Ergonomics are important for these of us that spend our days sitting entrance of computer systems. When laptop keyboards and mice first got here alongside, ergonomics weren’t a excessive precedence. Consequently, lots of people spend a long time residing with severe ache — bodily ache that bodily hurts, painfully. The options are good posture, an honest chair, correct monitor placement, a trackball mouse, and a keyboard that really fits human anatomy. Christian Selig is a programmer that desperately wanted a greater keyboard, however couldn’t discover one which he appreciated. So, he constructed his personal dream keyboard from scratch.
Selig outlined quite a lot of standards for this venture. He needed a break up keyboard with a column-staggered ortholinear format that sorta kinda matches his MacBook, mechanical key switches, wi-fi connectivity, sufficient keys to largely keep away from layering, and magnificence. Nothing available on the market precisely matched his wants, so he needed to make it himself and the result’s the Caldera keyboard.
Step one was to pick a controller. The truth is, Selig wanted two of them, as a result of it is a break up keyboard with the 2 halves fully untethered. We reside in a DIY keyboard golden age and there are numerous controllers to select from, which is nice. Selig selected the great!nano, which retains the favored SparkFun Professional Micro footprint, however with a Nordic nRF52840 microcontroller that has built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. The great!nano can be very skinny, energy environment friendly, and comes with a USB-C port.
Selig then wanted to design PCBs to create the connections between the great!nano controllers and the important thing switches. He was in a position to save an enormous period of time by utilizing an superior software referred to as Ergogen, which accepts a format and configuration, then spits out KiCAD recordsdata that make the PCB design a snap.
Whereas Selig was ready for his PCBs to be fabricated and delivered, he modeled the keyboard case in Autodesk Fusion 360 after which 3D-printed these elements on a Bambu Lab printer. The keyboard case leaves room for a comparatively massive PlayStation controller battery. Selig estimates that the battery ought to final for a couple of 12 months between expenses. The great!nano has onboard charging circuitry to make that straightforward.
When the PCBs arrived, Selig was in a position to assemble his new keyboard utilizing Cherry MX key switches. ZMK firmware gave him the precise format he needed. He was in a position to keep away from layering, with the minor exception of some characters (brackets and parentheses).
Now Selig can code in fashion and luxury all day lengthy. And in the event you just like the Caldera design, he uploaded the entire recordsdata so you possibly can construct your individual.