this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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ErgoMechKeyboards

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Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards

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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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I am new to ergonomic and programmable keyboards, but something felt fun about making it as cheap as possible by doing 5 at once, and cheapinos at that. I spent quite a few hours on slimming down the cost and ended up spending roughly 35-40 bucks per board, switches and keycaps included. For this I have:

  • Magnetic USB-C cable
  • 360 rotatable RJ45 cable
  • Hotswap Cheapino V2 board that hopefully works
  • Spare PCB that can serve as bottom.
  • Of course it has rotary encoder as well.
  • ABT Green/Red Aliexpress sourced keycaps.
  • Either Gateron G Pro v3.0 Silver or Tecsee Purple Panda switches (very good budget switches based on reading)

For this, how much would you realistically ask for? Either max profit or your preferred cost.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Did you order enough PCBs for 5 keyboards or 5 pcbs? Because 5pcbs will only be enough for 2 keyboards.. As for cost I do not know. The convenience of being able to buy something assembled I think is worth a lot tbh

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Lol. I ordered 10 cheapino v1 boards and 10 v2. Either one I will use, the other will serve as bottom plate.

I guess the making cost of this keyboard is literally the cost of a PCB kit. You are right. I thought of doubling it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Hey, when you say you ordered 10 v2, Im getting a bit nervous… Im still working on v2, its not released yet? In fact i just received some prototypes, but havent tested them yet…

I have a v2 branch, but there Are no releases yet…

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah, I knew the risks when I ordered it. :D I didnt really want to wait or reorder. But as I said, I also got the v1, I will have a use for the prototypes as cover if they dont work.

Thanks for your work sir!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Okay, cool. Just be aware i changed the wiring, so old fw will not work out of the box…(rows are not shared between halves anymore, i hope this will fix some ghosting)

Ill try to update the fw in the weekend at the latest…

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thank you! Im sorry if that made you worried in any way, I just really wanted the extra functionality.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sorry to revive this post. I just got into ergo keyboards and am curious what’s the new functionality on the v2 vs v1?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

V2 has place to solder hotswap adapters while V1 only lets you solder onto the board.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Oh, that’s great. Thank you