lol, yeah, I’ve brought the prices as low as I can, but even then it’s still not cheap compared to a big box store keyboard.
Please do, I’ll be selling the parts in January. But, everything you need to source your own parts is in the GitHub repository too.
That’s an awesome project.
One of workmates has been using it, I’ve actually printed the resulting STLs from this when his printer died.
I hear you, it’s a slightly bigger stretch, but on the other hand habits are hard to break. Also, if you’re a gamer I could definitely see the dedicated number row as a hard requirement, particularly if you’re not comfortable making custom layouts.
I still use a qwerty layout and have a number row in my numbers layer as it requires less re-training.
I suspect that layouts with a dedicated number row are a transitional form for most people that stick with it, I quickly moved away from the Sofle for example. As before though I can understand the desire for something different.
Index fingers, though you can use thumbs but that felt quite clumsy to me.
In the base layer they act as arrow keys. In the functions layer they are volume and zoom.
I’ve found the arrow key scrolling to be quite nice. It takes a little getting used to, but once you’re used to it regular arrow keys for text navigation feel clunky.
Yes. It’s fairly straight forward and there are test points to check everything is soldered properly as you go.
There is one exception, the backlight has some very small surface mount parts, the SMD resistors in particular are quite fiddly.
My current thinking is to sell pre-soldered kits with all the surface mount parts done (LEDs withstanding). This way people only need to solder the controller sockets and encoders to get a functioning keyboard.
I will of course keep all of the design files freely available. If you order your own PCBs from JLCPCB you will need to order a batch of 5 so you’ll have some practice boards 😊
I’m still working on a cost effective way to solve the pre-soldering of LEDs. I’ve looked into reverse mountable LEDs, but I’ve yet to find something that meets the required criteria (price, color, efficiency and availability).
@MickiusMousius
@lemmy.world