Behind the Scenes of Issue 104

Giveaway follow-up, advent calendar line-up announced, new vendors/discounts, etc.

Hey y'all,

Welcome back for another edition of Keyboard Builders' Digest (this time Issue #104), a weekly roundup of this DIY keyboard focused newsletter and blog from Tamas Dovenyi – that's me. If you are new to this, you can read how this started out and what this is all about nowadays. If you like what you see, you can subscribe to the newsletter (free) and donate some bucks to keep this otherwise free and ad-free project alive.

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Quick news

• ZSA's Erez Zukerman on the Black Friday craze: https://blog.zsa.io/2211-black-friday/
• Fellow redditor SusmariosepAnak posted a Guide on using github files to make a DIY keyboard.
• Sadek Baroudi teased the haptic and audio features of his Rock On v3.1 – with code.

KBD.NEWS Advent Calendar

It's official: the first ever KBD.NEWS mechanical keyboard advent calendar is about to set off on Dec 1!

The format may be familiar from Japan: 24 revered members of the community will write some longer form articles, mostly on their projects or summing up their whole year in the hobby.

The write-ups will be published one by one. Here is the timeline with the epic line-up:

https://kbd.news/advent-calendar-2022

We don't have to stop on Dec 24 so feel free to contact me if you'd like to share your story.

Cody volunteered to turn this into a PDF-zine – thanks! –, but that's going to be a huge effort, so don't expect it anytime soon.

Giveaway update

No panic, I'm still in the midst of notifying winners. You can still win a lot of things despite not having heard back from me this week.

I made the raffle, which means I have a list of subscribers in a certain order. However, instead of matching the first hundred people on the list to prizes offered in their region (that was the plan), I changed my mind and ask each of the winners about their preferences.

It's a lot of work and takes much more time, but it's pretty much the only way to ensure every winner gets something useful. I mean, an all-1u ortho guy wouldn't be very happy with a stabilizer set.

And how came I to this (crazy) idea?

Since my original plan was to match winners and sponsors based on their region to minimize shipping costs, I asked X-Bows about what parts of the world would they ship to. And the answer was:

[…]the cost of shipping is not very important compared to whether the winner likes our prizes or not[…]

And this makes a lot of sense. So that was one reason for changing my mind. The other was this piece by Erez Zukerman on the black friday phenomenon.

109 prizes

Yep, 109 prizes. In the run-up I wrote that the prize pool contained 111 offers, but I decided to merge two smaller prizes and there was a mistake in the list too, so that's why "only" 109 prizes will be distributed.

For some reason I thought there will be a lot of interest in this monster giveaway, but in the end there were only 500 applicants.

That would be a nice number if I wouldn't send my weekly newsletter to 2,500 subscribers. :D I don't really get what was wrong. According to the stats, more than half of the subscribers open those mails, so there should be at least 1,200 applications from the newsletter subscribers alone.

Anyway, in a last-minute effort I posted on Keebtalk and r/ergomechkeys in the final hours to try to give the event some more publicity, and then closed the application form a few hours later on Sunday, at about 8PM CET.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the evening is over. We hope you all enjoyed yourselves, and will see you all again in 1974 2023…"

I'm pretty sure I won't do another giveaway on this scale before the blog turns 3… or at all.

I'll contact the winners in the coming days and possibly weeks. Please, be patient. Correspondence with 159 parties will take some time…

Btw, you don't make my work easier either. I wanted to check if the applicants met the terms (are subscribers or followers), and it turned out 8 out of the initial winners wasn't able to read or succesfully interpret the two-line participation rules. :D

Seeed competition

The Seeed keyboard competition is long over, it was organized by Seeed Studio on their site, but in the end I was asked to help out with evaluating and ranking all the great projects you submitted.

I received a shortlist of 34 entries, and went through all the projects, checked the documentations, blog entries, github repos, hackster.io write-ups, etc. and gave points to be able to come up with a proper ranking as objective as possible.

I set up my criteria and factored in how useful, original, innovative, well-documented and presented all these keyboards and macropads are.

To be fair, my personal top list probably won't be the final ranking since it will be blended with another one from Seeed.

So I made a separate post for you to introduce my favorites.

Vendor database

• Krome Keycaps offered you a 5% discount [code: KBDNEWS] (…about two weeks ago but somehow I failed to update the database).
• KeyboardDweebs added and Alex offered you a 10% discount!
• KBDcraft added.

Donations

No new donors this week. Thanks to all the supporters who set up a recurring donation.

If you can afford to help, here is the donation form.

Small developments

• Advent calendar landing page, and a lots of stuff in the background.

In the mailbox

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That's all for today. Thanks for reading.

Feel free to comment in this issue's r/mk thread, and as always: keep learning and building.

Cheers, Tamás

TOTEM

TOTEM is an open-source split keyboard by _GEIST_ sporting SEEED XIAOs.

TOTEM is a 38-key column-staggered low-profile split keyboard by _GEIST_. Both wired and wireless versions use Seeed XIAO controllers.

This it the TOTEM, my entry for the SEEED Fusion keyboard contest. It works wired with the XIAO RP2040 using QMK or wireless with the XIAO BLE using ZMK – _GEIST_.

Resources

• PCB and case files, build guide on GitHub.
• Here is a Hackster post covering the process.

SPC EVDR

The SPC EVDR by weteor is a cute ortholinear keyboard with a little twist: offset space cluster.

I've never thought I could be surprised by an ortho board, but that's exactly what happened when weteor reached out to me after releasing the files of his aptly named SPC EVDR, which comes after the author's Tipper and 3W6 designs.

It's called SPC EVDR and is a 10x4 ortholinear keyboard with recessed spacebars and support for an encoder and OLED display. I wanted to design an orthoboard that looks a bit different to the usual Planck types – weteor.

The board supports either the XIAO BLE or XIAO RP2040. The case is custom designed and printed in black resin with accent layers/inlays cut from matte blue acrylic.

It was meant to be an entrant to the SEEED Fusion keyboard contest, but unfortunately weteor missed the deadline by 2 days.

Features

• hotswap MX
• XIAO controller (via IO expander)
• encoder (12 mm knob diameter)
• OLED
• Bluetooth and USB connection
• case with optional acrylic accents
• ZMK firmware support (on Seeed Xiao or Seeed Xiao BLE )

I really dig the offset space cluster so asked the author for his inspiration:

I am not aware of another ortho doing this. I made it for the most part to a) design and b) to move the thumbs a bit away from the alphas, which is more comfortable for me coming from split / unibody split keyboards. I think there are a few staggered boards that do this, too – weteor.

Eagle-eyed readers may spot two katakana caps put on the wrong way, but one of those is intentionally flipped to angle the key towards the user. Other than that, the author uses Colemak and other alternative layouts so legends don't have much function.

Resources

All files (pcb, case freecad and stl) are published under permissive CERN-OHL2 license on github:

https://github.com/weteor/SPC_EVDR

The Puzzle.

Oisín Carrol published an open-source 60% split acrylic keyboard: the handwired Puzzle.

Puzzle is a split keyboard by Oisín Carroll aka Another_moose. It can fit together to be used as a regular 60% keyboard and is designed to be cut out of 5 layers of acrylic, which then stack together.

Currently there is no PCB, and the prototype in the photo above is hand-wired.

I wanted a split/ combining keyboard, but didn't want to pay $$$ for it… Hence, the Puzzle! – Another_moose.

Features

• Can be used as a 60% normal layout keyboard as well as a split keyboard.
• It's designed to be laser-cut in layered acrylic cheaply – "no need for expensive metal plates, PCBs or other custom metal hardware".
• Configurable: the author wanted the 'b' key on the opposite side, but " you don't have to".
• Hand-wired

Resources

• The design can be customized here: https://imois.in/pages/kb-generator/
• Github repo: https://github.com/oisincar/PuzzleKeyboard

Budgy

Another Raspberry Pi Pico based keyboard: Budgy by keyboarddweebs.

The Budgy is a 34-key open-source split sporting Picos as controllers – shared by keyboarddweebs aka doesntfazer, designer of the Crowboard.

Another raspberry pi pico based keyboard. I call it the Budgy. This time split in half! – keyboarddweebs.

I reached out to Alex for some info and to correct my mistake of featuring the Crowbar six months after being published – simply because I wasn't aware it was open source. :|

Could you tell us about yourself and Keyboard Dweebs?

My name is Alex Miller – or my online alias DoesntFazer. I am a huge advocate for the open source/GNU community. I started Keyboard Dweebs to get away from the group buy model, and when I first opened it in 2019 there was really only 1 or 2 stores that sold little (sub-40) keyboards.

My other inspiration for going into business was to fund my keyboard addiction, expensive hobby for a cheap person like me. I know this might be sacrilegious, but I didn’t get into this hobby for the Thock. I didn’t get into it for the lubed switches and GMK keycap sets. I got into it because I saw people making these crazy 60% builds out of model Ms, I was seeing things like the Ergodox start to appear. I thought it was all so cool.

But about 1 year into my keyboard journey, I developed carpal tunnel. And that’s when I started going down the ergo rabbit hole.

Some thoughts on the Budgy and your inspiration?

The Budgy is named because it’s small like a budgie, and it’s a budget keyboard.

This is the second keyboard that I have designed under the Keyboard Dweebs name. The first being the Crowboard.

I would also like to side note, everything made under the Keyboard Dweebs name will be named after a bird species and have some kind of connection to the bird that it’s named after. I love birds. Hehe.

But I don't like designing cases. When I first saw the Gergoplex, it opened my world up to a new way of thinking. There’s no need for a case! This also saves a whole bunch of money as well for everyone involved. What inspired the Budgy was seeing these diodeless builds like the Cantor, Piantor, and Ferris. I figured this would be one more way to pass on some savings, and remove the annoyance of soldering diodes.

Some thoughts on your experiences, lessons learned?

I originally wanted to do this as a single board PCB like the Crowboard. After realizing that the Pico, only having 29 pins wouldn’t work I started seeking other options. I bought a BlackPill (STM32F401) and built out a firmware for it only to realize that I was mislead by the pinout diagram I was looking at, and it did not have 34 pins. So I had to go back to the drawing board. I settled on a split keyboard. I always liked the CRKBD and how it has the MCU on display, and I thought it was fitting to show off the Pico once again like I did on the Crowboard.

I won’t bore you with too many details, but I did run into issues with the firmware after assembly because in my infinite brilliance turned on SERIAL_USART_PIN_SWAP when I was prototyping because I didn’t check the footprint when I was wiring things.

There are two versions in the repo. What's the difference?

As for the Rev2, it’s not complete yet. I am adding per key RGB, and I am considering adding OLED’s, and maybe even some EC11 low profile encoders if I can find a place to put them.

If you were to download the files for the rev2 today, it only has the per key RGB implemented, and it should work in theory. I haven’t tested anything yet. So download and send to JLCPCB at your own risk!

I'm likely not going to be selling the rev 1s. I feel like I need to add more, but didn't want to go all out on my first split keyboard. If I do decide to sell them, I will probably sell as a kit, and as a prebuilt without keycaps and limited switch options because assembly time is reasonable.

Resources

• Github repo: https://github.com/doesntfazer/budgy
• Keyboard Dweebs

Crowboard

The open-source monoblock Crowboard by KeyboardDweebs has been around for half a year now. Better late than never.

The Crowboard was the first model designed by Alex Miller aka DoesntFazer under the Keyboard Dweebs name.

Half a year ago…

Since I wasn't aware that this board was open source, I failed to feature it at that time. Anyway, here it is for the records.

Features

• 34/36 keys
• Pi Pico controller
• low-profile and MX versions

(For more info on Alex, and for another (split) keyboard from Keyboard Dweebs, check out the Budgy.)

Resources

• https://github.com/doesntfazer/CrowBoard
• Crowboard product page

Crepe

The Crepe is a 40-key ultrathin ortholinear keyboard with Kailh X Switches – shared by quirk.

After his SatPad, Jason Hazel aka quirk published the files of this ultrathin 40% ortho board: the Crepe.

This keyboard features Kailh's X switches and supports controllers with Pro Micro footprint (Pro Micro, Nice!Nano, Elite-C, STeMCell, etc.).

MKUltra started carrying the Kailh X Switches, so I grabbed a handful and the Crepe is the result. 40 key ultrathin (7mm not counting bumpons) running ZMK – quirk.

Another angle:

Resources

Source is available at: https://github.com/jasonhazel/crepe

Disorder30

Seili- built a Disorder30, mkylama's macropad design mimicking the 75% look.

After dcpedit's Dissatisfaction30, mostly meant as a macropad that mimics the 75% look of the Satisfaction 75, mkylama came up with the Disorder30, an ISO adaptation based on the same idea.

The Disorder30 includes the original "75%" layout and an extended "1800" layout.

The splendid 75% specimen in the photo above was posted by Seili-. Meanwhile gelotuz built the 1800 version:

You can cut the PCB smaller size if you prefer 75% version and use jumper wires if want turn it back larger size – gelotuz.

Resources

• https://github.com/mkylama/disorder30

Pi5

Pi5 is a monoblock angled ortho keyboard open sourced by ihihbs.

Pi5 is a unibody split 38-key keyboard designed and shared by Luke Schutt aka ihihbs.

Inspiration heavily drawn from the ChocV. With the different revisions I'd changed the name multiple times as I realized they're too close to other projects but forgot to check "Pi5" while having fun drawing the logo. I'm open to other suggestions – ihihbs.

The board consists of two boards, the main PCB and a mounting plate. The switches are on a 19x19mm spacing with the footprint supporting Kailh Choc V1, V2, Gateron low profile, and (untested) MX switches.

Resources

• https://github.com/luke-schutt/Pi5Keyboard

Kiai-Split

The Kiai-Split by jammerkiai is an open-source 34-key keyboard using XIAO BLE controllers.

Jon Mereria aka makgyber or jammerkiai published his Kiai Split, a wireless split keyboard sporting XIAO controllers.

The first xiao-based board i built turned out to have a few problems, so i decided to tweak a few things – jammerkiai.

The author fixed the key spacing, updated the PCB so both XIAO modules can be placed face-up, and kept the size of the PCB within 100x100mm.

Features

• 34-keys
• low profile Choc v1
PCB dimensions <100100mm
• Seeed Studio XIAO nRF52840
• ZMK

Resources

• GitHub repo: https://github.com/makgyber/kiai-split

KBD.NEWS Advent Calendar

Let me introduce a new and exciting seasonal column and special issue: the KBD.NEWS Advent Calendar 2022! :D

I've been cooking up this project for months now and the time has come to reveal some details and a landing page:

KBD.NEWS Advent Calendar

Based on the format of the Japanese advent calendars, 24 revered members of the MK keyboard community will write longer format articles summing up their whole year in the hobby/business, introducing some projects in detail or coming up with tutorials.

First of all, I'd like to thank Cody, designer of Switch Magazine, for reaching out to me months ago. He volunteered to turn a weekly kbd.news issue into a PDF-zine, but it made more sense to make a special issue for this purpose.

So this is it. A kbd.news special issue, presented as an advent calendar, turned into a PDF-zine, which may go into print as well.

And of course thanks to all the contributors!

Check out the epic line-up and topics we'll cover here:

KBD.NEWS Advent Calendar

And sorry for the mess in advance. :D I'm sure there will be some changes in the line-up, several updates to the order of posts, as well as a lot of other difficulties.

But this is the first year I host such an event. If you'll like it, I guarantee it will be better organized next year. ;)

My favorite Seeed-entrants

This is a subjective list of my favorite projects submitted to the Seeed keyboard competition.

As I indicated earlier, Seeed Studio reached out to me to jury the entrants of their recent keyboard competition. I reviewed 34 projects last weekend, made a second round of evaluation on Monday, and sent my ranking and notes to Seeed.

Which is not the official or final order with the winners, since my list will be blended with Seeed's in-house list I guess, and some community indices may be factored in as well (upvotes, likes, whatever on different platforms).

That's why I wanted to list my favorites in this quick post.

My evaluation method

To be able to rank these various keyboard projects as objectively as possible, I came up with a simple scoring system involving factors like: usability/usefulness, repeatability (open source), uniqueness/originality, quality of the documentation and media provided, etc.

Since we are talking about the XIAO controller family with 11 available GPIO pins, many users made small macropads and meishis. Which is all good, I'll list some of the more interesting ones at the end of this post, but I wouldn't choose a macropad as a winner if we have a handful of 60% keyboards and splits with the potential to serve you as a daily driver (usefulness).

Similarly, it was very hard to compete with a closed-source project (repeatability).

Ranking

I want to note that any of the first five (or even more) projects below could have been chosen as the final winner.

Two of them scored the maximum points from me and three of them only one point less. So I made some shared places. In fact, I sent Seeed 10 projects for the first 5 places. :D

As I can see, the final ranking by Seeed involves even more shared places so there might be as much as six winners eventually. But again, this is not official.

#1 TOTEM by GEIS

Marc's low-profile (2x)19 key ergo split with 3-key thumb clusters, pinky splay, scored the same points as some other runner-ups. I had to choose a winner so the deciding factor was the extra time and effort put into making the photos. Otherwise: Useful repo and classy, unique case. Everything is nicely documented and open source.

This is a split keyboard many of us could use as a daily driver right out of the box.

It was already featured on kbd.news.

#2 Purple owl by Sonal Pinto

This project was featured on kbd.news in August. Well documented open-source uniformly staggered keyboard. Maybe not the most reasonable physical layout, but undeniably original, cool design, and implements a scan chain (61 keys), demonstrating that XIAO controllers, despite their limited number of pins, can be used for quite large keyboards.

And – as a couple of other projects – its documentation references kbd.news! ;) Which wasn't an evaluation factor but was nice to see every time.

#3 (shared) BeyBlock by Christian Lo

A unique magnetic system, open source, already featured on kbd.news (KBD#92) and gathering 9K upvotes on r/mk. ;) Undeniably one of the most intuitive projects with regards to modularity.

#3 (shared) KLEIN by Shashank

Another cool and usable open-source ergo split already featured on kbd.news (KBD#100). Really, I had to decide somehow, and the only thing I could take into account was often the difference between the quality of photos and the overall presentation of the project.

#3 (shared) Grin Quern by policium

You know I have a penchant for these monoblock splits. Policium used an IO expander to handle the required number of keys. This is a great project and made it to the shared 3rd place on my list even without the source files shared. Other than that: reference to kbd.news :D, and it was already featured as well (KBD#98).

Runner-ups on my list

Cr0wn60 by ADeL

Another relatively big layout (60%) which uses a square matrix – with reference to the exotic matrix series on kbd.news. Again, this was nice to see but wasn't a deciding factor. ;)

https://www.hackster.io/ewderna/cr0wn60-60-keeb-powerd-by-xiao-rp2040-3956a3

Pica40 by zzeneg

Another nice split ergo already featured on kbd.news (KBD#102).

M65 by Alinelena

A huge ortho with Lego frame, shift registers (hybrid matrix) and source files. Actually, more than one entries.

https://mlego.elena.space/m65/

Kidoairaku Swallowtail by yswallow

Another monoblock split, but I could find source files.

https://www.hackster.io/yswallow/kidoairaku-swallowtail-a-cute-butterfly-shaped-keyboard-8c2b4d

Tiny20 by Lorenzo

A cute 20-key (2x10) chording split.

https://www.hackster.io/lorenzocoralc/tiny20-21053e

Xobdox by xquinx

Already featured.

Kretstrad by wj-zhe

Already featured.

arachnophobe by Sadek Baroudi

While undoubtedly cool-looking, with the arachnophobe we arrive at the less usable keyboards since Sadek used a classic matrix thus only 30 keys were available. I'm not sure I would get rid of the same keys if I had to.

Macropads

As already told, most of the entrants were macropads. Some of the more interesting ones:

Ent4Space by Salicylic-acid

Salicylic-acid's macropad experiment with some awesome features (sense) and strange 2xSpacebar + 2xISO Enter layout. :D

https://salicylic-acid3.hatenablog.com/entry/ent4space-introduction

Meishi by etalli

A tiny meishi (businesscard-sized macropad) with "accessibility extension". Which is a jack connector to host an extra key. :D

https://github.com/etalli/136_MacroPad_XIAO-RP2040

Shortcut keyboard by Julian Becker

With a display indicating layers and functions.

https://www.hackster.io/JuBecker/shortcut-keyboard-7187bb

https://github.com/Beckju96/Shortcut_Keyboard

BTMS by yishii

A stylish "Back to the Meeting" switch/encoder.

https://github.com/yishii/btms

Conclusion

That was my list of some cool entries I wanted to highlight. This competition inspired a lot of great projects and introduced the tiny XIAO controllers to the larger public of DIY keyboard enthusiasts/makers.

It turned out these little controllers are perfect for splits, but with some ingenuity larger boards are possible too.

Trackball bearing comparison

A comparison of trackball bearings: (cheap) rollers, BTUs and static bearings – by wiwilwi.

So I designed a trackball add-on for my Skeletyl (posted a while ago; github repo of my project for those interested), and after using it for a while I was rather dissatisfied with the roller bearings, so I decided to try out a few different bearing solutions. I thought I'd share the results for other's to be better able to make a choice for their own project.

TLDR

So I tried 3 types of bearings. And for TLDR, these are in order of my preference:

• Static ceramic bearings (3mm ZrO2, form Aliexpress)
• Steel BTU's (Veichu VCN310 7.5mm, from Aliexpress)
• Steel roller bearings (MR63-3x6x2.5mm, from a local webshop)

It is worth noting that for the rollers and BTU's, money probably makes a big difference; if you are willing to spend good money, you may arrive at entirely different conclusions. A good quality BTU or roller bearing can be quite expensive.. The rollers, BTU's and ceramic bearings I bought all cost me roughly the same (all cheap), so they are a fair budget comparison, there's no real monetary incentive to pick one over the other.

Criteria

In order to make good comparisons, it's probably best to first establish the parameters by which I evaluated the performance of each bearing. Basically there is 4:

• Stiction: more accurately described as static friction. This is the initial force required to start moving the ball. When static friction is high, it feels like the ball "sticks" to the bearing when initiating movement, or when moving at low speeds (precision movements), hence the term stiction. Rated 1-5: 1 is minimal stiction, 5 is high stiction.
• Friction: this is the amount of force required to keep a moving ball moving. When friction is low, you can give the ball a spin, and it will keep spinning for a while. When friction is high, it will come to a stop much faster, so it takes (slightly) more force to roll the ball. Rated 1-5: 1 is very low friction, 5 is very high friction.
• Consistency: some people like to talk about smoothness, but I think that is easy to confuse for stiction/friciton as well. Consistency is a more accurate descriptor to me. Basically, does the ball behave consistent and predictable in all rolling directions. Rated 1-5: 1 is very consistent, 5 is very irregular.
• Sound: this wasn't very important to me, but some people will find it relevant so I have included it here as well. Rated 1-5: 1 is very silent, 5 is very loud.

Roller bearings

Starting with the roller bearings. I used steel roller bearings (MR63-3x6x2.5mm) from a local webshop, but probably equivalent to what you may find on Amazon or Aliexpress. I used them, because the Bastardkb Charybdis uses the same measurement of bearings, and I based my design off that. I had heard good things about the ploopy rollers, so I thought it would be a good solution. However, I was kind of disappointed with them in the end - my only guess about people's ravings about the ploopy bearings is that either they are much higher quality than what I bought, or most people are less critical than I am (or both); but I was definitely not impressed.

Let's start with the good: Stiction is fairly low, as compared to commercial ruby bearings. It doesn't take much effort to get the ball moving. However, there are certain rolling directions in which that performance isn't consistent.

Friction is a bit more difficult to determine, which is due to the inconsistency, which is where it gets really bad. The rollers roll in only one direction, whereas the ball rolls in all directions. When the ball moves perpendicular to a roller, there is a lot of friction, when it moves parallel, there is very little friction - so the amount of friction varies a LOT depending on which direction you roll. On top of that, the rollers are somewhat gritty and inconsistent by themselves, which I guess is just the poor quality of a cheap bearing. The result is that at all speeds, but particularly so at low speeds, it is annoying to make accurate predictable cursor movements.

Rating

• Stiction: 2-4 (Mostly good (2), but with some variation)
• Friction: 2-5 (Great to awful, depending on rolling direction)
• Consistency: 5 (Awful)
• Loudness: 4 (Pretty loud)

BTU's (ball transfer units)

So, after the disappointment of roller bearings, I decided to buy a bunch of cheap BTU's from Aliexpress (Veichu VCN310 7.5mm), as well as some 3mm ceramic bearings. First the BTU's. They are a definite improvement over the rollers, no question, but still leave something to be desired.

Stiction truly is minimal, there is hardly any force required to get the ball moving.

Friction is also minimal, it is very very light to move and keep moving. It doesn't spin as long as you see in some youtube videos of people that bought expensive high quality BTU's, but it is an obvious difference with the rollers or static bearings. However, this is not necessarily a good thing. Because it is so light to move the ball around, it can be difficult to be steady in your movements. It is like writing with a pen: you require a bit of friction of the paper to write properly. Writing steadily with a stylus on a tablet is much harder. This is what the BTU's feel like as well.

Consistency is better than the rollers, but still lacking a bit, which surprised me. They do not have the flaw of the roller bearings that only roll in one direction. However, the BTU's are gritty, particularly at low speeds. This grittiness makes for some unexpected hick-ups that can unpredictably occur in any one of the bearings, which throws off the consistency. So again it can be a bit annoying to make slow precision movements, though it's not nearly as bad as the rollers. And at average and higher speeds the grittiness doesn't really interfere, and it becomes supremely smooth. I suspect though that shelling out for some high quality BTU's may solve any issues here.

Rating

• Stiction: 1 (Excellent)
• Friction: 1-2 (Okay-ish, its low friction, but that doesn't necessarily equate to good).
• Consistency: 3 (Okay-ish)
• Loudness: 3 (surprisingly a little less loud than the rollers)

Static ball bearings

The static ball bearings are what we are commonly used to in commercial trackballs, for which ruby bearings are most common, and can be notorious for stiction. Also to clear up some common confusion, these ball bearings do not rotate (hence static), but function as low friction points for the trackball to glide on.

Ceramic bearings (Zirconium oxide) are the most popular type for replacing the ruby ones, in order to reduce stiction (with mixed results), so that is also what I used. I got 3mm ones, which are quite a bit larger than the ones that are in my M575 for example; I used 3mm because it would be easier to fit into a 3D printed holder, without having to worry about tiny tolerances too much.

Ultimately, I found that the static bearings are the most preferable. Stiction is definitely there, but it is acceptably minimal. Definitely not as bad as some ruby bearings I experienced in some kensington trackballs, and even a little better than my M575, which surprises me because it also uses zirconium bearings, and I am using the same ball. Whether that has to do with the bearing diameter, the position of the bearings, or the fact I use my current setup with finger instead of thumb, I have no clue. But the stiction is not problematic.

Friction is clearly higher than the BTU's, but as mentioned before, that is not necessarily a bad thing. It makes it easier to be steady, and there's no reason to spin the ball for long durations in any practical application (I find spinning is probably the most idiotic way some people measure trackball bearing performance).

Consistency however is where the static bearings shine. There is no moving parts, so the only thing that can cause inconsistency is imperfections in the trackball surface itself. This makes the behavior of the ball very predictable - there may be some stiction, but it is always the same in every rolling direction. The friction does not vary depending on direction. And there's no unexpected hick-ups due to grittiness in the internals of the bearings. And that all helps in being precise.

One thing to note with static bearings is probably that the quality of the trackball surface becomes much more relevant in the overall performance as well, which may be of less relevance for the BTU's in particular. So shopping for another ball may be the next thing I'll try.

Rating

• Stiction: 3 (acceptable) (would rate the rubies in a kensinton orbit fusion at 5 for comparison).
• Friction: 3 (excellent)
• Consistency: 1 (excellent)
• Loudness: 1 (pretty silent)

Conclusion

So for those wanting to build or mod a trackball on a budget, static ball bearings are probably your best bet (I suppose there's the reason commercial trackballs use them as well). But for those willing to shell out on high quality bearings, you may arrive at different conclusions; but to me it probably wouldn't be worth the dough.

Disconnect MK1

The Disconnect MK1 is a pretty unique split by hid:ergo – with a single thumb cluster and trackpad.

Yeah, this is a group buy and I don't feature GBs very often. However, I hope you agree that the uniqueness of the Disconnect MK1 makes it fit for the blog.

The Finnish hid:ergo team came up with a rarely seen combo of features: thumb cluster on the left side only, the right one is replaced by a 63mm x 55mm trackpad.

Add some encoders, ePaper displays and the classic horizontal staggering to the mix, and the result is a feature-rich split keyboard which may raise the attention of the less hardcore ergo folks.

My inspiration originally was to build a keyboard which would suit me the best, just a one-off keyboard for my own use. I posted a picture of the original prototype on reddit about a year ago and the response was overwhelming to be honest – Ilpo Loikkanen.

Sound test and trackpad demo:

Features

• ISO or ANSI layout
• Hotswap
• Wireless, supports multiple on-board profiles for quick switching between machines.
• Dual 3.7v 1100mAh batteries.
• Dual encoders with aluminum knobs.
• Dual ePaper displays with customizable content.
• Trackpad resolution is 2000×2000.
• Custom PBT-dyesub keycaps designed and manufactured specifically for this keyboard.
• Aluminum plate.
• Plastic case with foam inserts to dampen sound
• Foam between plate and PCB.

Beside his inspiration, I also asked Ilpo about a few things.

Can you share some info on the custom keycaps?

They are OEM profile dyesub keycaps. They are manufactured based on a color scheme, layout and legends I designed.

And what about your experiences organizing the group buy?

At first I didn't think I would do a group buy or develop it further since I already have a day job and don't have that much free time but after the IC's overwhelmingly positive response I started to consider it more seriously. After a month of thinking I decided to start developing the product further to see if it would be viable to produce it.

After a while I realized there is no way I can do it by myself so I pitched the idea to my good friend who then joined the team. I have reduced the days I work at my day job to dedicate more time to this and hopefully I can make keyboards my full-time job at some point.

The experience has been very positive so far. I'm sure it will get more stressful when we start the manufacturing process in December. :)

After the group buy is finished and we have shipped the products we will take a "break" and focus on providing support for the people who joined the GB and resolve any problems which might come up. If everything goes well and we see happy customers and more demand for the product we might do another GB round or do in-stock sales at some point in the distant future.

Resources

• Disconnect MK1 product page

KBDcraft's Adam

Another "LEGO" keyboard kit: Adam by KBDcraft. Use the KBDNEWS coupon code for a 5% discount.

Another LEGO-compatible keyboard: Adam by KBDcraft – available as full kit (not assembled though which would spoil the game), as barebone kit without switches and keycaps, or you can even purchase the internals only, just like any part of this keyboard.

It seems it's official now: after years of DIY LEGO abominations, LEGO prebuilts and kits became a trend.

First the Melgeek Pixel, and now the Adam kit by KBDcraft.

Thanks to mmqn for bringing this keyboard to my attention.

And the best news? It's very affordable: Full kit with switches and caps for $100, barebone kit for $60. (And don't forget to use the KBDNEWS coupon code for the 5% discount.)

Why LEGO and why 'Adam'?

BoyU from the KBDcraft team got back to me with his motivation to design a LEGO-compatible keyboard with huge bang for your buck:

We're lego lovers who can't afford lego… – BoyU.

The naming system and design inspiration come from Neon Genesis Evangelion:

Adam (アダム[) (Hebrew: בראשית ,אדם i: xxvi) is the designation of the 1st Angel, the first of Earth's two Seeds of Life. It was created by the First Ancestral Race billions of years ago and sent to Earth within the "White Moon" to fill the Earth with its progeny, the Angels (source).

Adam first impressions

And now let's pass the mic to mmqn who posted a build on r/mk:

$100 kit comes with everything needed to build this keyboard (except a brush for lubing the stabilizers; the switches however are pre-lubed). Technically, you can buy each component individually on their website, opting for alternatives wherever you'd like. But everything they provide by default is pretty great, especially the switch + keycap combo making a satisfying sound similar to the building sound effect in the LEGO video games – mmqn.

According to mmqn, the generic knock-off bricks used by KBDcraft for the case are definitely not as precise and high-quality as actual LEGO bricks. It definitely gets the job done and is very reasonable for the price, however he will probably replace them with LEGO bricks at some point.

Resources

• Adam product page
• Adam Instructions
• Check out the r/mk post for a detailed parts list.