Issue 158 / Week 11 / 2024

This is a hand-picked selection of last week's content from a keyboard enthusiast's perspective. Posts that may teach you something, make you think and contribute to the common knowledge of the DIY builder community.

There are 12+10 entries in this issue:

Editorial

• Keyboard projects, quick news, in the mailbox, meetups, new vendors and discount codes!
• An unusual editorial since there were not enough projects for a proper issue: what happened around my desk this week.

• Mangokitty published the files of the Tanto, a 40% with Katana-stlye symmetric layout. (source)
• An open-source ortho TKL with on-board controller: glyphkbd v2 by _galile0. (source)
• A 20-key minimal split: Pepesweep by Volodymyr Petiushka. Low profile, wireless, open source. (source)
• Dance! is a wireless-only split keyboard by chase-hunter.
• Penk Chen published his Haori36, a compact monoblock ortho with thumb cluster and optional Pimonori trackball.
• This is an old project for reference: Toad v2 by TalkingTree, an open-source 70% keyboard from 2017. (source)
• T. G. Marbach's JESK56 is a diodeless 56-key ortholinear keyboard, using a single RP2040-based microcontroller thanks to some fancy math and graph theory.

• The WhiteFox Eclipse by Project Eclipse is the latest take on this classic model: a prebuilt 68% board with magnetic assembly and a whole ecosystem of modular cases. (Now with 10% off!)

• The SpaceFN concept - setting up your space key as a layer switch when held - is probably one of the most useful tweaks in the keyboard hobby. Let me explain it.
• Shared by Kea Workshop's Claude, the KW keycap profile is uniform, spherical, MX-sized, and compatible with Choc V1 switches. (source)
• Crab Broom alu case by boardsource.
• A fancy Sofle by DOIO.
• Corne v3 Hexagon Case by DerBreManaar (source).
• LEGO stand for Kyria by Jason Cox – with a detailed blog post.
• Keyboard Market Tokyo was included in the meetup database, but it was more like a fair – with 1,000 visitors. Many photos out there, e.g. by Antique-Page, and Ryosuke Kawamura has this monstre write-up with lots of details.
• Holy guacamole. Leo_keeb made these offset stem keycaps to turn his keyboard with HHKB JP layout into an ortho.
• Keyboard art: No Internet / Dino104
• Mantis builds by luckybipedal (and here is Felix's article if you missed it last December)
• A 3D printed planter switch fidget toy by Creative_rooster00 (source).
• Donut keyboard by QDP2D.

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