Dang that looks crazy. With carpal tunnel I was considering building one. This is great inspiration !
This is awesome. Great work! The track balls give me ~~of~~ Flight of the Navigator vibes.
Beautiful!
Thanks!
Super cool! I've been looking at a 3x5+2 dactyl, and thought about trying to squeeze a trackball in there too. This design is so close to what I envision as my ideal keyboard.
What controller/firmware are you looking at?
Controller will be a PI pico from We Act, the old version is using a blackpill. Under the hood, it's running QMK. I also have an MX version in the works, actually it's currently my daily driver, hmut there's some small tweaks that need to be made...trackball positioning is super hard to get right.
Curious, what is it missing from your ideal keyboard? I'm open to making changes...
Fewer keys is the main one, I whittled my layout on a preonic down to 34 keys and have a ferris sweep now which I am very happy with.
I want to try some more options in terms of form factor, but keep the same key count, a 34 key dactyl was next on my list, with the idea of integrating a trackball potentially.
There are a few builds out there with the dactyl + trackball combo, but every person that makes and shares their process makes it easier for the next person, so kudos to you.
Ah OK....I have a 36 key MX variant also close to being released which is closer to what you're after...assuming you're OK with MX.
ErgoMechKeyboards
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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Some useful links
- EMK wiki
- Split keyboard compare tool
- Compare keycap profiles Looking for another set of keycaps - check this site to compare the different keycap profiles https://www.keycaps.info/
- Keymap database A database with all kinds of keymap layouts - some of them fits ergo keyboards - get inspired https://keymapdb.com/