Keyboard Builders' Digest / Projects
box-o-alps
Sander Boear's box-o-alps is an open-source PCB (actually two) in a classy lunchbox. ;)
Published October 6, 2022
After projects like the Lil Chonky Bois, Sander Boer aka Snd666 published his box-o-alps, consisting of two keyboard models optimized for travel – with a 3D printed case and travel/storage box.
The two different PCBs in the repo are: the Splanck version (a monoblock split ortholinear keyboard), and the Absolem-inspired one, which is based on.. well, surprise!.. MrZealot's Absolem – minus thumb splay.
The overall design reminds me of those early Japanese ergonomic keyboards like Masasuke Morita's NEC M-Type or Ken Sakamura's TRON, but even the Marquardt Mini-Ergo.
I reached out to Sander who was kind enough to answer some questions:
Can you tell us about your inspiration?
I started this project bc I wanted to try my hand at pcb design and I had a bunch of matias silent switches, some blackpill mcus and two complete sets of vintage alps keycaps on hand. And, also, I wanted a keeb that was more portable as a package.
The layout is lifted from my absolem build except the thumbs and mrzaelot is right, this thumb setup is not ideal. Should be moved to the middle at least .5U.
Difficulties, lessons learned?
My lessons learned are basically that mcu pinout can be tricky, the pcbs are faulty in that regard. I rewired the absolem ergo one to work with the blackpill and the splanck pcb got modded/hacked to work with a pro-micro.
Another lesson is that with a pcb, a switchplate is sort of mandatory to keep the switches in line. The splanck is a naked pcb and I needed to glue the switches in place prior to soldering to keep them from wandering.
Last lesson is that a hot-air soldering station is really convenient for working with pcbs and smd, more so than I anticipated.
What's next?
Next project is a sweep-like split pcb, trrs based, low profile hotswap…
Resources
Here is a gallery of the box-o-alps project: https://imgur.com/a/0qiiYvo
And this is the associated github with the KiCad projects and the Blender 3d print models:
https://github.com/sanderboer/box_o_alps
Published on Thu 6th Oct 2022. Featured in KBD #98 (source).
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