Old version in the back, new version in the front. Fresh off the printing bed. Haven’t tested it yet, but pretty happy on first inspection. Have a few sneaky features. Aiming to release it in a month or so to the community. Using it as an excuse to try out Lemmy :-)
That is one sexy ass keyboard
Thanks!
Beautiful!
Thanks!
Dang that looks crazy. With carpal tunnel I was considering building one. This is great inspiration !
Yes…that’s what got me into this never-ending hobby :-)
Super cool! I’ve been looking at a 3x5+2 dactyl, and thought about trying to squeeze a trackball in there too. This design is so close to what I envision as my ideal keyboard.
What controller/firmware are you looking at?
Controller will be a PI pico from We Act, the old version is using a blackpill. Under the hood, it’s running QMK. I also have an MX version in the works, actually it’s currently my daily driver, hmut there’s some small tweaks that need to be made…trackball positioning is super hard to get right.
Curious, what is it missing from your ideal keyboard? I’m open to making changes…
Fewer keys is the main one, I whittled my layout on a preonic down to 34 keys and have a ferris sweep now which I am very happy with.
I want to try some more options in terms of form factor, but keep the same key count, a 34 key dactyl was next on my list, with the idea of integrating a trackball potentially.
There are a few builds out there with the dactyl + trackball combo, but every person that makes and shares their process makes it easier for the next person, so kudos to you.
Ah OK…I have a 36 key MX variant also close to being released which is closer to what you’re after…assuming you’re OK with MX.
That’s one great looking keyboard there! How did you smooth out the geometry? Looks like you started off with the usual blocky open scad design… and please don’t tell me you did that in fusion 360. I tried so many times to make it run on my Linux box and so far failed…
Haha, you guessed right :-)
I started off with the python dactyl generator and heavily modified it to get the trackball exactly where I wanted. Then I used the step file to place the keys and trackball in Fusion 360. So the new version will feel the same, just look more polished. The whole case is a single form, so that’s how it gets the smooth look.
On your comment about Linux…I mainly use Fusion 360 from my T460 running Fedora, remoted into my big ol windows desktop with a giant video card, scads of RAM and a Ryzen 5 :-)
Ya I never tried to get it working on Linux…good on you for trying!
That’s looking really good!
Wow. First I thought both was meant to be used two handed, one on each hand. Sure looks cool!
that is pretty slick looking, what are you using the second trackball for?
edit: should have read first 🤦♂️
Needed for 4D chess.