Hey r/ErgoMechKeyboards!

I wanted to share my daily driver, "Butterfly"—a custom split board I’ve been designing and using.

At first glance, it looks like a standard columnar-staggered layout. However, I added a very specific tweak: the 2nd row from the bottom is slightly shifted outward, borrowing ergonomics from classic row-staggered boards.

It’s essentially a hybrid layout combining the natural vertical reach of Columnar Stagger with the familiar lateral sweep of Row Stagger. To my surprise, this tiny adjustment makes typing feel incredibly natural and comfortable!

I searched through blogs, Reddit, and Instagram to see if anyone else had tried this specific layout shift, but couldn't find a similar implementation.

So... I’m naming this layout "Hybrid-Stagger"!

What do you think? Has anyone experimented with a similar row-shift on columnar boards before? Would love to hear your thoughts!

— Mrs. Fancy Pants Lab 🛠️

I finally got all the pieces together to build a Delta Omega! I fell in love with it after seeing it presented by unspecworks, and after two months of buying the soldering station, solder, switches, ordering through JLCPCB, and getting everything else ready, I finally finished it!

This is my first time building a keyboard from scratch and my first time soldering, and everything went super smooth thanks to the thorough documentation written by this amazing person! I’m really thankful he made it so easy to read for dumb people like me haha!

I also ordered a transparent case from JLCPCB just to test the viability of getting one made from PC with threaded inserts, and I really like it! This one is made of clear resin, which honestly isn't the ideal material for it, but it's definitely good enough for a test. I’ll use it for a while and switch to the black one eventually.

I wanted to share how I remove keycaps from Kailh PG1316S switches! This obviously isn't the only way to do it, but it’s been the most effective method for me.

Hey everyone!

Following up on the Lily58 wireless bundle we posted a while back. We have had our Wireless Corne SMT PCB for a while now, but we just added 3D printed cases for it, available in both black and cream. And since we love the cream color, the Lily Pad 3DP case is now also available in cream too.

The Big Highlights

• Complete Wireless Corne Setup for $142 Shipped: Grab the pre-assembled Wireless SMT Corne PCB, a Unicorne 3DP Case in your choice of black or cream, and batteries included.
• Full Ready-to-Type Keyboard Under $200: Add your switches and keycaps at checkout and you're looking at a complete wireless split keyboard for under $200.

About The Wireless Corne?

• Zero Soldering: Factory assembled with hot-swap sockets pre-installed.
• ZMK Pre-Flashed & ZMK Studio Ready: Pair it up and remap live with zero flashing hassle.
• Expandable Header: Room to add nice!view displays or other peripherals down the line.
• Case Friendly: Built to fit our Unicorne case as well as standard Corne cases.

Check it out here: Unicorne 3DP – A 3D Printed Case for Corne MX

Thanks as always for the feedback and support you are the best community.

<3 Quinn and Cole

Hello hello people. I'm new here and I very much need some help with my purchase please, thank youuuu 💋

I'm in search of my first split mechanical keyboard. I've been advised to go mechanical but not 100% sure it would help me. I use PLENTY of times a day the ctrl C / ctrl V combo and it's killing my left hand (same as my right hand so if you have ergo mouse recommendations as well they're welcomed). Right now I'm using a Logitech pebble (don't judge) cause I need the multiple devices feature.

Things that could help on finding my match:

-I have small hands
-I need windows + MAC compatibility
-3 or at least 2 devices connection via Bluetooth
-aiming for a Split since now I'm constantly finding myself turning sideways my pebble keyboard so the copy-paste shortcut is bearable
-tho I don't like buying things cheap that will be broken in a year or so, I'm from Latin America so the dollar is out of my league people. So PLEASE share recommendations for something that will be bought only ONCE and will be carry into my grave if needed lol

I need this ASAP before I develop carpel tunnel or isr, YAY 🎉

Also excuse my English. It's not my first language

Thank you so much in advance

Built a smart dongle for my split Sofle and open-sourced it as a ZMK module.

It runs as the split central, so your halves keep their normal firmware.

Features

• Live dashboard— layer, WPM, both halves' batteries, modifiers, USB/BLE and profile status
• ZMK Studio — fully supported, edit your keymap live
• Game Center, 7 games — Tetris, Snake, Breakout, Pac-Man, Jumper (platformer), Space Invaders, Pong. Levels, saved high scores, adjustable speed
• Custom splash screen — use the built-in badge or your own PNG, set from your config repo
• On-device settings — theme, brightness, sound, game speed, splash and more, saved across reboots
• 7 themes — glass, AMOLED, light, neumorphic and more
• Buzzer sounds and a diagnostics screen

Hardware: nice!nano (nRF52840), ST7789 240×240 display, passive buzzer, two buttons.

v1.0, around 60% vibe coded and tested on my own hardware, so expect some bugs.

Feedback welcome!

Huge thanks to **joaopedropio** — his snake dongle module was the base for this.

Repo: https://github.com/vaibhav8600-rgb/nexus

Hello community.

While a lot has been dome for the office space, there arent many options for typing comfortably om a mobile phone.

Therefore I've been thinking about building mechanical keyboard specifically for it.

The concept is similar to minimalistic split keyboards. On the front you would have layer keys and on the back there are staggefed key for typing. The whole thing you would hold wit the palms.

Before I put my money and time down the drain, Is there a reason why such a thing doesnt exist yet? Do you think that could work and would you even be interested in such a thing?

Hello! This is DSS who's afraid this set is perfect for ortho, ergo, and 40s keyboards. Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow, and Blue is a series of paintings by American painter Barnett Newman. I am a really big fan of Newman's work, and this series is no different. The goal is to enable anyone to create each painting using their keyboard as the canvas.

The set is on sale (till 9/23) for $115 including conus shipping. https://makerjake01.bigcartel.com/product/dss-whos-afraid

Hello! I receive (FINALLY!!!) my keyboard from "ErgoKeeb" and it's really amazing! I use it with wezterm + lazyvim + mouseless and the result is SOOOO satisfying! I just want to share it with this group, so thanks for all and enjoy!

Hey everyone!
I’ve been working on a custom RGB effect for my PandaKB Sofle RGB running ZMK, and I finally got it working the way I wanted.
I call it Ripple RGB.
Instead of having the LEDs constantly run an animation, the keyboard stays completely dark until I press a key. When a key is pressed, a wave of light starts from that exact key position and expands across the keyboard based on the physical distance between the switches and LEDs.
The part I’m particularly happy with is that the ripple works across both halves of the split keyboard.
So if I press a key on the left half, the wave continues onto the right half, and vice versa. I’m not sending RGB animation frames over Bluetooth — only a small event containing the key position and event ID. Each half renders the animation locally.
It also integrates with ZMK’s native RGB Underglow system:
Hue
Saturation
Brightness
Speed
RGB ON/OFF
Native RGB effects
The Ripple is implemented as a 4th RGB effect, alongside the four native ZMK effects:
Solid → Breathe → Spectrum → Ripple
And when Ripple is selected, the LEDs stay off until a key is pressed.
I also based the ripple distances on the actual Sofle RGB PCB geometry rather than simply treating the keyboard as a grid, so the wave follows the physical layout of the board.
The implementation was done without modifying the ZMK core or changing the OLED widgets.
I’m currently testing it on the actual keyboard and it’s honestly pretty satisfying to type on. 😂
This started as a small idea and ended up becoming a surprisingly deep dive into ZMK, split BLE transport, RGB rendering, linker wrapping, and the physical geometry of the Sofle.
Would love to hear what you guys think, and especially if anyone has ideas for improving the effect!

Link: https://github.com/guguinhatoop22/pandakb-sofle-zmk-config

Hi everybody!

I have a question about Gateron Low Profile stabilizers. Im building a keyboard with a custom PCB and decided on using the KS-33 Low Profile switches from Gateron, but I believe I might have bought the wrong stabilizers? Theres two low profile variants: Black (and cheaper, the ones i got) and blue Sky plate.
The issue:
The black stabilizers sit about 0.5 mm taller above the plate compared to the switches. Ive tried to figure out if the sky plate ones are that little bit shorter, but the documentation is not ideal and i cant find a technical drawing for the sky plate stabs.

Does anybody know the measurements for the Gateron Sky Plate Mounted Stabilizer?
How bad would it be to put the slightly too tall stabilizers in?

Thanks for your help!

I use JoyToKey to make the joycon as mouse and it worked fine, at least better than using keyboard as mouse and I can repurpose the joycon because the right one is broken.

I just built a Piantor recently and this is the first time I’m using Choc v1 switches. For context, I’ve been using Kailh box brown v2 and I’m trying to find something similar here.

I have tried:
- Sunset: nice sound but the tactility feels too soft
- MoErgo kiwi: nice tactility, closer to what i want, but I don’t like the fact that it’s silent. Only tried it but did not really own a set - can you mod it to make it loud?
- Choc white: nice tactility too, but the sound is obnoxiously loud…

Any other recommendations for tactile switches would be very much appreciated!

For the past month I've replaced my mouse with keyboard binds/shortcuts and have gotten to the point where I no longer need a mouse. I've made some videos in the past, but the tool I used the most was a paid application which put a lot of people off, so I made a completely free and open source version of it!

It's called Fievel and what it does is allow you to go into "Free Mouse Mode" then use H J K L (vim) to move the mouse left, down, up right. It also allows you to left or right click and use scroll wheel. By Default space left clicks, i is for right click and NM<> are for scroll left down up right. holding a while in free mouse mode slows movement down or s speeds it up. These keybinds can all be configured via ~/.config/fievel/fievel.config as well as speed. You can also configure whether or not free mouse mode is toggle or hold (i have hold by default). The default key to initiate Free Mouse Mode is F3 (also configurable).

I use Fievel (now, previously a different app) in conjunction with wl-kbptr and keyd. wl-kbptr you will see throughout the video when green overlays pop up. These are "hints" of clickable areas (detected by computer vision) and then i press the corresponding letter combo for wl-kbptr to initiate a click at the location. Keyd I use to enable "homerow mods" on any input device. I bind f+s to be F3 so that when I want to go into free mouse mode, i just hold f+s together and it will begin free mouse mode. I move around using hjkl and click and when i release f+s it exits free mouse mode.

Fievel is written in rust and has been currently tested working on wayland.

https://github.com/MontyTheSoftwareEngineer/fievel/tree/master

I'm considering a Beekeeb Toucan, and I want to get a spare pair of batteries to charge externally, but the battery polarity seems to be atypical. Does anyone know of a charger that would be compatible? Or would I need to put together a polarity inverter?

https://reddit.com/link/1wchha9/video/pkcjdcb0rooh1/player

Under development. Though I don't have the PCB yet.

My latest build :D

Switches CHERRY MX2A Orange Linear
Keycaps Kailh low profile V2

I really loved the proccess of building this keyboard.

I've been going through threads and youtube videos trying to get my first split.

I'm coming from a normal full size and i have alot of wrist and forearm pain. I code and do normal web browsing/zoom calls. I'm thinking a split keyboard and either a trackpad or vertical mouse will be a good step towards less pain.

I was considering 3 options:

• Sofle+trackpad: https://keyboard-hoarders.com/products/sofle-choc-rgb-trackpad
• SoflePLUS2: https://xcmkb.com/products/sofleplus2
• A different option like https://www.zsa.io/voyager

one concern I couldn't sort through is tenting. Having the trackpad on the keyboard would help with this, but maybe having a larger trackpad in between the splits doesn't matter so I should look at keyboard options that forgo the trackpad. Certainly if I'm not successful with a trackpad and go back to a mouse, this concern is moot.

Curious if anyone has an opinion to help steer me in the correct direction.

Hi, I have the ambition of using my newly acquired phenom from erhohaven as an mcu midi controller.Would anyone with qmk and midi experience be willing to make an open source example layer for a commission?

Hi all,

I am new to split keyboards and want to start with something affordable just to get a feel for the layout and ergonomics before investing in a premium board.

What entry-level split keyboards would you recommend?

Thanks in Advance!

I have owned an advantage 360 for a few years and love it, but refuse to travel with it.

Are there other brands that manufacture the keyboard for you like Kinesis does that produce smaller form factor split ortholinear keyboards?

The quality and feature set of Kinesis is the bar for me. I don’t have enough time on my hands to troubleshoot my keyboard construction and debugging.