube...i think it is now time to give you a little update...
like i mentioned earlier i am not sure when but at some point i decided that i wanted to build my own keyboard
i know very little but i knew that there were a couple of things that i wanted:
- it had to be minimal
- it had to be iso, and possibly as similar as possible to the default iso layout
combining all the above i think i opted for a 60% layout with a split spacebar
it all started with a delivery, a small box full of goodies from KBDFans (thank you by the way for the incredible support, i know i have been a pain...i just had no clue what i wanted...)
gateron brown switches, i know nothing fancy, but it seemed like the reasonable choice as first switch, i did not want anything clicky and nothing too exotic or expensive
for the keycaps i wanted something sober i knew i didn't want ABS and i didn't want to have OEM or cherry profile
for the pcb i read so many good things about the dz60 that i don't think there was ever any doubt
for the back plate i went with steel, i actually regretted this later on, but i didn't know any better
since i decide to work on this i decided also that i wanted to make my own case
i had some plywood an aluminium plate that wanted to be the bottom of a keyboard
and some acrylic glass that always dreamed of being used...so i started playing with what i got
some layout test, i read it was important so i did it and indeed it helped me in getting the right switches in the right place
the best way to make the standoff was to glue nuts of different size to the bottom plate...i know i know this is not ideal...
i band aid modded and lubed all the stabilisers following the advices of all the keyboard gurus...
first test, everything seems to fit
i didn't take many photos of the painting process, but i can tell you it was long and painful
the bottom plate got a couple of layers of primer and then some red/orange and a translucent coat (which in the end left some strange shades..)
the wood got a darker shade and several layers of flatting
and here are the pictures of the final product
more pictures here:
https://community.imgur.com/t/first-60-build-own-case/61140waiting for all the different coats to dry gave me the perfect excuse for studying a bit the QMK documentation
i might be wrong but i could not find any layout that fit, there was an iso and split but not an iso split
so i added an iso split to info.json and dz60.h under keyboard/dz60
i initially thought that rgb was not important and i just wanted a plain colour
but then i stumbled upon a thread on how to have rgb settings per layer (thanks to AGausmann and drashna)
and i felt that i had to have it
i combined the rgb layer switch with a 99% default base and function layer plus a arrow/mouse layer and an rgb layer
and i saved everything under my layout folder "iso_split-spacebar"
i would like to give what i have done back to the community, i know it is not rocket science
but in case anybody else needs an iso split layout...it might be useful i guess
but first i need to learn how to commit (is that even the right word???) changes to github (if anybody want to help me out with this and link some info..)
i know the keyboard is not perfect but i am quite happy with the result
i will need to improve painting and the feet need some rethinking
i will want to have also my own usb cables
overall it was a lovely experience
thank you all for the support and inspiration
thanks M
dz60.h, keymap.c, info.json attached