• 6 Posts
  • 43 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • I hear you, it’s a slightly bigger stretch, but on the other hand habits are hard to break. Also, if you’re a gamer I could definitely see the dedicated number row as a hard requirement, particularly if you’re not comfortable making custom layouts.

    I still use a qwerty layout and have a number row in my numbers layer as it requires less re-training.

    I suspect that layouts with a dedicated number row are a transitional form for most people that stick with it, I quickly moved away from the Sofle for example. As before though I can understand the desire for something different.


  • Index fingers, though you can use thumbs but that felt quite clumsy to me.

    In the base layer they act as arrow keys. In the functions layer they are volume and zoom.

    I’ve found the arrow key scrolling to be quite nice. It takes a little getting used to, but once you’re used to it regular arrow keys for text navigation feel clunky.


  • Yes. It’s fairly straight forward and there are test points to check everything is soldered properly as you go.

    There is one exception, the backlight has some very small surface mount parts, the SMD resistors in particular are quite fiddly.

    My current thinking is to sell pre-soldered kits with all the surface mount parts done (LEDs withstanding). This way people only need to solder the controller sockets and encoders to get a functioning keyboard.

    I will of course keep all of the design files freely available. If you order your own PCBs from JLCPCB you will need to order a batch of 5 so you’ll have some practice boards 😊

    I’m still working on a cost effective way to solve the pre-soldering of LEDs. I’ve looked into reverse mountable LEDs, but I’ve yet to find something that meets the required criteria (price, color, efficiency and availability).







  • I am possibly the worst person to ask. I got a soldering iron for my 9th birthday.

    But, I suppose practice, like anything. Watch a bunch of YouTube videos for beginners, get some practice boards (you can buy PCBs with a bunch of “junk parts”) to practice the skill. Also, get a decent soldering iron, I use a TS101, but apparently the Pinecil is good too. A bad soldering iron or bad solder are a disaster waiting to happen. Soldering is fairly easy to pick up until you get to the really tiny surface mount stuff (0805 and smaller). Most boards do not require that kind of soldering.

    Typeractive sell some wireless Corne kits that I believe have most parts pre-soldered.

    If you were is Australia I could sell you a wireless Corne with a travel case for parts cost (I don’t use it)… sadly you are not but you may find something on eBay??..…

    Best of luck I guess.





  • Thanks. The loose assumptions are dead on.

    Funnily enough after implementing the “math mode” I realised I’d made a gaming half board.

    If you use szxc instead of wasd in math mode you have all your numbers still. The left side has a USB mode so you can avoid lag that come from BT (though that hasn’t been an issue for me). SZXC could easily be remapped to WASD on the firmware.

    It got me to thinking whether I should tinker with a games mode…. But I don’t play enough PC games to have the right perspective for that. I suspect it’d be a very poor fit and more the kind of thing best left to people that like to make their own stuff to update the keymap who do a bit more of that than me.