There are a huge number of available keyboards out in the world these days, catering to all of the plainest and the most advanced desires. However, if you want something that’s just right, sometimes it pays to build your own. [Zach] did just that.
One of the key features of [Zach]’s build is that it diverges away from the Cherry MX switch form factor. The design uses low-profile switches instead, which help with keeping the keyboard low enough to avoid it causing wrist problems. The keyboard also uses IO expanders to hook up all the key switches, helping to reduce the incidence of ghost keys. The board can also be split in half, allowing it to be repurposed as a smaller macropad when desired.
It’s all wrapped up in a cool 3D printed case, and there are even three OLED displays on the right-hand side. They’re soldered to the PCB on special cutouts that allow the displays to flex and trigger tactile switches, acting as giant pressable buttons.
[Zach] does a great job explaining all the nifty engineering decisions he made to cram maximum functionality into the design. We’ve seen some other great DIY ergonomic designs too. Video after the break.
Beautiful! A certain cyberpunk lofi aesthetic that I love. I’d love it if this could be bought as a kit. Zach makes it look like this could even be assembled by a beginner custom keyboard hobbyist like myself.
I really like this design concept and the work that has gone to making the one PCB useful for more than just whichever version you could consider the project at hand, those screen buttons with the flex tongue in the PCB will be interesting in lifespan/optimisation I expect, same as every other concept that has used similar techniques, but it looks really good seems likely to be a great improvement on the using headers method of doing the same thing.
Wonder how much work it would be to ‘reverse’ it, seems from the views given and its operating method it would be very easy to make the revisions for building it the other way round with the screen buttons on the left edge – which might be preferable for some (Unlike many computer peripherals that are hell on a left hand dominant I don’t think this one really matters for a lefty, just perhaps you would prefer it the other way round in your set up.)
Well, that settles it, I’m putting an Elite-C in my YAMPad and then never using it again. Macros in QMK are a pain.
Lewin, how did you manage to ninja Kristina on this?