My DIY keyboard collection ( or how I became a KB-geek...)

[Kurk]

Normal key spacing is 3/4 inch = 19.05 mm. The mounting holes should be squares of 14 mm. Cherry advises a corner radius of max. 0.3 mm.

[bearcat]

Ok, thanks, that's 4mm between holes. Roger.

I still don't see that information on the datasheet, although certainly all the other hole spacing is right there. Could be staring me in the face and i'm just missing it, though. wouldn't be the first time.

thanks

[suka]

Ok, thanks, that's 4mm between holes.

Make that 5mm! At least that is what works well with standard keycaps - or for a little more relaxed spacing I can recommend increasing by a mm which is comfortable especially with bigger hands.

[bearcat]

I have a mill and i'm going to try cutting some grids this weekend. Thanks for the inspiration!

I'm a little concerned about the 14mm^2 holes; as i'm using a mill, it's tough to get sharp corners on inside pockets, and the cherry's have most of the "lip" on the corner. Did you have any trouble with the fit on any of the early prototypes? Or does the extra rigidity from the PCB below take up any slack or wobble?

You don't need to overcut the corners if your bit is small enough.
I did this boards long time ago with a 2mm bit and had no problem with inserting the switches. If you take a close look at the corners in the image, they are not perfect .

Spoiler:

100_5732.jpg

The plates are 2x 4mm wood glued together after cutting them. Oh, and don't do the wiring that way, it broke way to fast (it's better to use enamelled copper wire).

Thanks! I have a 2mm bit so i'll go ahead and use that.

Do you have any more pictures of that board that you milled? Did it turn out ok? Anything you'd do differently?

[imp]

I used a minimum spacing of 5mm. If you use 4mm, the keycaps will touch (they are 18^2mm). Feel free to use
http://hannover.ccc.de/~imp/tasta-12mm.svg as starting point and http://hannover.ccc.de/~imp/tasta-12mm.nc (g-code) if you want to give it a try.
Edit: It's both for a 2mm drill, following "on" the outlines 14-2*(d/2) = 12mm.

[wolfv]

suka,
That's a nice collection of keyboards you have made.
I want to follow your example and try out my own keyboard concepts.
Thank you for posting great information .

What is the layout of your Blue Cube keyboard?
I am particularly interested in the symbols layer and how you squeezed the number pad into your layout.
The Neo number pad takes 5 rows from / * to 0 http://www.neo-layout.org/ > Layer 4

[suka]

Most of it is documented in my fork of Hasus firmware, but the following table from this post is still more or less correct, I corrected it a little below:

Code: Select all

----- Thumbkey modifiers & secondary usage ----
LShft LAlt LCtrl Space  LWin     Mod3 Mod1 Mod2 AltGr Fx
 -     Esc  Tab  Space  -        Esc  BkSp Ret  -     - 

------ Layer 0 & Mod1 ( letters shifted)
K  U  Q  .: J     V  G  C  L  F
H  I  E  A  O     D  T  R  N  S
X  Y  -_ ,; /     B  P  W  M  Z

----- M2 / special ---
@  _  [  ]  #     !  <  >  =  & 
\  /  {  }  *     ?  (  )  +  :
   $  |  ~  `     ^  %  "  '

----- M3 / Movement & Numbers ---
PgUp BkSp  Up  Del  PgDo   ß 7 8 9 ä
Pos1 Left Down Righ End    . 4 5 6 ö
Esc  Tab  Ins  Ret  Undo   0 1 2 3 ü

[wolfv]

Thanks Suka. The two-mode thumb keys are clever and efficient . I will try that on my next keyboard.

I am curios about the placement of your shift key. Shift and space keys are on the same thumb. Space-capitalize bigrams are common (first letter of sentence), especially in German. Why not swap Shift key with a layer key that is preceded by a space less often?

[suka]

Must have messed up the two lines - one of the earliest findings exactly because of the reasons you mention was that space needs to be a dedicated key. Shift is now paired with backspace.

[wolfv]

Suka,

Thank you for sharing your keyboard layout .

Is there a way to lock layers? For example, lock the symbols layer to write a long equation.
If so, how are the layers locked?

[suka]

No, haven't seen the need to implement it so far, but I guess a tapping approach for locking would work - with the modifiers conveniently under the right thumb, it is easy to keep them pressed. Besides, since the layout is so minimal and the board so tiny there is hardly any impact on typing as your fingers stay right on the home-row with or without a modifier pressed.

[geekabit]

Smile Suka, you're on hackaday.

[webwit]

We got a billion hits from there.

[Muirium]

And nary a stutter? Well hosted, sir!

[Krinkleneck]

You mentioned that you had made this keyboard in blender. Could you share your 3d model and all its containing components for us all to experiment with?

[onetearfalls]

hey can you post link to the software please

[geekabit]

There is a link to the blender files on the first page of this thread. Just search for BlueCubic-early.blend.bz2
The software is ment for rendering animated movies but works as well for making 3d designs. There are more infos on blender.org.

Edited to add:
Or did you mean the teensy software running on the keyboard itself? I'm interested in that as well. I'm currently looking into building myself one of those blue cube keyboards.

[JBert]

Edited to add:
Or did you mean the teensy software running on the keyboard itself? I'm interested in that as well.

He posted a link to his GitHub repo on page two:

For all interested parties, I cleaned my current tree a little and set-up a new repo at github.com - don't expect clean or re-usable code yet, it is not at all in a state I'd like to have it, but rather a snapshot of my WIP.

[geekabit]

Oh, you're right. Thanks JBert.

[JohnOfStony]

Very interesting article.
Have you considered the requirements for a musical keyboard instrument?
I learned piano in my early years and have recently played with concertinas and melodeons, but with your ideas on ergonomics, you should be able to come up with something unusual but easy to play. Hohner is a major manufacturer of melodeons so you could approach them if you come up with something interesting.

[JohnOfStony]

Suka,

Thank you for sharing your keyboard layout .

Is there a way to lock layers? For example, lock the symbols layer to write a long equation.
If so, how are the layers locked?

How about foot switches to select layers? They could be wired or battery powered wireless. That way you wouldn't need to lock a layer as resting your foot/feet on switch(es) for a considerable time is easy and not tiring (e.g. driving a car).

[Muirium]

Very interesting article.
Have you considered the requirements for a musical keyboard instrument?
I learned piano in my early years and have recently played with concertinas and melodeons, but with your ideas on ergonomics, you should be able to come up with something unusual but easy to play. Hohner is a major manufacturer of melodeons so you could approach them if you come up with something interesting.

As an amateur on the other kind of keyboard, too, I'm surprised there's so little overlap between the two. Essentially, they are now quite the same thing: switches in a digital matrix for a human hand to master. Yet the communities around them, as far as I can tell, are worlds apart.

[suka]

Smile Suka, you're on hackaday.

So that's the reason I suddenly get offers to sell some of my prototyes - at least I know now where it's all coming from...

[suka]

How about foot switches to select layers? They could be wired or battery powered wireless. That way you wouldn't need to lock a layer as resting your foot/feet on switch(es) for a considerable time is easy and not tiring (e.g. driving a car).

As all designs revolve around using conveniently located thumb keys for all modifiers, I have no issues reaching and holding them at all.

If you're used to further external switches that might be an option, I'd rather keep things simple and avoid the clutter of additional parts. And going wireless adds a whole new list of more complex issues, like power management, room for batteries and charging circuitry...

[Anonymole]

I don't suppose anyone might like to assist me or take on the job of building this keyboard?



I'm inspired by all the kool keyboards here but I'm afraid I'm incapable of building such a device. Design - sure. Build - nope.

[suka]

I don't suppose anyone might like to assist me or take on the job of building this keyboard?

Have you had a look at the excellent description by matt3o ? Essentially, if you can design an appropriate plate to be produced by an external manufacturer I would say it is not exactly rocket-science to assemble the electronic parts. In my experience, learning to solder is not that hard at all, at least to a point where you can hardwire the matrix for such a board - I know my joints aren't exactly beautiful or very skilled, but I never had any issues with them. And given the availability of teensy controllers with pins already soldered in all other needed parts are pretty forgiving when it comes to soldering.

The design of a pretty and functional case that does not look like a geeks prototype, however, might be a different challenge. But depending on your expectations and/or the amount of cash you're willing to spend there will be a solution to that, too.

[Muirium]

Yes, Suka's quite right. I'm working on a little keyboard with Matteo just now in fact. Not as ambitious an an ergo, but it never hurts to ask for input from people with experience.

What draws you to the Koder layout, Anonymole? The staggering looks a bit off to me, and I'd put backspace closer to return (HHKB style) instead of even farther away; but ergos are ergos and everyone's needs are indeed different.

[geekabit]

To build my own keyboard has been a dream ever since I started reading deskthority/geekhack. I finished the design on paper a long time ago, but I could never get the hang of 3d modeling software. You need one of those designs before you can have anything produced, so I was stuck. When I came across this thread I downloaded the blender files and gave blender a try, without result. So I was stuck again. The other day a friend mentioned OpenSCAD, where you can script a 3d design. As a programmer, this was exactly what I was looking for. That evening I finished my very first 3d design and uploaded it to shapeways. When I receive it I'll show you guys.
Thanks Suka for mentioning shapeways. It looks like the easiest way to have this produced.

[Ezra]

Suka, would you be willing to post the blender file for a more recent version of your design? I would like to make one. Thanks!

[suka]

Suka, would you be willing to post the blender file for a more recent version of your design? I would like to make one. Thanks!

Sure, if I can find it - which one are you interested in? The HyperNano should be in my github repo and was not created in blender but with OpenSCAD, but I'll check that.