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
That crazy aussie knows what he's talking about. For practice, idk, you could take apart something electronic that you dont care about. Then desolder one of the components off the PCB and then practice soldering it back in place. As far as spending the least amount of money practicing, that's all I know. I guess you don't own a soldering iron? Unless you want to invest in a piece of equipment that you think you won't use but once or twice, I'd just ask your buddies if they have the skills you seek or know anyone that does. Good luck.
Soldering is not hard if you have decent (or corrected) vision and a moderately steady hand. All it takes is the will to learn. Watch a few Youtube videos and you'll see how easy it is. There's a "technique" do doing it well and yes, good tools help. But you gotta start somewhere.
My vacuum is a Soldapullt SS350 that I've owned for around 20 years.
I don't own the one at Sparkfun, I just listed it because I mentioned Sparkfun earlier. With that in mind, the TOL-13203 does not look bad. It's got a metal body and plunger, for example. For a casual user, and for someone who is already buying other stuff from Sparkfun, I think it could be okay. YourFace might not be soldering enough for it to matter.