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Urchin

Urchin is a wireless-only Swoop-derivative open-sourced by duckyb.

KBD.news
Published March 29, 2023
Creators! Feel free to tip me off about your keyboard related projects to bring them to 140K readers.

The Urchin is a Sweep/Swoop derivative by Duccio aka duckyb, removing everything that is needed for a wired build but offering choc hot-swap sockets, nice!view support - with full matrix and diodes instead of direct pins (in the photo above you can see a build by the_real_davenull).

I created this design because I wanted to upgrade my Sweep with the fancy nice!view displays. I decided to use the edge design from the Swoop and to make it compatible with Kailh hotswap sockets. This is a strictly wireless-only design, and is only compatible with ZMK / nice!nano. Only Choc v1 switches + Hotswap are supported! – duckyb.

In order to support the nice!view display the author had to use a switch matrix with diodes instead of the Sweep's direct pin design. This means that the firmwares are not interchangeable.

Furthermore, duckyb also wanted to use a different PCB shape which makes it incompatible with Sweep cases.

Specs

  • 34-key Ferris/Sweep layout (3x5+2)
  • optimized for wireless/ZMK
  • native nice!view support
  • Kailh hotswap sockets
  • mounting points for cases, tenting pluck compatible
  • tray case 3D model

There are so many keyboards inspired by and derived from the Ferris/Sweep that I've lost count. Let's recap: Pierre Chevalier's Ferris had on-board components. David Philip Barr's Sweep variations use daughterboards. There are MX/Choc versions of both, ones with an extra third key/encoder in the thumb cluster (Swoop), just like unibody (Unibodysweep, Cheapis), ultra-low (Dust) models, or boards supporting the Xiao footprint (Kretsträd).

Resources

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Published on Wed 29th Mar 2023. Featured in KBD #118.

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