Keyboard Builders' Digest / Projects
Ergotonic F-24
Hanachi's Ergotonic F-24 comes with a unique adjustable centerpiece making this keyboard split or monoblock on demand.
Published March 26, 2022
As a fork of his monoblock Ergotonic49 design, Hanachi is in the midst of developing a new model with adjustable angle and/or split halves. The most impressive part? All this in a single project! :D
The Ergotonic F-24 prototype extends 30 mm horizontally and allows an adjustment of ±8 degrees with regards of the slant angle. In addition, it can also be completely separated and used as a true split.
#男の子ってこういうのが好きなんでしょ
— Hanachi (@haswellep) March 13, 2022
Ergotonic F-24#自作キーボード #ergotonic49 (改) pic.twitter.com/oCgLdmRBQJ
The movable mechanism in the center of the Ergotonic is made by combining plates like these:
After adjusting the halves, the position of the plates can be fixed by screws.
It seems these adjustable-angle splits took off in the Japanese keyboard builder scene recently. The F-24 was inspired by the Pangaea keyboard, but other similar projects are being developed simultaneously, like Ho's FCS42S.
In @otahinosame's photo you can see the Ergotonic49 along with the Pangaea and the F-24 (from top to bottom):
Both Ergotonics feature the Willow layout which tries to project the finger positions of a "tented hand" onto a flat surface – resulting in characteristically curved columns. Here is Hanachi's write-up on the concept if you'd like to take a deeper dive into the topic.
The layout's namesake, the original Willow64 featured in KBD#4 could be used as monoblock/pseudosplit or separate split as well, depending on an extra top plate connecting the halves.
However, with the unique adjustable centerpiece, the F-24 raises the stakes as you can see in this short video demonstrating the movable parts as they are being adjusted:
始動！ pic.twitter.com/eacRtrAQKC
— Hanachi (@haswellep) March 10, 2022
Oh, and did I mention that the project is open-source?
The PCB files (initial release, WIP!) have been around for some time but the build log was released only recently.
Published on Sat 26th Mar 2022. Featured in KBD #71 (source).
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