helix VS TPDD_Cable

Does anyone know if there's a fork/repo for the Helix but with choc spacing?

I seem to be struggling with putting together a Helix (by MakotoKurauchi).

There are other benefits: A PCB design can be shared so that others can fabricate it themselves. (Or modify it if they wish). A PCB design will likely have a schematic, too, which can be studied.

I'd also bet that PCB projects are more likely to inspire better PCB projects. -- Or at least, the domain I've tried my hand at has been PCBs for custom mechanical keyboards.

e.g. I've seen boards inspired by https://github.com/hsgw/plaid such as https://github.com/coseyfannitutti/discipline or https://github.com/rtitmuss/torn and I think there are several popular split keyboard designs which basically descend from https://github.com/MakotoKurauchi/helix

looks like you’ve circled back to the Helix …

Probably this https://github.com/MakotoKurauchi/helix/pull/36

Keyboard is an older build but this is the base:https://github.com/MakotoKurauchi/helix

You can read more about the product here

Helix

Both pcbway and jlcpcb will cleanly cut your entire board outline with no panelization tabs. You can draw any arbitrary shapes in your edge.cuts and get it.

oshpark leaves rat bites that you have to sand down and clean up if the board outline matters to you. Worse, if you have castellated half holes, the rat bites can land right in the middle of what was supposed to be edge contacts.

I have boards that are small like the size of a dip28, where the entire length of the two long sides are castellated, and they are edge contacts to fit in a socket, not for soldering, and the entire board snaps into a carrier so essentially all 4 sides need to be clean and match the drawing. I have to sand and clean up oshpark boards, and live with a little bit of defect in the castellated holes. I don't have to do anything with jlc or pcbway boards. They arrive perfectly clean edged and ready to use.

I have one board that is only about 1cm square, but not square, it has a complicated outline, and both jlc and pcbway just pop it out with no fuss the same as any other order for the same nothing cost. I don't know how they even hold on to the tiny board to cut the outline. It does appear to be traditionally routered, not laser or water jet.

https://github.com/bkw777/TPDD_Cable

pics of an earlier version with slightly different outline.