Hand Wiring Adventures: Part 1

The time has come to begin the Dactyl Manuform!

Thanks to some incredibly fast shipping form Aliexpress, some forethought, and some borrowed supplies from co-workers I have everything I need to get cracking on this. Right off the bat, it's clear that completing the wiring in the case of the dactyl is tight at best, and downright impossible in the deepest corners where I found myself melting the case with the soldering tip more than once.

I had really grand visions of knocking everyone's socks off with how tidy my wiring was going to turn out, but alas, it wasn't meant to be.

Dactyl Build 12-01-2018

Even though the quaity of this print is way better that anything I could produce, I found that some of the switches would pop out when removing the keycaps and considering there is no circuit board to hold them in place, you wouldn't want to rip out wires just for swapping a cap. For that reason, I used a bit of hot glue on the underside of the switches to help secure them to the case. I also added bits of hot glue to hold the wires where I wanted them for the rows, and I'll likely do the same for the columns. However, it's clear that this is ruining the aesthetic I was going for. sigh

I'm also being doubly cautious and checking each solder connection as I go so that I, hopefully, will have a fully functioning keyboard when I'm done. I'm a little worried about shorts, but I think the hot glue will also act as insulation when needed and will secure the wires so there's no accidential connections....

I think.

3D Printing Success?

After many, many attempts at printing the cases for the Dactyl and many upgrades and repairs to our printer I figured it just wasn't meant to be. I was running out of filament, so I asked a friend with a much (much) nicer printer to help me out.

As much as I wanted to do it by myself, sometimes you need to ask for help along the way.

Just need a few more supplies and then I'll be ready to start building!

3D Printing a Dactyl... Attempt 1 of ??

Making a keyboard off of a purchased PCB has been fun, but like any good mechanical keyboard junkie, you very quickly discover that it's a slippery slope.

The whole reason I started on this journey was to be able to get my hands on the most ergonomic keyboard, for my poor hands, that I could possibly find. And it wasn't long before I started lusting after a Dactyl of my very own. With no readily available PCB's it's a bit more of a challenge to build, but I think after building 2 keyboards successfully, I can figure it out with a little help from the internet.

So, that brings me to...

Step one - Picking the right Dactyl for my needs.

This is the easy part. I really like the Dactyl Manuform and think the 5x6 is ideal: https://github.com/tshort/dactyl-keyboard

I've been flip-flopping between the Iris (50%) and Fourier (40%) and like them both quite a bit, for different reasons, but I think that the Iris is a bit more user-friendly for everyday use. That's the main reason why, I'm opting for more keys.

Step two - Building the case.

3D Printing is finicky business. I purchased a second-hand printer to learn the ropes and with hopes of getting a Dactyl out of it. It was clear from the start that the resolution was more suited to drafts but I still had high hopes.

After a few weeks of tinkering and practicing on smaller items to iron out the details, I was ready to give the Dactyl a go...

View post on imgur.com

As you can see, it was clearly a failure. sigh

No, this is a wrap!

I had a brilliant idea, or so I thought, to hand-build a middle layer for the Fourier with some polymer clay. The thing about polymer clay is that it's super cheap and comes in a ton of colours, it's also blendable so you can fully customize the shade. But it just wasn't meant to be.

Once the clay was soft enough to mold, it was pretty easy to build on to the bottom layer of the keyboard plate, but then I was left with a dilemma of how to bake the clay. I tried removing the clay from the plate but this left it distorted and with fingerprints. I was also trying to line up the top and bottom plates to ensure the middle layer was a perfect fit, and it kept getting into the pcb/switches which was making it hard to remove. So after a few attempts at making guards/molds/templates with no success I gave up.

I still think it's not a bad idea for anyone wishing to give it a go.

Then there was the aftermath. I had to use a cotton bud and some alcohol to clean up the residue from the switches and plates, which was fine, when I noticed some fine scratches on the base plate of the keyboard. I had used a knife to gently trim/shape the clay in one of my attempts and accidentially scratched the plate. No big deal, right?

Wrong!

Some time had passed after this when I noticed some behavioural issues with the keyboard. As it turns out, the fine scratches were just enough to expose the conductive layer of the base plate, which was making just enough contact with the pro micro to cause a short.

Thankfully, the microcontroller survived with no damage and I was able to fix the issue with some electrical tape. Problem solved!

And even better, while I was using some post-it notes to test the space between the microcontroller and the board, I realized, they were the same colour as the keycaps. What luck!

So, even though I don't have a super ballin' hand-built middle layer to match the exact shaed of my orange keycaps, I was able to wrap the brass standoffs in orange to up the aesthetic a notch or two.

And that's a wrap!

Breakfast of Champions

I'm sure I'm not the only one who can't rest until a project is finished, so I grabbed a coffee and got back to soldering.

View post on imgur.com

Valuable lesson from my last build:

  1. Solder pro micro header pins to the board first, not the pro micro.
  2. Put down some electrical tape before attaching the pro micro.
  3. Trim the pins from the switches after soldering, they may not look long but they can still cause problems.
  4. Flush cutters are your friend.

The Wait is over!

It is possible to build a mechanical keyboard, and a sweet one at that, on the cheap. Relatively speaking, of course.

View post on imgur.com

PCB & Plates: Fourier 40% Staggered Split

Switches: KBD Fans

Aliexpress for everything else:
Keycaps: YMD Tech DSA Keycaps
Pro Micros: TENSTAR ROBOT Pro Micro ATmega32U4 5V/16MHz
TRRS Cable: 2.5Ft 75cm 1/8"3.5mm Metal Coiled Male to Male 4 Pole TRRS

May the Fourth Live Long and Prosper

In honour of Star Trek Day here's a wise vulcan proverb from Yoda; "Do. Or do not. There is no try.”.

Seems relevant.

Last year on May fourth I was travelling back from Birmingham, UK, and wore my Rogue One tshirt in honour of Star Wars day. It was fun that many of the airport officials/security guards noticed it. Yes, I did actually say "May the fourth be with you" to a customs officer.

Anyway.

Building the Iris keyboard was fun, but anyone who's built a mechanical keyboard knows that it can quickly become a bit of an addiction/hobby... I need moooore.

I've seen a few variations of the Dacyl keyboard and I want one. Real bad. Part of my obsession stems from the hunt for an ergonomic split keyboard and this is some next level stuff. It's dreamy. I've also stumbled across a few different build guides where people hand wired them. So I think that's my next challenge. Who doesn't want to dabble in some pcb-free electronics every now and then? This brings me back to Yoda's quote and my approach to all the things:

Pfft. I can do that too.

Since I'm still super in love with the Iris keyboard, I'm not giving her up and won't go as crazy ordering custom everything for the Dactyl, but I'll make it look good. I'm going to keep it a bit more cost effective, as much as you can when building a mechanical keyboard, anyway.

Time to play the waiting game... again.

For fun, I also ordered parts to build Keeb.io's Fourier 40% staggered split, because. Just because.

For added funtimes, I also, also ordered a Chocopad PCB, from Keeb.io, and some Kailh switches/caps, from NovelKeys, to make a macropad for gaming. We'll see how that goes another other time.

Back to waiting...

Here's a May 4th throwback to my last day in Birmingham, right before heading to the airport.

Note my sweet selfie skills.

Living that ortho life

Whelp. It's been about a month and a half since I finished my build of the Iris which is my main keyboard at work. Today I think it's safe to say I've officially adopted (adapted to?) the ortho life:

Ok, ok, I'm not the fastest typer, but I think I'm above average and it's nice to be back up to my speed! Switching to an ortholinear keyboard was a bit more challenging than I expected. Even though it's still qwerty, the alignment makes a massive difference and changing 20+ years of muscle memory was a real challenge!

Now I just have to practice using staggered and ortholinear keyboards more frequently so I don't stuble as much when I switch back and forth. #keebstruggles.