Super satisfying, right? Mine are all in KMK, and I’ve only done one half-assed PCB design (I literally just left a linear row of vias to hand-wire to the RP2040), with the rest being hand-wires. When you’re done, and it works as well as a commercial keyboard but you can see all your choices made real, it’s really cool.
One of mine looks a tiny bit like yours:
Or maybe you wanna get real crazy…
This thing was designed in the waning days of DOS. They probably thought the same thing.
Like with most of my stuff, I’m just trying to make it not so incongruously crude that it actively detracts from the caps, but thank you. I considered just standoffs and a bottom plate, but I thought I could use their files to work up something a little nicer than that, though the full acrylic cases they sell are better. Totally cool little store, too.
Some of it still with the PMK branding. Nice.
How is G20 to type on?
That goes all the way back to the original Cherry G80-1800 boards in the (iirc) late 80s. The idea is to get a more compact layout that preserves some of the advantages brought in by the IBM Model M to make it easier for your hands to find the arrows without looking down. Shifting them down a touch with the gaps to the left and right leaves that trait in place no matter where your hands are coming from.
There are “96%” boards that will keep everything tight-in. I have tried it both ways, and all else being equal I tend to prefer a gap, but some other tactile reference (I sometimes use a single dot of UV resin on the down arrow) will generally be good enough.
You’re not wrong at all, but people interested in fostering older and/or special needs kids generally come into the process more clear-eyed, or if not then they get there before long.
I have nothing but respect for the big hearted people who take that on, and adoption when the bio-family constellation is irretrievably broken is perfectly sensible and loving.
The “market” for healthy infants just puts a lot of perverse incentives into the US system, from “pay to play,” to pressuring and deceiving birth mothers, to pushing it all onto foreign countries with even fewer guardrails. Not that this reflects ill intent on the part of adoptive parents, but that part of the system has definitely got a dark side.
Sure, but only if you then commit to send them in the next 6-36 months and pinky promise in a Discord server that you’re gonna get to it as soon as you work through the trauma of losing your goldfish.
I was adopted as an infant via a closed process (Mormon) in the late 70s, as was my adoptive sister (technically she was a fully private adoption, but it was all very Mormony too), have several other adopted friends and acquaintances, and I have been active in seeking out adoption communities to process things.
First things first, in the US there’s something like ten nominally qualified adoptive couples in the system for each healthy infant not in foster care. If nothing else, that should put you off of any notions that you have some calling or obligation to adopt. Frankly, I like your stated reasons better than the ill-informed people with savior complexes. The demand also feeds some unsavory practices that indirectly apply market forces to a process that should not be within a hundred miles of them. Basically, when it comes to American infants, get in line, pressure no one, and painful as it might be, find the silver lining to a birth mother changing her mind.
Second, something that was ignored in my day, and is still a struggle today even with things being much better, is recognition of the fact that adopting is creating a non-traditional family. There is a larger constellation of stakeholders and a different set of challenges at every phase of life. While it can be oversimplified to ignore that it may still be the best choice, the fact remains that adoption necessarily means that a trauma has occurred and a natural bond has been broken, and you will also be raising a child who doesn’t share your genes, which is a double edged sword.
If you’re up for the challenge, and there’s no shame if you’re not, fostering with an openness to adopt is the most socially healthy way to proceed, but going in with an open mind and an open heart can make “regular” adoption perfectly viable. You just have to accept that you would be raising a child who has a story, however brief, that involves people who aren’t you, and that your child owes you no more than any natural born child would.
I have to assume the MT3 versions are selling better. DCD just strikes me as mid stuff (not a problem for me at the right price point. I almost exclusively buy “mid” stuff), dye-sub PBT Cherry that you could get direct from China instead of paying Drop a premium for the privilege.
sounds was so bad with these caps
Oh yes. That must have been difficult. Send me the whole set, and I’ll ensure they’re disposed of properly. 🤣
More seriously, if tall and ABS didn’t work, maybe shorter (i.e. Cherry variants, DSA, the new PBS) and PBT will be better for you.
Dominus, his stabs lubed.
Kudos to them for getting another product out, but these features are fairly low effort, so a lot will depend on the execution and price-point. The 8Bitdo is probably a good base to start from with the “keyboard as lifestyle brand” thing, then adjust up or down based on materials and build quality.
OLED screens and fully programmable firmware are both very common in the custom and semi-custom space, and together they could easily mimic the layout and the counter functionality. Custom dye-sub keycaps are also a thing. None of this is to say there’s no value-add in packaging it up with their brand’s aesthetic, but the value proposition is usually not there for those who’ve already invested effort into the keyboard space.
Oh. Oh my. It’s got a clear case, RGB everywhere, cheap gamery keycaps, and for some reason has a double-sided sex-toy stuck to it. I try not to judge. I’ve made some interesting aesthetic decisions with regard to keyboards and even invested a fair amount of time into realizing them, but I have to agree with you. Also…
36g actuation force
Okay, some people will disagree with me and my love of heavy clickies, but that’s not a keyboard switch; it’s a proximity sensor.
Thanks! I’ve tweaked the layout a tiny bit since those pics, but I’ve been using it a lot and it’s worked really well. Current project is to retrofit a little baby solenoid onto one of my fully hand-wired boards with tactile switches. Not exactly true IBM “KERCHUNK-THUNK!” but should add a pointless and fun audio feedback to a board I just don’t use that much otherwise.
But seriously… if there is a switch type you’ve been meaning to try, or some weird QMK ideas, add a plate from Keychron and (maybe?) the hotswap sockets, and you’ve got a perfectly legitimate build style.
I now have 4 more that I will never use.
Sounds to me like it’s time to get two more MCUs, some standoffs, and some rubber feet, and make a pair of barebones boards, LOL. JLCPCB is pretty nice. I did an extremely simple custom design that was literally just traces and vias, and got 5 PCBs for under USD30.
South facing fits “Cherry profile” keycaps better, as well as old-school caps with shine-through lock indicators. Would be a bummer if you were expecting full shinethrough though.
I made a “Soarers” converter for my two. One was a terminal board, so it has about a dozen remaps and is semi-permanently wired in, but the other is a little black box that will take any PS/2 keyboard and make it a USB keyboard that changes the right Control key into a Win key.
Thanks. Yours came out brilliant, btw. I think the old school sandwich cases are perfect for low-profile switches and caps. Mine here uses “half-height” or “dwarf” Outemus that have standard MX footprint, and a profile from Aliexpress called “JWA”.
For higher-profile designs, you can tweak the concept to stack additional layers (swill can generate them, but I still prefer to directly edit the DXFs after) and have the 3D-printed spacers extend out and around like a shroud. You can also just put some threaded inserts into a larger 3D-print and have a kind of top-mount.