Ergonomic Design - Layout - Parts - Tools - Construction - Updates
- 60% keyboard for programmers, especially vim users
- Symmetric ortholinear / matrix layout
- Split and tentable
- Tenting angle quickly adjustable by moving the tenting racks inwards or outwards
- Mild contour to adapt to finger lengths, with z-staggering and cherry-profile keycaps
- Fn key is at the home position of left thumb, which makes cursor moving keys on the right half easily accessible.
- Ctrl and Fn keys are dual-role modifiers. When tapped, they produce Escape, Enter and Backspace instead. The only downside is that they can’t auto-repeat because they are modifiers when pressed and held. (Hint: Use Ctrl-Backspace to delete words.)
- Left-click and right-click are at the bottom row of the left half. One can move the mouse with right hand and click on the keyboard with left hand.
- Brackets and Backslash are at the bottom row of the right half. Single-quote is right above Enter. These changes allow the right half to have only 6 columns and mirror the left half.
- The blue keys are the home keys of fingers at rest.
- 6 3D-printed case pieces and 2 tenting racks
- Front piece, back piece and chip cover for each case
- 8 M2x16 screws and 8 M2 nuts for assembling the cases
- 60 Gateron red switches (or any Cherry MX compatible switches), plate mounted
- 60 Blank PBT keycaps from a 120-piece set
- 60 O-rings for dampening
- One Teensy 3.2 or Teensy LC as controller
- For handwired matrix
- 22 AWG 6-color stranded hook-up wires
- One 0.25mm copper sheet, 6x6 inches
- 60 1N4148 diodes
- One USB-C gen 2 cable (with plugs cut off) for connecting halves. See issue #1.
- One USB mini cable for connecting the keyboard to computer
- 3D printer
- Soldering iron
- Tweezers
- Wire stripper
- Heavy duty scissors
- Knife
- Nails and hammer
- Filer
- Multimeter
- Print cases: 16 hours with PLA and 12 hours with ABS
- Print tenting racks: 2 hours with PLA and 1.5 hours with ABS
- Print chip covers: 10 minutes
3D models in STL format as well as the OpenSCAD file producing them are in models directory. I use FlashPrint for FlashForge Creator Pro to convert STL files to X3G files before printing them from a SD card.
There are three choices of racks. rack-rigid.stl is quick to print and rigid for high tenting angle. rack-curvy.stl is good looking but not rigid. rack-blend.stl is good looking and rigid.
- Install switches: 10 minutes
- Orient switches: pins are at the top half
- Install O-rings and keycaps: 10 minutes
- Use any of the digital pins except pin 13 (LED)
- Feel free to use pins different than what are in the diagrams
- Mark on stranded wire where column pins are
- Use wire stripper to cut at each mark and 5mm to the right of the mark, i.e. two horizontal cuts 5mm apart at each mark
- Make a vertical cut between the two horizontal cuts with a knife and remove the insulation to expose the strands
- Split strands into two parts so a column pin can get through
- Solder the wire to the pins
- Cut 3~4mm wide stripe off copper sheet with heavy-duty scissors
- Mark positions of row pins on the stripe
- Drill small holes (D~=1mm) at the marks and an extra hole at the end toward the center for wiring the row to the controller
- Use hammer and nail if no drill at hand
- Diodes with black terminal oriented downward
- The black terminal is inserted into a hole on the stripe and bent upward
- The other terminal is wrapped around a row pin for at least one complete circle
- Make sure the stripe doesn’t touch any exposed part of column wires
- Solder diodes to row pins
- Solder diodes to copper stripe. When solder is applied with the side (not the tip) of the iron touching the stripe, a small “flooding” area of solder creates a strong solder joint.
- Cut off extra length of diode terminals
- Use a multimeter. Turn the dial to diode sign.
- Red on column, black on row
- Press the key at the column-row. Multimeter should read current.
- Avoid pin 13 which is for the built-in LED
- Figure out how to route the wires before soldering
- Rows are routed with fairly short wires so either solid or stranded wires work
- Columns are routed with stranded wires for flexibility
- The controller has its program/reset button facing down so it's accessible without opening the case
- Prepare USB-C cable
- Cut the plugs off
- Insert the cable into a few O-rings, which can act as stoppers
- Mark the length to reach the furthest column
- Make a round cut at the mark with a knife and remove the insulation
- Remove the silver-colored mesh and paper wrap to expose wires
- Observe 4 thin wires and 10 thick wires (2 from a twisted pair)
- Solder 4 thin wires into one
- Pin or tape USB-C cable so it doesn’t move around
- Decide which wire for which column/row
- Color coding helps, e.g. red USB-C wire to red column wire
- Cut wires to proper lengths
- Use soldering iron to remove insulation at the end of each wire
- Wrap strands around a soldering joint and solder
- Prepare USB-C cable to expose wires at the other end
- Pin or tape USB-C cable so it doesn’t move around
- Cut wires to proper lengths
- Use soldering iron to remove insulation at the end of each wire
- Wire rows of the left half to rows of the right half, so logically there are 5 rows.
- Ground the silver-colored mesh to GND pin of the controller. Ghost keys can pop up without this.
- Wire columns of the left half to the controller
- Note down which controller pin each row/column is wired to. There are 5 rows and 12 columns. Column 0 is where left shift is and column 11 is where right shift is.
- Plug in USB mini cable to the controller and connect the keyboard to a computer.
- Download Teensyduino which extends Arduino to support Teensy controllers.
- Clone firmware repo on the computer.
- Update keyboards/darknight/darknight.ino with above-noted row pins and column pins.
- Create a symbolic link in Arduino's libraries directory to the cloned firmware directory.
- Open
darknight.inoin Arduino IDE. - In the IDE, change "Tools > Board" setting to be "Teensy LC" or "Teensy 3.2/3.1" depending on the controller chip, and change "Tools > USB Type" setting to "Keyboard + Mouse + Joystick".
- Use "Sketch > Verify/Compile" to make sure the firmware compiles fine, then use "Sketch > Upload" to upload the firmare to the controller.
- Test the new keyboard!
It happened once that pressing any two keys among Q, W, E, R and T at the same time would also produce Tab. It was fixed by swapping the wires connecting to the first row and the second row. The exact cause is still unknown but a guess is along the line of induced current.
- Make sure USB mini cable and USB C cable fit in the cable hole
- May need to enlarge the cable hole with a filer
- Insert screws and fasten the cases with nuts
- Cut 8mm pieces from USB-C insulation and insert rack feet into the pieces to increase friction on surface
- Slide each case into a rack and adjust tenting angle
Change of color scheme. Maybe call it WhiteKnight.
What else is better than building another keyboard in these holidays! I call this one RedBaron.
Now I have three such keyboards, Darknight trapped at work due to the pandemic, WhiteKnight for working at home and RedBaron for personal use.
For this build, I just used stranded wires for the matrix. It turns out to be simpler since the wires can be routed to the controller directly.
A bridge connecting the two halves turns out to be a good solution for high-angle tenting. The bridge is simply the two tenting racks joined together, with small adjustments in size.
With a little more engineering, the entire structure can be locked by tension so it can be easily moved around.
Darknight is officially missing in the office during the COVID pandemic. Site maintenance took it as a company equipment and recycled it. After nearly 4 years of heavy use, Gateron Red linear switches in WhiteKnight begin to fail. Tangerine is the new replacement build.
One surprise is with the USB-C cable ordered from Amazon, which is thicker and has many more ground wires than before. I just leave them unused.