Making My Own USB Keyboard from Scratch

For anyone who’s tried both: are big keyboards with lots of modifiers or little keyboards with “layers” more comfortable and functional for you? I currently have a full-size mechanical PC keyboard and am debating buying a Planck.

That’s nothing when you venture into the world of Korean custom keyboards. ~$500 for the case (usually milled out of quarter-inch thick aluminum with a solid brass weight) and PCB. Then add switches and custom key caps.

I didn’t like it, despite waiting a couple of years (I think) for mine to ship.

The lack of Esc is just plain stupid and needlessly “special” for a hackers keyboard, especially with zero space constraints. The keys themselves I’m not a fan of, but that’s because nothing beats the buckling spring keys I’m used to - so not counting that against them. Build quality is great, however.

This project looks nicer than most first efforts. Some random tips for anyone who wants to do something similar, with reservations for that it has been awhile:

1. Get a through hole supported usb connector instead of a pure smd one, since the latter likes to fall off.

2. I would avoid routing under the switches for durability, this might just be superstition though.

3. You can route the x and y of the matrix on different sides of the board to make things easier.

4. If you want to pick and place or wave solder it is probably easier to have the smd and through hole parts on different sides of the board.

5. No reason not to use the supported switch footprint, especially since you can connect your ground planes with the additional holes. (well, I guess space is a reason but still).

6. If you are going to assemble by hand, make the pads longer as needed. Probably especially on the microcontroller and diodes.

7. Solder in order of cost and success rate.

8. Always add switches, leds and connectors for debugging even if you don't intend to use them.

9. Some traces are quite close to the center hole, which might also be too small? Anyway, some margin is good for reliability/yield. (especially mixing 'technologies' e.g. holes/edges and traces).

Edit: Oh, I forgot. You might consider scripting the placement of the switches/diodes.

I have an ergodox and it has too many keys. The number row is hard to reach. The bottom extra row I basically never use. There are too many thumb keys. I end up using the keys under v and m as raise/lower keys and putting all the symbols (and some macros) on home row while the opposite hand's modifier is held (so ( is that key below v held with your thumb, and j).

Having extra keys for your pointer finger sounds good (those 1.5U side keys on the ergodox next to tgb and nhy), but it is actually difficult to precisely decide among 3 columns that you have to absolutely position your finger to hit. I feel like my accuracy in deciding between b or v suffers and having another possibility doesn't help.

So my suggestion is to go small. Not having a number row may be overkill; they are far away but I have yet to remap them. Figuring out what keys are most important to press and making them easy is crucial. I know I hated where {}, -, =, etc. were on traditional keyboards, so I was careful to put those on home row. It was worth it. Having an extra row of normal-sized keys instead of control, meta, super, space... probably not worth it. The 1u keys next to the 2u thumb keys on the ergodox... I basically never use them (they're arrow keys and page up/page down, but I navigate with emacs style keybindings so only use them for skipping through YouTube videos and things like that; nice to have, but impossible to use during normal typing).

Not using your pinky for enter and backspace is also great.

For completeness, my layout: https://github.com/jrockway/qmk_firmware/blob/master/keyboar...