Keyboard Builders' Digest / Tips & Tricks
Seismos
A keyboard design framework with adjustable columns on a rail system: Seismos by Danny Vo.
Published December 5, 2023
Inspired by nezumee's Zebra, Danny Vo's (aka TheFrictionConstant) Seismos is a keyboard layout design framework. Switch between ortholinear for macro keypads and columnar stagger for typing on the go!
The author teased this project back in mid-October:
Hello everyone, I'm currently in the process of making a keyboard with column adjustable keys similar to how the Zebra did it initially. It takes advantage of the small wire sizes of JST SH connectors and allows for an adaptive ergonomic keyboard – Danny.
At that time, the PCBs were already verified by JLCPCB but he was still waiting for them to arrive. There were some case modifications made because it doesn't quite fit, there was a missing rotary encoder, etc. But the time has finally come and the repo with all the necessary files to try this system is up and running now.
This ended up taking a bit long; I was held up with tests and using the pick and place machine for the first time. I have finally built the Seismos keyboard with some nice pictures taken of it – Danny.
Since this design utilizes daughter boards, you can even choose to move the columns around with a different rail system from the example one provided:
It allows for an interchangeable configuration between 4 and 5 row keys per column. With both halves of the keyboard, you can have a maximum of 68 keys (+2 encoder switches).
Although the keyboard build with the first PCB worked, the RGB part of it doesn't, so it isn't lit up. The issue has been fixed (there was a mistake with the RGB footprint).
Resources
Published on Tue 5th Dec 2023. Featured in KBD #146.
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