F104+SSK+122+62+77+50+Ergo orders now open! New Kishsaver+Industrial Model F Keyboards

[swedishpiehole]

Also, a way to see it is by forcefully pressing the key and holding. For me, I press and hold the "o" and it doesn't repeat, because it will not actuate until I release. When I release the key, it produces a single "o".

I tried adjusting the voltage, reseating the spring, replacing the spring, using different key caps, and using the alternative debounce firmware. No luck.

My F62 has 2 unreliable keys. At first they were completely non functioning, but I followed all of the spring adjusting advice and got them to work—sort of. They register more or less reliably, but there is some intermittent chatter. I tested holding them down and they both repeat. I am intimidated by the whole voltage adjustment business. Xwhatsit's utility app, and the corresponding instruction manual, is like Greek to me. I somehow managed to adjust the keymap using it, but that was my limit.

So then thanks to tentator I got set up with instructions for QMK. I compiled my hex, used the IBM capsense util to put the board into bootloader mode, and flashed using QMK Toolbox (atmega 32u2). Holy shit, it worked! I'm now typing this on a Model F keyboard with QMK! **mind blown**

I tested key repeating after flashing QMK and got some interesting results. Delete, backspace, enter, tab, and all punctuation keys repeat infinitely when held down. The number keys do not, unless I hold down shift before pressing, in which case I can get, for example, $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ or ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^. The alpha keys don't seem to repeat regardless of what I do. Is this the intended result? Can someone else check if they get the same repeating with QMK? I mean, I'm not complaining—I actually want repeat on the backspace and delete keys. I'm just curious.

[tentator]

That's strange, my F62 with qmk does autorepeat without issues..

So it might be some personal seeing you did?

[swedishpiehole]

^ It does autorepeat on all keys?

Actually my keyboard has started behaving erratically since I flashed QMK. A couple of times no matter what key I pressed, it changed the volume of my Mac. And then the whole keeb went unresponsive until I unplugged and replugged. Also, one of the keys that had been a problem before, which is now mapped to delete, exhibits a severe delay before registering, like 2 seconds, and then immediately repeats, so it's impossible to get a single keypress.

To make matters worse, now that I've flashed QMK, the IBM capsense util will no longer open at all with the board attached, it just becomes unresponsive. So I have no way to put it into bootloader mode (even though I mapped a key to reset, it doesn't work).

Arrrgggh. This sucks. Help.

Edit to add: I figured out that hitting the "reset" key combo was causing the weird behavior where everything registered as a volume change button. But this didn't put the board into bootloader mode and QMK Toolbox cannot flash it anymore.
Edit 2: I stumbled upon how to put the board into bootloader in the QMK docs: holding down both shift keys and pressing "b"! So I tried using QMK Toolbox to clear the EEPROM then reflash the hex, but I'm still having the issue with one key taking over 1 second to register, and with only some of the keys autorepeating.

[pandrew]

Yes, xwhatsit's ibm capsense util will not work with QMK firmware. For QMK there is a different host-side utility that I made.
If you use that you can easily send the keyboard into bootloader mode.

(This feature might be removed or disabled by default from upstream QMK when we will manage to merge it upstream, because the maintainers expressed that it is a security issue. Because it means that malware could reflash your keyboard with a keylogger or any badusb software without you even noticing. But for now it's still there. And there will always be a version of QMK that will have it even if upstream QMK doesn't have it. Just mentioning it here so that people don't expect upstream QMK to have auto bootloader entry in the future only on the official QMK repository)

Could we get you on live chat with me and tentator, to figure out what's wrong?

[xyzzy]

I tested key repeating after flashing QMK and got some interesting results. Delete, backspace, enter, tab, and all punctuation keys repeat infinitely when held down. The number keys do not, unless I hold down shift before pressing, in which case I can get, for example, $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ or ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^. The alpha keys don't seem to repeat regardless of what I do. Is this the intended result? Can someone else check if they get the same repeating with QMK? I mean, I'm not complaining—I actually want repeat on the backspace and delete keys. I'm just curious.

In macOS that's the intended behaviour. When you hold down certain keys, you should get a popup allowing you to pick a variant of the selected key.

macos-repeat.png (48.29 KiB) Viewed 8547 times

If you want to force the auto-repeat on all keys, you can enter the following command in the terminal:

Code: Select all

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

[swedishpiehole]

Hi pandrew, I logged into Discord and posted a message to you and tentator. Not sure if I did it right, as I've barely used Discord before. I'm having not only the inconsistent key press issues, but something far more serious: layer keys don't work right at all. I have mapped keys to LT1 and LT2 (switch to layer while held, kc on tap). However, as soon as I try to use one of these keys, the entire board switches permanently to that layer and since I don't have any layer switching keys mapped to the upper layers there is no way to switch layers but to unplug/replug.

I hope there is a fix to this. And I wonder why nobody else seems to have had this issue.

EDIT: please disregard the above sheer stupidity regarding the layer problem. I had started from a blank keymap and forgot to set unused upper layer keys to transparent. DOH!!!

Anyway, interesting observation regarding the slow delete key (not to be confused with backspace, which works fine): if I modify delete with option (which on Mac forward deletes by entire words), it registers immediately. No modifier, super slow. This makes me think the issue may be on the Mac OS side, although I have never experienced this on any other keyboard.

[swedishpiehole]

I tested key repeating after flashing QMK and got some interesting results. Delete, backspace, enter, tab, and all punctuation keys repeat infinitely when held down. The number keys do not, unless I hold down shift before pressing, in which case I can get, for example, $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ or ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^. The alpha keys don't seem to repeat regardless of what I do. Is this the intended result? Can someone else check if they get the same repeating with QMK? I mean, I'm not complaining—I actually want repeat on the backspace and delete keys. I'm just curious.

In macOS that's the intended behaviour. When you hold down certain keys, you should get a popup allowing you to pick a variant of the selected key.


macos-repeat.png


If you want to force the auto-repeat on all keys, you can enter the following command in the terminal:

Code: Select all

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

Ah awesome, good to know! I should probably have realized that myself....
So that being resolved, that leaves me with a delete key that registers too slowly and goes straight into autorepeat, and a major problem with QMK when momentarily switching to a layer strands me in that layer...

[pandrew]

and a major problem with QMK when momentarily switching to a layer strands me in that layer...

In QMK I believe that you have to put the triangle in your "called" layer where you have the LT1() or MO() function key defined on your base layer. (triangle just means KC_TRNS/KC_TRANSPARENT/_______ ).
I think it's the same as with original xwhatsit firmware as well where you have to define the function key on the called layer too for it to work properly.

Does this solve this problem for you?

By the way I PMed you on discord...

[swedishpiehole]

pandrew, I just finished editing my above post when I saw yours, and you were absolutely right. I had to kc_trans all of the blank keys and now it's fine. I don't see how to check my PMs on Discord. I feel like I looked everywhere so I must be stupid!

EDIT: I fixed everything. As I suspected, the slow delete key issue was coming from my Mac-- specifically from BetterTouchTool. Once I quit that, the delete key worked all nice and snappy like.

Sorry to everyone for clogging up this thread with useless stuff and thanks for your help/patience!

[tentator]

all good what ends good! +1

[capt8bit]

I just loaded QMK on my F62, and it completely resolved my issue with my "o" key. Yay!
Thanks tentator!

Now I just need to get my keymap set up in QMK.

[Ellipse]

capt8bit glad you solved the issue with QMK but have you tried the older 0.9.1 firmware, both debounce 6 and debounce 11 versions? (attached)

I'd be curious to know if the newer firmware causes your issue.

[darkcruix]

Kishsaver p0rn ...

kishsaver.jpg (2.11 MiB) Viewed 8368 times

[Ellipse]

I wanted to share a recent, thorough blog review of a new Model F F77 Keyboard with great photos:

http://ryan.abel.space/blog/model-f-keyboard-review

[darkcruix]

I wanted to share a recent, thorough blog review of a new Model F F77 Keyboard with great photos:
http://ryan.abel.space/blog/model-f-keyboard-review

Great read! Thanks for sharing

[troglotype]

The F62 and F77 I had bought some while back have arrived safely. Ellipse, these boards are absolutely amazing! Only minor blemishes on the case of the F62. Everything else is just perfect.

So far, I only had time to use the F62. It has a few buzzing keys (will have to tweak the springs a bit). I put a Unicomp keyset on the board. The Caps Lock and the Enter keys were binding badly. Luckily, I had a spare Model F left control and Enter key and they work well. But this has already been discussed above.

There were problems with keys that sounded perfectly. The "d" key kept rudely interrupting my typing at inopportune times and a few other keys felt a bit delayed.

With the kind help of tentator and pandrew (their work is absolutely amazing!) I got QMK flashed and the board is now rock solid. I will try to write up something for pandrew "noob to QMK using macOS" and if it's useable, he will add that to the documentation once they release their firmware into the wild.

Many thanks to ellipse, tentator, and pandrew!

[BucklingSprings]

I wanted to share a recent, thorough blog review of a new Model F F77 Keyboard with great photos:

http://ryan.abel.space/blog/model-f-keyboard-review

Indeed - very enjoyable. I agree with the author - I cannot think of a better
board than an ergo-split (not separated) F-62/77 board. Preferably with
a case built of neutron star matter - to add even more heft to it

And _THEN_ we can design a solenoid that can bother _THAT_ case ...

[troglotype]

I wanted to share a recent, thorough blog review of a new Model F F77 Keyboard with great photos:

http://ryan.abel.space/blog/model-f-keyboard-review

Indeed - very enjoyable. I agree with the author - I cannot think of a better
board than an ergo-split (not separated) F-62/77 board. Preferably with
a case built of neutron star matter - to add even more heft to it

And _THEN_ we can design a solenoid that can bother _THAT_ case ...

Has been done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun-type_fission_weapon

[Ellipse]

troglotype would you mind trying the older 0.9.1 firmware I posted here: viewtopic.php?p=467905#p467905

Maybe the 0.9.2 firmware is causing some issues?

[troglotype]

I will try to find some time over the weekend to do that. By the way, the powder-coating finishes of the F62 and the F77 are very different (and so are the USB cables). Was this on purpose or are the keyboards I got just two different iterations?

[Ellipse]

Thanks

That is normal to see noticeably different finishes as no two finishes are the same with the old style powdercoating on the classic style zinc cases.

[darkcruix]

I just have to post a huge kudos to pandrew and tentator .... I had two requests (getting the Solenoid working in QMK and Double-Tap). Both was completed within minutes and I have the perfect keyboard now in front of me. All functions there, Solenoid working - unbelievable.
The rest of the QMK was perfectly working from the start ...

[BucklingSprings]

Despite the praise that QMK gets I have to say that the standard firmware ellipse ships for the xwhatsit controller worked very well for me. All the small issues I had were fixable with either re-seating of the springs and (once) reducing the voltage threshold. There is one problem though: I am using a switching USB-hub to switch my mouse and keyboard back and forth between two computers. I have notices that both my F-77 but also my Unicomp model-M sometimes just hang. The only way to get them to work is to unplug the keyboard from the hub and to plug it back into the hub again.
I don't think the problem is with the hub itself because my Mathias quiet click does not have this problem at all. I have never seen it hang up. I think that the firmware in the Mathias is doing "something" right that the other firmware's are not doing perfectly.
Did anybody else run into this problem too? Does perhaps QMK not have this problem?

[russypt]

I am using a KVM built into the Dell U3219Q with the standard firmware on both a F77 and F62. I estimate that I switch the KVM about 30-40 times a day. I've never had it fail to reinitialize so far.

edit: Side note, when I put my Industrial Gray Model M and Industrial Gray F77 next to each other, the texture is different but the color is an exact match. I'm excited to see what the blue dyesubbed keys will look like in it.

[BucklingSprings]

I just have to post a huge kudos to pandrew and tentator .... I had two requests (getting the Solenoid working in QMK and Double-Tap). Both was completed within minutes and I have the perfect keyboard now in front of me. All functions there, Solenoid working - unbelievable.
The rest of the QMK was perfectly working from the start ...

@darkcruix: just out of curiosity - how would you say that the model F reproductions measure up to you beamspring keyboard?

[BucklingSprings]

@Ellipse: can I order additional cork pads? I like to rest my F77 on my lap - I think that the cork pads will wear out quickly.

[Ellipse]

Yep BucklingSprings - feel free to order an extra set on your next order of something! (or I can add it to an existing order)

[ZedTheMan]

Hey Ellipse, I ordered an F77 just a bit ago, is it possible for me to add more bumpers to my existing order? (I want to try different angles when it comes in)

[darkcruix]

@darkcruix: just out of curiosity - how would you say that the model F reproductions measure up to you beamspring keyboard?

This is a tough question to answer, because the beam spring boards are a different beast. Very subjectively, the beam spring keys are unbeaten in sound and feel. With that being said, the layout is not great and the height and size of it also doesn't meet my needs. You don't get proper keycaps that are modern and so on. The Model F is so close in feel and sound, furthermore the Modern Model F went the right path. Ellipse did everything right that you could do right, imho.
In essence: I use the New Model F as my every day keyboard and the Beam Springs from time to time for a couple of hours. That says it all, imho.

[Scarpia]

@Ellipse: can I order additional cork pads? I like to rest my F77 on my lap - I think that the cork pads will wear out quickly.

You rest that thing on your LAP?!? I think you will need spare set of feet for your torso when the gangrene sets in from having the blood supply cut off from your legs.