Behind the scenes #2023/33

Quick news, in the mailbox, giveaway update, meetups, shops & discounts, whatever.

Hey y'all,

Welcome back for another weekly recap and behind-the-scenes write-up. If you are new to kbd.news, you can read how this started out and what this is all about nowadays. If you like what you see, subscribe to the newsletter (free) and donate some bucks to keep this otherwise free and ad-free project alive.

For your ears

Inspired by Gleb's Deathpad (and also Policium's GRIN Note and its non-4/4 time signature), let's set the mood for today's read with Meshuggah's They Move Below:

Reading for the weekend

• CB34S is a 34-key columnar staggered Choc V1 monoblock split keyboard by Bubbleology – with Nice!Nano and Nice!View. In addition, the author reviews FK custom's service and caps (use the KBDNEWS coupon code!), since this particular build features custom Hiragana MBKs.
• KBDcraft now offers the LEGO-compatible Adam0110b, along with merging and upgrade kits to combine the 60% Adam and the Addams numpad.
• Shane Hanna shared his PLA_NCK, a low-profile split ortholinear keyboard with Gateron KS-33 switches.
• Sneftel is introducing Heron, a Dactyl-inspired unibody keyboard with each column mounted on a laser-cut acrylic scaffold. Is this a new trend now? (I'm looking at you Killer Whale.)
• Brian Swetland published a mechanical keyboard for the retro legend ZX81 home computer.

• Nikita Shirokov shared KLP Lamé, a set of new keycaps for Kailh Choc switches.
• Holykeebs offers various popular splits with a new trackpoint module.
• Tefinite Dev's first keyboard looks cool, and it sports interesting and relatively low-profile (MX) XVX caps.
• Policium is working on GRIN Notes, a cheap through-hole GRIN with unique aesthetics (more on this layout).

• Stenographer Barbie? I have to confess I'm not a huge movie-goer and also immune to general hype, so I almost missed the fact that Ruth Handler, inventor of Barbie, was, among other things, also a stenographer. At least according to this petition. (Thanks @StenoKeyboards!)
• Gleb teased his Deathpad art project, "a 9-key macropad in a huge ominous 30×30cm case inspired by the logos of death metal bands and the darkest corners of nature". There's also a dedicated page for this project.
• The next level of controller socketing? A cool buckle connector by Seeed for the plug and play experience of XIAO devboards – demo this way.
• I know I have to strengthen the switch side of this blog (feel free to help me!). Until then, here are some Diamond Avalon switches with a uniquely shaped top housing.
• I've already updated the Kaly42 post with a link to the source files, but Dwctor also published a video with some insights into his design considerations.

Donations

• Yay! TurtleKeebs set up a recurring donation. Thanks!
• As always, many thanks to everyone who supported this project thus far.

In the mailbox

I received the newest Adam add-on, the Adam0110b upgrade kit from KBDcraft's BoyU. Here are my first impressions. To sum it up: I love the whole concept (dispite some minor annoyances), and thanks to the brick construction the building experience is unlike that of any other keyboard kit.

By the way, I've been using the Adam as my daily driver at home for weeks now, since the Drop photoshoot to be exact, when I broke some solder joints of my handwired Azimuth. Out of sheer laziness (my soldering equipment was put away) I grabbed the first board close to my desk, and it happened to be the Adam. I also wanted to revisit ANSI/ISO after almost five years spent on ergo splits, and I got accustomed to the Adam pretty quickly. It's not perfect, but I had no reason to switch to another board thus far.

Maybe when I get the Planeta by Ergohaven, hopefully next week? (I just paid taxes and custom handling fee today to get it out of customs.)

And a package from Chosfox is also on its way. At the time of the reddit protest I wrote somewhere that I'm out of content, and Robin kindly offered some product samples for review: bancouver40, CFX caps, switches. I'm eager to lay my hands on these.

Giveaway update

No panic, you haven't missed anything. This is about last year's giveaway… Seriously.

So Dirk and hunboy, winners of two X-Bows boards, have had to wait until this week, more than eight months, to get their prizes. Both guys reported receiving the keyboards eventually, so this endless saga seems to finally come to an end. (I'm not sure I'm ready for another giveaway on this scale, with 50 sponsors and 100+ prizes.)

X-Bows was hit by severe disruption of their supply chains, their OEM factory was closed, they went out of stock to the extent even their shopify was closed for months. Then, on my inquiry about three weeks ago, I was told that production was finished at a new factory.

Hopefully, they are back now.

Meetup database

New entries and updates to the database of keyboard meetups:

• Tokyo キー部 6% added (Sept 23).
• Detroit meetup update: New venue, new date (Oct 7)!

As always, this meetup database is both a calendar and an archive so feel free to send me upcoming events or even ones from the recent past to make this collection as comprehensive as possible.

Vendor database

New shops and updates to the database of keyboard vendors this week:

• https://splitergoboards.com

Typing

This week I spent considerable time with a relatively new typing app with an interesting twist. Don't want to promote it yet, at least until I've tested it thoroughly. The point is, I like to type out meaningful quotes rather than a random burst of words (always the same frequent words). It's not just more objective in terms of measuring your "real" WPM but also makes more sense imo.

Quotes are often thought-provoking, and help you discover books and authors you've never heard about. That's why I loved keyhero.com and typeracer.com back, well, five years ago? Then monkeytype took over the scene with its superior UI and UX, and although it has quotes mode too, I realized I missed apps with not just quotes as default but actually built entirely on quotes – with quotes as their very essence.

Developments

New developments:

• Small updates in some scripts helping me compile the newsletter and the weekly editorial.
• I'm a bit closer to identify and fix a pesky bug resulting in messing up formatting of posts when there are multiple links (both an outgoing and local one) on the same line…

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Still with me? Go and build something this weekend. Or not:

"Keep the dream alive, and hit the snooze button."

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That's all for today. Thanks for checking by. To be honest, I have no idea if these summaries are anything useful. If you think they are, feel free to comment or press a like or upvote it on Twitter/Reddit/Keebtalk, etc.

Until next time,

Tamás

KBDcraft Adam0110b

KBDcraft now offers the LEGO-compatible Adam0110b, along with merging and upgrade kits to combine the 60% Adam and the Addams numpad.

The Adam0110b is a special bundle containing the widely popular 60% Adam, the Addams numpad, and a merging/upgrade kit – allowing an integration of the two sets in a classic or southpaw arrangement.

The merging/upgrade kit is not a mere additional set of bricks. Instead, you can electronically connect the Adam to the numpad, resulting in a setup requiring only one USB cable instead of two, plus you can configure the keyboard e.g. in VIAL as one device.

Well, apparently, these additional compatibility kits won't be as sought-after as the original Adam or the full Adam0110b – simply by their nature –, the merging kit is more of a sign of BoyU's dedication and gesture towards early costumers with incompatible PCBs, which is a substantial cohort of Adam users.

I'm probably not allowed to reveal numbers here (I indirectly can follow the sales volumes because of your usage of the KBDNEWS coupon code), but let me say that you bought A LOT of the original Adam.

These days, the Adam is shipped with the upgraded PCB (with extension sockets). The upgrade kit ($30) is for those with an old PCB (pre July 2023), which doesn't have the extension sockets. For those with a new PCB, only the $6 merging kit is needed to integrate the Adam & Addams.

Test

BoyU has been sending me his LEGO-compatible products for some time (I really appreciate it!), and I received the latest parcel last Friday. It took me a few minutes to realize it's an Adam0110b Upgrade kit. First, I wasn't sure what I got and I was slightly confused for two reasons:

• The kit came in a probably reused packaging of the Adam, so the contents and the info indicated on the box don't always match. E.g. the bubble envelope of the Core64 (normally PCB, plate, foam) contains only the new PCB. This shouldn't be a problem if you know what you purchased though. ;)
• And despite all this, at least at first glance, the box included much more parts and goodies than required for simply merging two products. There were much more gaskets and rubber feet than expected, bricks seemingly almost enough for a full case, and also the usual Minecraft figure.

Regardless, I quickly realized I can't put together a full keyboard based on only this set, but can combine the Addams numpad I got earlier with the Adams (gray version) I've been using as a daily driver (since I broke some solder joints of my Azimuth during the photo shoot for Drop…)

Yep, in fact, I've been a daily Adam user for weeks now, the past few dozen posts here on kbd.news were typed on KBDcraft products!

Although I prefer numbers on a logical layer over a physical numpad, for the sake of this post I decided to put this thing together to test if everything works perfectly. (Spoiler: It does.)

Old method

The most interesting setting of the Adam0110b is probably the layout with a left-handed numpad, so I went with this arrangement. By the way, the kit seems to be a very affordable southpaw (maybe the most affordable on the market?).

My original Addams numpad came with some extra bricks to connect it to the Adam in various ways, so you had the means before to integrate the two, at least on the LEGO level:

If you are content with having two separate cables and two independent devices simply stuck together, you don't need anything else.

New method

With the merge/upgrade kits, however, you get a cleaner board, electronically integrated thanks to the extension ports.

Would you like a gap between the numpad and 60% part? Well, this is LEGO, grab some bricks and unleash your imagination.

Issues

While these LEGO-compatible kits are cool, versatile, affordable, and they offer a pretty unique experience, they are not perfect. I'd like to point out two issues: the instructions and the bending of the bottom plate.

My upgrade kit came with both the Adam instructions (ver3) and the upgrade kit booklet (ver1). These booklets get revised and improved from time to time, however, there were still some (rather funny than annoying) typos, but nothing that would make the actual building process impossible or particularly hard. Actually, I managed to put together the southpaw version based on the booklet alone (which by the way was slightly confusing for the lefty version) only to learn that there's already a much better updated manual online. I should have read my emails:

We realized that the instruction manual doesn't indicate very well on the left Numpad build. So if you'd like to try that please refer to the Latest Instruction, which is also updated on our website – KBDcraft.

My second issue was the bending of the bottom plates. In my case it's only cosmetics, the board may rock on a hard flat surface, but e.g. using a deskmat resolved the issue. However, some users reported their plate being bowed inward in a more extreme way, putting pressure on the spacebar:

The reasons for this problem are quite complex, and we are working on it since day one. Every batch of blocks gets better. But there are still some bends, just a difference in degree – BoyU.

It seems the bottom plates are lower profile than normal LEGO pieces, so I'm curious if genuine parts would resolve this issue.

Summary

I love these kits despite the small imperfections. They are versatile, affordable, and the unique building experience is something you can't compare to any other non-brick build. Thanks again BoyU for the opportunity.

Resources

• KBDcraft.store
• Kit Adam0110b product page

CB34S

CB34S is a 34-key columnar staggered Choc V1 monoblock split keyboard by Bubbleology – with Nice!Nano and Nice!View.

Bubbleology open sourced CB34S, a 34-key columnar staggered Choc V1 unibody split with Nice!View support.

CB34S is a 34 key column-staggered choc unibody keyboard that has wireless capabilities with the Nice!Nano and supports a Nice!View display. It’s my second attempt at a PCB design and I couldn’t have done it without the wonderful community – Bubbleology_3DP.

Specs

• 34 keys
• Choc V1, Choc spacing, hotswap
• Nice!Nano controller
• Nice!View display (optional)
• ZMK

Custom keycaps

This particular build sports custom MBK keycaps made by FK customs. (Use the KBDNEWS coupon code for a discount!) In a separate post Bubbleology reviews the service and the caps, which in this case is a MBK PBT+PU Hiragana set made of PBT with PU coating – similar to MBK Glow (according to the website).

Resources

• https://github.com/bubbleology/CB34S
• Unique caps by FK customs

PLA_NCK

Shane Hanna shared his PLA_NCK, a low-profile split ortholinear keyboard with Gateron KS-33 switches.

Shane Hanna aka snack_case open sourced the PLA_NCK, a split ortho board designed with low-pro Gateron KS-33 switches in mind.

I had assembled a Ferris Sweep previously but this time I decided to learn KiCad and Fusion360 to create my own design. I called it the PLA_NCK because my original intention was to create a split PLANCK since my Planck EZ has probably been my favourite layout to date – Shane.

Specs

• 48 keys (6x4 ortho halves)
• Gateron KS-33 low-profile hot-swappable switches
• nice!nano controller
• nice!view display
• 3D-printed case, cover and optional nice!view guard

I couldn't quite fit the controller under the keys while keeping it low so I gave up and added the nice!view as well for this version. I might attempt it again without a pre-made controller when my KiCad skills improve so I can ditch the display and make it closer to the split plank low profile vision I started with.

Resources

• https://github.com/shanna/pla_nck

Heron v1

Sneftel is introducing Heron, a Dactyl-inspired unibody keyboard with each column mounted on a laser-cut acrylic scaffold.

The pretty unique Heron is a scooped monoblock split keyboard by Sneftel, with each column mounted on a laser-cut acrylic scaffold – inspired by predecessors like the Dactyl, Glove80 and DataHand (thumb cluster).

With this keeb, I wanted to get as far away as possible from the “big plastic brick” look of the Dactyl. I was inspired by the Glove80’s sleek look and in particular by its “hey, just bend the FR4!” construction, but I wanted staggered columns and a more “weightless” look and I was sick of flat thumb clusters slowing me down – Sneftel.

The scaffolds are all parameterized and can be individually reprinted to adjust height, column cant/shift and bend radius. The only thing you'd need to adjust on the case is the column roll and spacing.

Column positioning is essentially borrowed from a Dactyl, with an extra partial row at the top so that the author could use the same 4x1 PCB for each column. (It’s a 3x6 at heart.)

I’m quite proud of the thumb clusters, though, which are inspired by the DataHand: wrapping around the thumb, with a heel-toe motion for the middle, makes it quick and easy to press virtually any combination of keys, and thumb travel is so much less than the flat Manuform cluster.

With regards to typing, the scaffold and case make a solid enough foundation that it, according to Sneftel, basically just feels like any other handwired.

It depends on how you feel about the Kailh Choc brown switches, though, which are divisive at best (though I like them).

The columns are 0.8mm FR4 PCBs screwed into 8mm acrylic; FFC ribbons run down the back legs, and diodes are on the main board.

Material: the base is a single 3D printed part, SLA printed resin in "the ugliest yellow", and six coats of spraypaint and varnish. The bottom is a clear acrylic plate. Elecrow did the printing, laser cutting and the PCBs as well. ("Not the quickest turnaround in the world but they do good work and their prices are remarkably low.")

Resources

• Heron Github repo
• More pics
• Video of the thumb cluster in use

Mechanical ZX81 keyboard

Brian Swetland published a mechanical keyboard for the legendary ZX81.

I just stumbled upon it, but Brian Swetland shared his keyboard design for the ZX81 two months ago.

More than 1.5 million units were sold of this legendary budget home computer of the early '80s, but despite its popularity, the awfulness of its membrate keyboard is undisputed.

Brian's mechanical keyboard replacement brings MX switches to the good old ZX81. It's compatible with both the original Sinclair ZX81, as well as the ZX81+38 modern recreation of that machine. And it's fully open source. The repository contains all the design files as well as various exported versions and images.

The custom keycaps were ordered via wasdkeyboards.

Resources

• https://github.com/swetland/zx81-keyboard/

KLP Lamé keycaps

Nikita Shirokov shared KLP Lamé, a set of new keycaps for Kailh Choc switches.

Nikita Shirokov aka braindefender, who brought us the Värdera keycaps, published a set of tasty low-profile caps going by the name KLP Lamé.

While the Värdera was a uniform profile, the Lamé comes in six different variants.

You can find all the Fusion 360 source files, STL models and more in the repo for these caps:

• Normal. Just a flat keycap profile with a small recess, that is soothing for fingers.
• Normal Tilted. Same as Normal, but top profile has a 15° tilt and 0.5mm upward height compensation.
• Thumb. Same as Normal, but top profile has a cut along down side.
• Saddle. Same as Thumb, but top profile has two symmetrical cuts.
• Saddle Tilted. Tilted version of Saddle. Same 15° and height compensation.
• Saddle Homing. Has three little bumps that is useful to determine home positions.

EDIT 2023-08-23

KLP Lamé caps now also with MX stems (source).

Resources

• https://github.com/braindefender/KLP-Lame-Keycaps/

Trackpoint shield for splits

Holykeebs offers various popular splits with a trackpoint module.

Holykeeb's Idan introduced a new trackpoint module and offers some popular split keyboards like Corne with MX and Choc spacing, and also Sweep, with this new option.

So after the trackball Corne and Sweep here are the trackpoint versions.

My obsession with compact keyboards and pointing devices continues. After going down the trackball rabbit hole and trying various layouts, I wanted to try the ol' faithful trackpoint.[…] after some trial and error, I found a decent setup that packages these to "modules" with the controller and pointing stick sandwiched together so they can be easily added to split keyboards that have a top mounted controller – Idan.

The trackpoint module takes the stock Sprintek SK6707-06, commonly found in Lenovo ThinkPads, and breaks it out to a convenient device to use in DIY keyboards, making the integration easier. It is split to two small PCBs: a sensor + pointing stick that is soldered on top of the microcontroller for easy index finger usage, and a driver that can be hidden below the keyboard PCB. The two connect with a 6 or 11 cm FFC cable.

The module is compatible with any keyboard that takes a Pro Micro or similar controller: in addition to VCC and GND, it requires two GPIO pins to function.

Idan found that the position is pretty good for index finger usage and requires minimal stretch. If you've used a trackpoint in the past, you can expect similar movement and sensitivity. Compared to the Pimoroni trackball, the movement is more predictable and smooth, but "really it's a different style because it needs constant force to move".

QMK's mouse keys can be used for mouse clicks, and other customizations such as scrolling mode are also easily doable.

Resources

• Trackpoint blog entry
• Trackpoint Corne LP, Corne Choc and Ferris Sweep.
• Separate trackpoint module coming later.