Link your board and folks will be better able to assist. The switch type makes a big difference for stem and height.
Link your board and folks will be better able to assist. The switch type makes a big difference for stem and height.
Mokulua kit from mechwild probably your cheapest option. It’s a solder kit and all through hole, I built one myself and had fun. It’s fr4 sandwich so on the cheaper end, though depends on what you’re used to. Soldering is fun!
I just confirmed with someone with much more know-how than me on ZMK, they said pointing devices aren’t currently supported. That means the faux fox keyboard or sugar glider would have to be wired if you wanted to have a touchpad, which isn’t great for the tv use case.
There have been several boards designed recently with a cirque trackpad as a component in the diy space, but my understanding is that the cirque is currently quite power hungry. Meaning, if you make those boards wireless and also have the trackpad the battery life won’t be great. I think there may be firmware support issues for ZMK as well.
Examples include the MechWild Sugar Glider (https://mechwild.com/product/sugar-glider/) and Fingerpunch faux fox keyboard (http://fingerpunch.xyz/product/faux-fox-keyboard-v2/). Either of those I’d recommend going wired instead, which isn’t quite what you’re looking for.
Also they’re DIY kits, which are my personal preference but I know not everyone’s cup of tea.
Two month old baby boy, our first. Slightly out of the complete panic stage except probably not. Help! Nevermind, we’re fine.
(Help!)
Oh definitely. The chill chapters are some of my favorites. Where I get frustrated is where it’s high tension but feels like nothing is happening to move the plot forward. It’s only happened a couple times, but I’ve just stepped away from the series for a week or two and come back.
I was most surprised by how I became emotionally hooked by this novel rather than intellectually (if that makes sense) - I wasn’t as into the world but more the people, which is rare for me in a sci fi/fantasy novel. What a heartbreaker.
I’m also reading the Wandering Inn. I’d never read it before and it’s my go to right now when I’ve got twenty minutes of so to read. It’s very long, which is nice but sometimes frustrating when pacing slows down. At 5.56 G no spoilers!
Get a second car for my family and buy a house… God damn this feels bleak.
Based on descriptions on their website it looks like they aren’t… Maybe it’d be possible to desolder one and put on new switches yourself, but that’s a lot of work and if you don’t have the gear/experience for it it can be frustrating or destructive.
There is a custom service listed with a whole lot of choice. I’ve found over time I value hotswap less, both as I get to know what switches I like and also because hotswap can cause decision fatigue. If my switches are soldered in I feel more secure in not thinking about changing them.
Of course now I just get more boards instead oh no help
Unfortunately, it seems to me that the r&d costs a ton and the tooling and process for MX is pretty well established at this point comparatively. Designing a whole new kind of switch would take a lot of testing and isn’t as easy to 3d print at home for prototyping as a keycap. I’m not a 3d printing or prototyping expert or even amateur, but from what I’ve seen from Matt3o (MT3 profile), pseudoku (various artisans), and rutomoda (RIFL, a fully 3dp keycap set), it seems like you need some serious work to print a keycap. Imagine the tolerances you’d need for a whole new switch system…
That being said, I’d love to see it. Whole new switch types, even innovation within MX for things like different types of clickies (like novelkeys just did), all would be great.
Thank you for putting this up and keeping it up, I know it is a lot of hard work.
Our calicos look so similar!
There’s a spectrum of DIY to it. Boards with an integrated MCU may only require that you solder switches. Switch soldering is quite forgiving and I’d say pretty fun. There are some people who hate soldering but still like custom boards, so they will use a soldering service (unfortunately, usually found via word of mouth or places like mechmarket). If you wanted a cheap kit with lots of soldering and you’re in the EU, I’d look at https://42keebs.eu/products/kits/
They have a couple of splits available. A lot depends also on how many keys you’re looking to have. The wonderful world of layers and combos has a learning curve but there’s plenty of programmers who use very small boards on a daily basis. ZMK might be fun for you if you do coding on the side as well as for work.
Feel free to send a DM if you have specific questions, I’m getting a bit long here.
Not sure of your budget or thoughts on some DIY. If you don’t have the time to game, you might not have time to solder… In that case I’d recommend looking at options from Kinesis: https://kinesis-ergo.com/products/#keyboards
You can also look through here (https://golem.hu/boards/) for some diy options if you’d prefer that route. Kukkurovaca had a much more detailed explanation. (Hi Kukkurovaca, cool to see you here instead of on discord!)
Very much diy but this kind of layout from Weteor ticks a lot of your boxes.
https://github.com/weteor/ChonkyKong
Let me know if you need guidance on getting from the GitHub to an actual physical board. Soldering will be required (which I always encourage because I find it fun) but I recognize not everyone has the time.