dactyl-keyboard VS key-ripper

I love having a split keyboard. It feels far more ergonomic than a single piece keyboard. Just relax your arms and put each half where your hands are. No having to bring your hands together and angle your wrists to get your hands in position.

The other piece of the puzzle for me is curvature. On a flat keyboard there is more stretching or physically moving but adding in a bit of curvature helps cut down on that.

For a few years now I have been using a Dactyl-ManuForm [1] and it has been great. At least for writing / programming. I go back to a regular keyboard for gaming purposes.

[1] https://github.com/tshort/dactyl-keyboard

Carbonfet's version of the dactyl manuform with custom thumb cluster and 1.5u outer keys.

These [two](https://i.imgur.com/idkihT7.jpeg) [pics](https://i.imgur.com/HmtXNor.jpeg) of some of my old builds should help show how they're wired. The wiring diagrams on the bottom of Tshort's original fork for the dactyl manuform [here](https://github.com/tshort/dactyl-keyboard) also illustrate how they should be wired.

Thanks! I modeled some cases using both the original Clojure project (https://github.com/tshort/dactyl-keyboard) and the Python port (https://github.com/joshreve/dactyl-keyboard), but ultimately decided to use a vetted model from Jesse at DIY Keyboards (https://www.diykeyboards.com/). Jesse is absolutely wonderful and helped me a lot in the beginning. Support his shop if you can! I used his fork of the python generator to get the .stl files for printing (https://github.com/diykeyboards/dactyl-keyboard) as well as some tips from him on slicer settings.

There a few other things like this but this is what I was planning to use... DM wiring guide

Here's the guide: https://github.com/tshort/dactyl-keyboard

Thanks a lot for those images! that explains a lot! :D Also I was using this as reference for wiring https://github.com/tshort/dactyl-keyboard/raw/master/resources/dactyl_manuform_left_wire_diagram.png I believe they are using the Serial one? Also will the TRRS jack have indications which pin is for which?

Nice - a friend and I worked on my keyboard's debouncer and call it "eager debouncing", not sure if there's an official term for it. I agree that it's much better for latency.

Awhile ago I made an remote infrared sending tool so a raspberry pi can control my A/C unit

https://blog.bschwind.com/2016/05/29/sending-infrared-comman...

Since then I made a much slimmer, cheaper, more efficient version based on the ESP32 but I haven't written up much about that.

I also created my own keyboard with firmware in Rust

https://github.com/bschwind/key-ripper

I've done a bunch of other small one-off projects too.

Good luck! I have an open source keyboard project in KiCad as well, feel free to reference or use anything from it.

Not sure if the author of the post is around, but I guess this is a question for anyone who has designed keyboards: have you ever tried using shift registers for reading all the keyswitch inputs, and is it worth it? Does it mean you don't have to use a diode per switch?

I've designed my own as well but just went with the traditional key matrix with a diode per switch. Works well enough for the current size.

https://github.com/bschwind/key-ripper

All the source files can be found here

I made my own keyboard layout just the way I want so I would put these caps on that, or replace the stock caps that came with my Filco board.

Twist looks awesome, I'd put it on my key-ripper

You can absolutely run Rust on the pico - I designed a keyboard with Rust firmware which runs on an RP2040. That being said, wireless functionality might not be existent yet in the Rust world for the Pico W, but I'm sure it won't take long to get added.

I looked at the schematic and it seems reasonable. I just completed an RP2040 project with USB C and it works correctly. You can see the project files here