Hey! I saw posts from here on my feed, and have been sucked in. Beautiful keyboards!
But, I’m a bit overwhelmed with options. If I want to get started with an EMK, what would you suggest?
I am comfortable with general soldering (though haven’t done surface-mount), so putting a kit together should be doable. I use a Dvorak keyboard layout, so would prefer a way to customize keycaps. But … I would prefer a kit that comes with everything (or at least a checklist), and doesn’t require me to figure out what components to order, to help ensure I have compatible parts.
Thanks for your suggestions!
I’d like to give a +1 for Beekeeb as a vendor. Leo there is a rockstar with incredible support. They provide kits with everything in them so you can assemble them like Legos, or presoldered and assembled boards too. Beyond that, Beekeeb invests in open source, often releasing new designs but also publishing variations of boards and cases and firmware for all of us to use.
A good place to start is our wiki, you’ll find there a small list of some popular keyboards as well as links to other databases of keyboards what hopefully will help you. some obvious ones: Corne (crkbd), Kyria, Iris, Lily58, Sofle, Sweep.
If you search, the open-source ones linked generally are being sold as kits in a few places, so have a look around. you can see a list of vendors in our wiki too, it may not be exhaustive but it’s pretty comprehensive.
Some questions that you will have to ask yourself is what keys you’re interested in losing. Do you need a number row? Function key row? Expectations for how much you use layers and thumbs can help to decide.
I’ve always liked a number pad better than the row, so I figure getting used to layers will be the way to go. Function keys would be the same. I’m looking at beekeeb’s piantor kit with 42 keys, which seems like a decent starter. Rotary encoders are attractive, but I’ll probably save them for the future, especially as the kits he has with optional encoders have either too many keys, or fewer than I want to start with.
I haven’t yet built a board with encoders. I think they’re neat but pretty optional. I’ve actually been considering building a Piantor myself. It seems pretty solid
What are some of your recommendations for an ergo keyboard with f row and minimal layers.
All of the ergo keyboards I see out there never have the F row and have so many layers.
You can customize a Dactyl to have them. But here are some that have function keys that are a bit more pre-designed:
I’m sure there are more out there, but they’re not popular so you have to customize or dig.
I’m an absolute beginner, and I went with Beekeeb’s Piantor keyboard. I couldn’t be happier.
The MBK Legend keycaps have homing versions for Colemak and Dvorak in standard kit if you go that route. They’re great keycaps
Depending on what region you’re in, there’s probably gonna be some folks selling cool ergomech kits. I’m personally in the EU, can recommend keeb.supply, Keycapsss, 42keebs, splitkb.com, Keygem.
I’m probably forgetting some, and these are only the EU-based ones. Maybe someone else could recommend vendors in other regions :)
Whew boy, what a rabbit hole chancing into this thread was for me.
Went to keeb.supply and then that fantastic word document on keyboard layouts and now I want to buy a soldering iron, hundreds of pounds of keyboard parts, and learn an entirely new layout.
Aay very happy that linking that document in the intro to small keyboards helped someone :)
You can also easily try alternative layouts on your current keyboard via tools such as kmonad.
