this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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ErgoMechKeyboards

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Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards

Rules

Keep it ergo

Posts must be of/about keyboards that have a clear delineation between the left and right halves of the keyboard, column stagger, or both. This includes one-handed (one half doesn't exist, what clearer delineation is that!?)

i.e. no regular non-split¹ row-stagger and no non-split¹ ortholinear²

¹ split meaning a separation of the halves, whether fixed in place or entirely separate, both are fine.
² ortholinear meaning keys layed out in a grid

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This subreddit is not a marketplace, please post on r/mechmarket or other relevant marketplace.

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I love the Voyager so far. 💜

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ugh... now I'm even more tempted to buy one of those. On a related note, those caps are really nice, but I've got to ask about the pink balls on them. Are those balls actually part of the cap, or is that something you added after the fact? I'm sure that's probably great to help with indexing and I'm kind of tempted to try it myself.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The pink dots are stickers, and if "indexing" means "I need these so I can keep track of which row I'm touching", then yep, that's what they're for. 😁 I can keep track of where my fingers are with only three rows, but with only two thumb keys I couldn't just remove the top row like I used to do on the Moonlander. I actually like this even better, and I'm going to put the stickers on the Moonlander, too. They're often called "gem stickers" or "jewel stickers" in shops.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yep, indexing is to make it easier to make sure your fingers are in the right spot. Most keycap sets will include indexed versions of F and J for QWERTY layouts, although you can usually also buy additional indexed keys (such as T and N) for other layouts. The traditional indexed keys help with horizontal alignment while the traditional row stagger helps with vertical alignment. However with columnar stagger like most split ergo keyboards use I actually find vertical alignment to be the bigger issue most times since all the rows "feel" the same. Having some bumps on the top row would help with the vertical alignment I think.

Looking at the options though I'm not terribly thrilled with the colors/design/looks of most of the ones I'm finding. I think you found the perfect ones for your caps and it just all looks so clean (the alignment of those stickers on the keys is just chefs kiss perfect, well done). Unfortunately if I picked up a voyager I was thinking about replacing the caps with the MBK Legend keycaps and I'm having trouble finding anything that would look anywhere near as nice as your setup with those.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Aha! Yes, the stickers are working very well for that so far. Sorry you couldn’t find anything to work for your keycaps! Oh, you could also try looking for nail art crystals. They’re often pretty tiny, so maybe more likely to fit a wider variety of keycaps.