ErgoMechKeyboards

"Sometimes you need to approach a new hobby and when you do, why not dive into it?"

Or somehow were the lines when, some weeks ago, I stumbled through the concept of alternate keyboard layouts, had a talk to a colleague who uses Dvorak ("Wait, I somehow just can't type on your keyboard...!"), had a glimpse at Colemak and finally thought "I just might" and embraced the concept of flushing my 80+ wpm 98% acc QWERTY-skills down the drain...

Some days later I decided to go for Colemak Mod-DH(m) as it seemed like a reasonable approach, wasn't totally weird and enjoys (mixed) support on the different platforms (Windows and Mac for Work, Linux for private use).

As it turns out basic Colemak has better OS support - but the second thought has already risen, using not the default keyboard but going the road a little further and seek out ergo mech keyboards. Those are usually programmable so the problem of OS-support completely solved itself.

First looks were at the Moonlander. However it struck me as being quite massive and heavy, and expensive, too! So where's that substantial improvement to my normal mech keyb I usually type on? Then came along the Corne. It's probably one of the first keyboards one stumbles across when looking a little further than pre-fabricated keyboards that check the ergo mech checkbox.

I found some for sale on the online flea market but, man, these were also pretty expensive; or badly soldered or had RGBs, LCDs and other stuff - which I think I could accept, but not being a ricer and thinking about the reason about how much of this ergo stuff is to not look at your keyboard - so that seemed pretty useless to me.

Downgrading the "what it must have" lead me to simpler, smaller and cheaper designs. What I also grasped from the Corne and other "pioneers" of emks is, that they are based on quite old chips and concepts. Those having only a few pins and crude firmwares necessaries the use of diodes and other, I may call them, workarounds.

So came the Cantor. It uses a larger chip with enough pinouts to just connect every switch to a pin and be done with it. Perfect. Easier to solder, less stuff to order and later potentially break.

I liked the increased column stagger, too. Ah, the column stagger. That was something I was really looking forward to, having being accustomed to the row stagger, which I subconsciousnessly found, and still find, weird and not making much sense in our times.

While digging through all the different keybs (Sofle, Helix, and so many more) I narrowed down on the Cantor, just to find the Piantor, a slightly revamped version using a Raspberry Pi Pico rather than a quite exotic Black Pill, which might present itself as having a lower market share and probably being more difficult to order.

Now, that the prices for electronics have settled down a bit after the Corona rise, it seemed like the perfect time to get my hands dirty with soldering stuff so I began to configure my soon-to-be new Piantor.

I chose low profile keys. Not because I find them easier to type on (my previous normal keyboard had MX) but because when I make a change why not experiment with more than one variable?

I usually type on MX reds (linear, 50g) but having heard even lower force is better for ergo mech keyboards I chose the Kailh Choc Red Pro (linear, 35g).

I also ordered a mixed bag of other switches to try some of them out and a set of Light Blue (now Pink, previously gChoc) (linear, 20g) for the pinkes or all the keys.

So the keyboard has to be hot swappable, which the Piantor can be, if you solder the hotswap sockets and not the switches themselves.

Keycaps: the "gold standard" for Kailh Chocs: MBK from FK Keycaps with two specialized caps to indicate the two homing keys. I thought about ordering caps with letters on them but then again I want to type blindly, as I am accustomed to that already on QWERTY, and I don't want to be needlessly tempted to look at the caps.

So, soldering and sticking it all together left me with the keyboard you see in the pictures. And I really like the simple, clean look of it. Nothing more than needed, nothing less than having everything one could wish for. The micro controllers were soldered to have them not stick out too much from the PCB and because I don't intend to switch them; Micro USB is totally fine for me, I have plenty of cables for this and the cables are much cheaper than the USB C ones. Also I never broke a plug in my whole life on any hardware I own so they did not strike me as especially endangered to break when being handled by me.

I was unsure if I needed a case or if everything stays in its place when used without a top plate, and I can confirm that the switches do not fall off, rattle or wobble at all. They sit very firm in the hotswap sockets and typing on the keys just presses them back onto the PCB and into the sockets. Removing them really needs force. If that is still the case after switching them several times is still to be experienced.

But lacking a case the underside had some sharp edges from the soldering and the sockets. So I made an underside out of cardboard and stitched it in place through the screw holes (can I have a patent on this, please?). It works perfectly and only adds maybe 0,3 mm in height (or none if you use rubber feet), is comfortable to use and costs literally nothing. Feels pretty guerrilla but actually looks quite nice and very slim and light.

For the first keyboard layout I chose Miryoku (it uses Colemak Mod-DH by default), which leaves the outer key columns unused, but in case I want wo experiment with a different layout later, I can reactivate the keys. The outer columns can be broken off but I still want to keep my flexibility in case I want to use those later.

The default Miryoku layout was okay. I later switched to INVERTEDT, which re-arranges the cursor keys a bit as I'm no vi user and wanted a more classic cursor layout.

Programming the keyboard itself is simple as the firmware provides a Vial interface so using the application to rearrange the keys was very very easy. I also found a Miryoku via file which I could use to kickstart everything in a very short manner. It had a few misbound keys and Mac-bindings, too, but those were easily fixed.

So, that's the story how I became a ergo mech keyb user; it all started with the innocent curiosity to experiment with an alternate keyboard layout - and only in the end it closed the circle.

How my learning of Colemak went in the meantime is a different story, for a different time :D (... that damned 60 wpm plateau x_x' )

Additionally here's a gallery with some more pictures: https://imgur.com/a/JU1gTpn

I hope you like it! Have fun :)