balbuzard VS ergogen

(The Balbuzzard and Osprette are also interesting, but I think I wanna stay with a split keeb for now)

move top pinky key out and down – Azimuth, Balbuzard, Osprette

Balbuzard – more angle

I've personally been using 36 or fewer keys for at least half a year now, and have always enjoyed the comfort provided by the minimalism of 5 column keebs. However, no matter how far the pinkies go down (whether Corne or Ferris pinky stagger), it seems that I can't quite reach all of the pinky keys without having to move my whole arm with the pinky to reach the top row. By taking inspiration from Brow's Balbuzard, I found that moving the pinkies to the unused 6th column combined with choc spacing means that every single key was now within comfortable reach without having to give up the 30 key alpha layer that most modern keyboards maintain (read: the alpha keys with comma and whatnot).

This guy: https://github.com/brow/balbuzard

ergogen online

If you decide to go down this rabbit hole (which is a totally doable thing, by the way, as the others have already noted), then you might want to look into Ergogen. To be fair, it won't save you from KiCAD, but it could make the journey a bit easier.

Contractual PSA: if you're willing to get your hands dirty, you could try Ergogen (tool, Discord). There might already be a pretty close starting point that you only need to modify a bit if you ask around. Alternatively, there might be people in the server who'd be willing to do a commission - some are fucking machines when it comes to curning out great designs one after the other...

Howdy y'all! 👋 Ergogen, the ergonomic keyboard layout generator app, recently hit v4! I've been enjoying using this tool for a while now, so I decided to collect everything I've learned into a series of step-by-step articles outlining the basics of Ergonomic keyboard PCB creation.

Hey thanks! Ergogen made this entire project super approachable. Also thanks for being so quick to fix #86

Doing more research I couldn't find anything that really fit what I was looking for. At this point I decided to build my own keyboard, from the design of the PCB to the 3D model of the chassis. I used Ergogen to get the layout and outline of the plate, KiCad for the PCB, Fusion 360 for the chassis, and QMK for the firmware. All in all it took me probably 2 to 3 months of work in my spare time (I had next to no "Electronic Engineering" experience and had hardly used CAD before) from the idea to having the thing to type on. I learned a lot, and already have a list of things I wish I had done differently for V2 😅.

If you can't find one you like you can also design your own. I don't advice for your first build though. Perhaps your second. Ergogen and Kicad are vital tools for this. https://ergogen.xyz/

Sorry, forgot the link.

Another option would be designing the layout yourself with http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/ and https://kbplate.ai03.com/ or maybe https://ergogen.xyz/

I tried to PCB design and it's a harsh learning curve without electronics knowledge. I'm trying to do mine with Ergogen