Issue 192 / Week 22 / 2025
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 11+21 entries in this issue:
Editorial
Behind the scenes #192
Keyboard projects, tips, quick news, keyboard art, in the mailbox, meetups, vendors, discounts.
Switch trends
Best-selling keyboard switches of May 2025
In this month's overview of community-favorite mechanical switches, here are May's top picks, based on real sales data provided by vendors and manufacturers.
Review
KiiBOOM LOOP65 review
The KiiBOOM LOOP65 is an affordable 65% keyboard with a cool multi-color aluminum case. A relatively compact wireless board supporting VIA.
Projects
Mathpad
Summa Cogni's Mathpad is a dedicated device that makes it easy to type equations.
Paicorea
Paicorea is a 42-key low-profile split keyboard designed by DreaM117er – with PG1316S switches and Azoteq trackpad.
Aryess
A feature-rich open-source 65% keyboard PCB: Aryess by Pioz.
Pineapple60
Saoto Tsuchiya's Pineapple60 project is a set of ergo keyboard PCBs for ThinkPads – with trackpoint.
Charlieflex keyboard
Chad Transtrum's nice unibody split with encoder: the Charlieflex.
Sweek
The Sweek is earvingad's version of the Ferris/Sweep.
KOMETA / MOKETA
This split comes with lower controller mounting: KOMETA by inpudiy.
rkbrd3
Andrew Rudenko's rkbrd3 is a 3D-printed wireless parametric split with keywell.
Quick news
Closed-source, commercial, WIP, etc.
A handwired ortho by RunRunAndyRun: the Hex69 with some progress photos.
Flicker proof of concept by MomentSouthern250. Only five keys plus two thumb keys per half, with three-way Hall-effect switches.
The NP-R [IC] is a retro looking numpad with bluetooth, solenoid, and a layer selector knob.
Cornix is a nice split [GB] by Jezail Studio.
Hillside remake by chauquest. To be open sourced.
SVRD60 – with separable arrow/nav/numpad part.
Ivery58 is an Allium58/Lily58 derivative by applefreak111.
A modular split framework by Squalius-cephalus. For prototyping, with adjustable stagger and splay.
And another one: Phasmic MKIII by phantomv1988.
A handwired ortho by whateverworks325. With touchpad and some progress photos.
And Wittle 35, a hanwired 30-40%.
ThumbsUp! v11 by ak66666.
Keyboard art
Handwired stainless steel keyboard by Sli22ard.
Hi-Viz cables with custom formulated Ceracore by kool-keys – matching Maxvoltar's Hi-Viz caps.
Weekly side profile: Qi65.
Another crazy 3D-printed case by Rain2, this time Tetris themed.
TIPS
As reported by pgetreuer, QMK's 2025 Q2 breaking changes have been released. Including a new Flow Tap tap-hold option, helping with home row mods to avoid accidental mod triggers.
DIY homing keys. Feelingoodbrocut the angles of staples and glued the metal bar to the keycaps.
leftright.space is an online typing test to show if you type faster with your right or left hand (and compare it to everyone else's results). For some common layouts. Not sure if the numbers are correct. Allegedly, I type much faster with my left hand.
Kailh Deep Sea dampening mod experiments by Wonderful-Box.
Choc caps with AZERTY legends. Which, since the original KEA profile is uniform, means simply Choc caps with legends. Shared by ThatCoffeeNerd.
splitkb.com, MoErgo Glove80, Upgrade Keyboards, Aiksplace, @keebio, Cyboard, Jacob Mikesell, KEEBD, littlemer-the-second, @kaleid1990, Timo, TALPKEYBOARD, ghsear.ch, u/motfalcon, Brendan P., Bob Cotton, FFKeebs, @therick0996, Christian Mladenov, Schnoor Typography, Daniel Nikolov, u/eighty58five, Caleb Rand, James McCleese, Ben M, zzeneg, Spencer Dabell, Anatolii Smolianinov, Penk Chen, Clacky, Stefan S., Alex Miller, Matthias Goffette, Trey Causey, Dylan Ingham, Gordon Diggs, HLPlanet, Cloyce, Mario S., Hating TheFruit, Duncan B., HubertTheMad, Shnobble, Jesse L., Hana Lee, Andres Sakk, Davidjohn Gerena, nutylabs, s_p_l_o_d_e, Ikasaya, Technofrikus, Dickiedyce, drudru
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