Every design and walkthrough teaches something new.
The following are some of them that were the most helpful to me.
Whole Build
Planck (or Planck like)
3D Printed
- Metal top plate, 3d printed plastic body (Reddit, Imgur)
- Via discussion
- PCB make it easier to do reducing build time
- OLKB provides the design specs for their keyboards
- Standard pinout makes using other firmware easy
- Firmware configuration is determine by your whole-case design
- Teensy++ mentioned
- Via build
- etch/prime, and paint the top plate matte black
- Had used
- Next time would powder coat it
- print the milled bottom case
- might have to break it up into pieces small enough for the printer to print
- acetone “welds” the separate pieces together
- visible/mentioned tools: needle-nose pliers, pliers, x-acto, solder wick, solder sucker, SIP sockets so don’t have to solder LEDs
- etch/prime, and paint the top plate matte black
- Via discussion
- 100% plastic printed!
- Novel
Carbon Fiber
- Entire body is carbon, (Reddit, Imgur)
- Via discussion
- Next time would wire cleaner with better cable management
- Going DSA
- Fabbers are quoting $40USD/set(top and bottom plate)
- Column wires are color coded
- Not stiff as metal; some flex
- Via build
-
Used the serviceable switch pattern
I used 1N4148 diodes and bent all them together and put them like this to solder them. The last row was a bit more difficult. Don't heat the diodes too long and of course always check the orientation before soldering.
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- Via discussion
- A conversation about the previous post before it was finished
- Via discussion
- Super glue the carbon fiber edges because they will cut you and stay in you forever
- Breathing carbon fiber dust will kill you
- Via build
- What specs are the spacers?
- Nice insulated, color-coded wiring for columns
- Ran out of colors
- Rows are wired by diodes
- Sandwich case, hot glued, electrical tape on bottom
- Accessible reset button
- Via discussion
Bamboo
- Used Bamboo (Reddit, Imgur)
- Via discussion
- Likes hand-wiring
- Based on Planck, heavy layer use
- Touch-typer uses it for trips
- Via build
- Seems to have used the sandwich generator
- Gorrilla-glued the layers together
- Clamped the glued layers one layer at a time
- Think bamboo plate prevented switches from staying in place so hot-glued them
- Don’t see any wiring at all
- Via discussion
Hardwood
- https://imgur.com/a/WUXfM
- Nice to see something with a strip of LEDs?
Preonic Mathias
- First handwire (Imgur)
- Via discussion
- Acrylic 3mm top and bottom to save money
- Row to column diode direction for firmware
-
I'm hand wiring a planck soon so could you explain the technique to make it work with easyAVR? permalinkembedsavegive gold [–]pokkuhlag[S] 1 point 7 months ago The most important is the diode direction. This is from row to column. Most build you see here is the opposite direction. For example matt3o brownfox example is diode direction from column to row. This will not work with the current version of easy avr handwire config. The second thing is when you use a default led port. you need to define the led port to an unused port. Me and fauxsoul had the issue when you do not define it correctly, it will active a row on the wrong port. See this link for problem and solved
- Via build
- 3mm acrylic looks fine
- Transparent is nice
- He glued them in?
- 3mm acrylic looks fine
- Via discussion
Metal and Acrylic
- First 70% (Reddit, Imgur)
- Via discussion
- Spent only 56USD
- Modeled in OpenSCAD
- 3d
- Serviceable
- Via build
- Nice wiring pics
- Columns are color-coded
- Caulk around inner edge to ensure no shorts?
- Nice wiring pics
- Via discussion
Phantom
ANSI 104 (or ANSI like)
- His end game, 104 key squashed (Reddit, Imgur)
- Via discussion
- Love it
- Would like another row on the bottom
- ZZ96 case
- RS96 pcb with RGB underlighting
- Took 2 years to collect caps, ouch
- “It’s the same width as a tkl”
- Wow, TKL is already high on my list
- Via build
- Love it
- Would add another row for emacs keys
- Via discussion
- Mateo’s build of Brown Fox (Blog)
- Makes more sense after studying other builds
- Use acrylic layer on top of steel to avoid shorts instead of using electrical tape
- top and bottom plates are 1.5mm, seems to be the standard
- Nice wiring Imgur
- Used a ribbon pulled apart?
- Controller “hanging out”
- Weaved cable
- 65% build DeskThority
- Wnats better cable sleeve and screws
- Sandwich 4 layers
- Metal skinny
- Acrylic thick
- Acrylic thick
- Metal skinny
- Started 100% stainless steel; super strong and good
- Wouldn’t do it again, because it is too firm because he types too hard and didn’t want to change style
- Use aluminum or acrylic instead
- Had shorting problems
- Minimal Animal 65% board (Reddit, Imgur, Deskthority)
- Via reddit discussion
- Via build
- A grid which some 1.25x and 2x thrown in arbitrarily, aka true custom
- Never use epoxy anywhere
- Via deskthority
- 75% Layout via DeskThority
- Clean and nice
- TKL much smaller than a TKL
- This might be perfect, too
Notes on the Notes
- Referenced guides
- Custom build
- Yes because I can’t find any programmable grids that are available or have Cherry MX switches
- Builds like the Keyboardio and ErgoDox are great and cost less than anything you can do on your own
- Make it easy
- Lots of space
- Easily accessible
- Hot-rod it
- Show off wires
- Show off microcontroller
- Sandwich case
- Electrical tape on bottom prevents shorts
- Between layers
- Hot glue
- Layers
- Wood
- Switches
- Might as well make the switch cutout serviceable
- Speaker wire mentioned, has insulation everywhere, melt off on solder, looks nice
- Caps
- Doubleshot DSA PBT, do they exist?
- Make accessible; don’t layer/blank standard stuff
- LED
- Can’t see them with DSA PBT
- Plate
- Powder coated might wear and feel better
- Sandwich cases can use sex bolts
- Modeling it myself might be simpler
- Wiring
- Diodes can serve as insulated wire for a row
- Determine by firmware choice
- USB Cable
- Get a weaved one
To Do
- Can you block-out pins that you shouldn’t use so you won’t accidentally use them?
- Is there an insulator that you can apply after say to diodes?
- Can you wire an entire board without soldering?
- Just curious; soldering stuff is fine
- Can you use LED’s or a LCD to display the current layer?