That’s an awesome project.

One of workmates has been using it, I’ve actually printed the resulting STLs from this when his printer died.

Links updated, let me know how you go!

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.

Thankyou 😊

Thankyou.

I’ve started assembling V1 today. Which means I can finish the mechanical design this week. I’m looking forwards to having it, I think it’s going to look very nice.

I expect once it’s at a “now it’s done” stage that might come up more.

Right now this is little more than a nice POC. I think the refined version will be quite a bit better…. And easier to make all going well.

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.

Ah, sadly I don’t have this with ZMK, going wireless very much limits what can be done. I’d love to add a small trackball for example (PIM447 maybe) but the energy budget is a big factor.

Ah, yes, I did suspect this was muscle memory at work.

The stagger is very similar to that of a Sofle though, and, inline with goals it should hopefully be usable by other newcomers.

Thanks.

I took some hand measurements and this is what it came out with:

I didn’t add the splay, I started to add it, but decided that in practical terms it likely doesn’t make much difference but it made things quite unwieldy looking.

In practice I’ve found the pinky column needs to drop by about 3-4mm which is a change I have in the newest iteration.

Nice, I’m glad it resonates with you.

In a month or so I expect having a properly refined release.

No worries, you’re very welcome.

If you’d like I can share the V1.01 files to you too. The improvements are also electrical as well as mechanical (eg some caps to smooth out the rollers). Otherwise I anticipate publishing in about 4ish weeks time.

I’d love to see that.

I have a design I’m tinkering with as an idea that has two 5 way sticks. The actuation force is too high IMO, but I could not find a suitable digital switch.

Are you interfacing to the switch sticks using analog or do you have some nice low power digital solution?

This one does have a “math mode”, if the numbers layer key is double tapped it locks in the numbers and other “maths buttons” until the numbers layer key is tapped again.

Next I’d like to make a macro pad that has a ten key mode for “home use” with some big rotary encoders that matches the style of the Rolio (to be called Twistio).

That said, I am tempted to make a split with a number row (Rolio Max?). If I do that then there will be enough room for a 5 way stick below the roller encoder, I couldn’t fit that in this one. But this would be more for “fun” as I quite like the Corne after having used both the Sofle and Corne.

That said, it’ll need to be much later this year, I have a CNC machine on order. I’d not want to prototype something like this again without a CNC machine of my own. The process is a bit expensive, the controllers and displays are a bit pricey too IMO (though still good value given what goes into making them).

Thanks.

I think it’d be great if they started showing up on AliExpress.

It’s beautiful!

I really like this, nicely done 😊

That looks super clean.

How have you found the durability of the resin?

I’m hopefully sending some stuff off for manufacturing soon and I’ve been toying with a resin version as it greatly simplifies things for me, but I’m unsure it will be very resilient.

Thanks.

The time and cost exceeds any practical advantage, so, yeah, a little crazy is about right I guess.

Thanks.

I took hand measurements using the following:

https://pashutk.com/ergopad/

As it turns out the Corne is very close to my best layout.

I like the Corne, except it has no backlight, arrows are not very convenient (hence scrollers). I also move between Mac and windows, the extra modifiers on the Sofle make that easier.

In the end I’ve basically got a Sofle/Corne hybrid with scrollers and a backlight.