I’ve bought the idea of getting an ergo keyboard for work, but it’s too expensive to buy one from where I live, so the last days I’ve been learning and designing my own.
I know it won’t be as good as a manufactured one but I really want to see how the result will be
Nice! If you haven’t bumped into it, then the build log of the Steel Tormentor and it’s cardboard prototype have been really illuminating for me.
Edit: Also, an Inkscape trick: you can set it’s zoom using a real ruler placed on the screen so it can show you your drawing real size. Then you can test button placement without having to print.
Wow, great content, it will definitely be helpful once I start building the keyboard, my father in law works with laser cutting and acrylic so I’m planning on using it for the case/board
About the inkscape tip, I’m doing this, helped a lot because I could fine tune the angles and offsets pretty quickly
CAD (cardboard aided design) is really powerful. You get to fail fast: figuring out things don’t work before more expensive manufacturing steps (such as laser cutting).
And using inkscape is fine, but even better if you print it out and stick it to cardboard.
Edit: I put up my .svg files here, in case they might be useful.
Cool! I just did a full Inkscape+laser-cutting build using MDF and acrylic. I’m still to write something up about it, though. In short, I used a 1,5 mm acrylic bottom cover, on top of that 2x 3mm MDF as “case” (minimum height with a 1,5mm plate), the top one supporting the plate, but with larger holes so the switch clamps fit, a 1,5mm acrylic plate, and finally another MDF layer on top of the plate, outlining the keys, for aesthetics and rigidity.
After having set up the keys, I used mainly offsets around those to do the outline etc.
It’s sexy and looks comfortable, do you enjoy the MDF board?
Thanks :)
Yes, I do! I enjoyed a cardboard prototype before, and only just finished this. I really like it. The fit is great, and I like the sound. I gave it some small feet in the back (some 3mm foam tape) to lift it a bit from the table/deskmat, to get some more sound out - there’s zero space between the switches and bottom plate… And I like the sound.
Switching to the prototype, I switched to Colemak, too. I’m still learning that. So I’m by no means a fast typist on it yet. But I already know better where the keys are on Colemak than I did on QWERTY, and I think the symmetric, column-staggered layout helped a lot with that.
I did a prototype using cardboard today to test how typing would feel, I loved the column staggered layout, feels way better than the default, I might give a try one day to colemak, but I’ll try not to change radically now, once I get used to the split keyboard I’ll try other things too
Yes, column stagger is amazing! Congrats on the prototype! I ended up using mine a bit over a month before getting a nicer, revised version cut. I learned from that. Removed some keys, moved some a bit.
I’ve read elsewhere that switching to a new layout is easier at the same time as changing to ergo, instead of later. I’ve had some time off, that’s why I did it now. If I had been busy, I’d rather have started using my new board and the old layout.
I’m of the opinion that if it’s cheaper with the same or more functionality than a consumer grade option, it’s superior. Bravo
Great line of thought
First thought was that it looks similar to a Keyboardio model 100: https://shop.keyboard.io/products/model-100
It was an inspiration, the model 100 and also the moonlander
Shift not on thumbs with that many thumb keys?
There’s two shifts, one of them in the thumbs
I think you should probably use a CAD instead of graphics software to design…
Depends on what they want. Inkscape is perfectly fine for plate design, which you can then lift using standoffs, like the Steel Tormentor.
I probably should but I’d have to learn it first and I’m going to use laser cut acrylic so any 2d design should be fine for now, maybe in the future I’ll 3d print a case, if so I’ll try to use fusion 360 to do it
