Support for Alternative Layouts
This is a summary of how alternative layouts have been supported by kits such as Colevrak and Homing. It is not a discussion of alt layout performance and development, but if that interests you I highly recommend starting with Pascal Getreuer’s A guide to alt keyboard layouts (why, how, which one?). It’s a concise and comprehensive overview with links to some great sites that go deeper. He also has a separate Links about keyboards page. The Keyboard layouts doc he recommends explains layout goals and metrics in detail, summarizing the alt layouts discussed here as well as more than one hundred others. Sculpted-profile The majority of custom keycap sets are sculpted-profile (Cherry, SA, MT3, KAT, etc. - more on profiles generally here) so let’s start there. Because each row has a unique keycap shape, alt layouts require a unique keycap for each legend that moves off its QWERTY row. At first there were two The Dvorak layout was patented in 1936 by August Dvorak & William L....
Apr 23, 2024
If you really want Ergodox pre-assembled, then you really should have order an assembled set from falbatech. A lot of us ordered this exactly because this is a kit, and we can all add the customization we want onto the keyboard.
I also don’t get where the demand comes from, this version of the Ergodox is already easy enough to assemble, the only thing you need to solder are the switch and it really takes a special kind of skill to screw up soldering them. On top of that, you do realized asking them to have the key board pre-assembled as some sort of compensation will only add MORE quality control steps/issue and logistics which are the main cause of delay in the first place.
Honestly.... any gift is fine... just as long as they are practical with this project. And thanks to keep on top of the quality control.
I checked out youtube. EEVblog has some good intro videos on soldering. Then I got an iron and a couple of cheep learner kits off Amazon.
This site is probably one of the best over all tutorial video I can find regarding to DIY electronics.
After going through the tutorial, If you still feels uneasy, I would recommend you to purchase some universal printed circuit board, and purchase some of the cheapest resistors you can find, populate (feed both legs of the resistor through the board)
and start soldering each leg for practice.
After a wire is soldered in test the join by jiggling the wire a little see if the solder cracks or if the track on the board lifts.
Attempt to solder two wires close together and see if you can do so with out connecting the two wires. Use a multimeter to test if the wires are connected.
The biggest challenge I see with these boards will be not getting things so hot that you lift the tracks on the pcb.
It was my first bit of soldering and it really wasn't hard at all. I was able to solder them on and remove them again a few times for practice. It's also possible to mess around with the firmware to change the functionality of the buttons. They make quite a fun desk toy too!