TLDR: Hall effect keyboard with Silakka54 / Cantor layout

Repo:

• Silakka54-HE: https://github.com/Hanthebot/silakka54-HE
• Cantor-HE (WIP firmware): https://github.com/Hanthebot/cantor-HE

Hi. Based on Boardloaf-HE, I ported two other boards into HE: Silakka54 and Cantor (MX).

Features:

• QMK / Vial, reversible PCB, web calibrator with single HTML (+js for configuring layout)
• APC / Rapid Trigger
• full duplex communication between halves
• cases compatible with original boards
• multiplexor (SOIC16 74HC4051D) can also be soldered on either side now

Silakka54-HE works flawlessly. However I had issue with flashing Blackpill and couldn't check firmware for Cantor-HE. So I marked it WIP, till I find some way to fix it.

Note that some Chinese clones of Silakka54 has different hole position than the original, and thus their case might not work tightly with this.

PCB was generously sponsored by PCBWay for both projects. PCB quality is great obv, but I really loved the fact that actual humans are doing the customer service and inspecting the project, not just chatbots / LLMs.

+ mods, let me know if I need to fix regarding flair, etc.

P.S. I feel like I'm spamming boards. I'm already happy with what I got except I'll be working on something like this from Silakka54 dev. I found my pinky is quite shorter than others, and wanna try many combinations :) Last picture is preview.

Github: https://github.com/Hanthebot/hectrrs36

Originated from: ezxzeng/hector36 / reddit post

Hectrrs36 is a wired variant of Hector36 - MX to be specific.

It features, by inheritance:

• splay inspired by Totem / KLOR
• 100 x 100 mm reversible PCB
• diodeless, thus easy to build
• open source (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 inherited)

New characteristics:

• wired with TRRS
• QMK / VIAL support
• RP2040 Zero SMD instead of promicro footprint

All you need to solder:

• hotswap sockets
• PJ320A (TRRS)
• RP2040 Zero

And that's pretty straightforward. Minimum resource, minimum effort, then voila, here's your splay. Consider packing it with your next PCB order as it can be made out of spare components, especially if you wanna try splay.

Thanks for all the great work!

First post here and first custom keyboard, quite nervous.

Github: https://github.com/Hanthebot/Boardloaf-HE

Boardloaf-HE is a Hall Effect variant of Yuburoll's Boardloaf, with decent column stagger, thumb cluster, and PCB size: sub 100x100 mm, thus $2 from PCB manufacturers. Most of the properties were inherited from the original.

From my math, you can get the keyboard as cheap as $12, if you got leftover switches. Check the repo, though it's when you can buy stuff from Taobao. But I think most components are reasonably easy to get, and reasonably easy to build.

Specifics:

• Supporting vial / qmk
• Web calibrator (also open source, single html with no backend)
• APC / Rapid trigger
• Reversible PCB - maybe first custom HE keyboard to do this?
• + someone please implement analog mousekey

Schematics and internal structure was largely influence by TrueStrike42 - a unibody Hall Effect keyboard. The keyboard was built on two giants' shoulder. But as you can see, there is no magic involved and you must be able to make your favorite mech keyboard as HE.

It uses RP2040 Zero with multiplexors (6 sensors / mux). RP2040 has known ADC problem, so it's definitely not optimal, but I think it's good for general usage. In my web calibrator, which gets 10 bit sample, noise was about 1 bit and keypress changed sensor value by about 128. As travel distance is 4mm, I can roughly claim it has sensitivity of 4 mm * (128 / 2) ~= 0.0625 mm? (RP2040 ADC is known to be about 8.7 bits though. so 8.7 - 3 (for effective range) = 5.7 bits, 2^5.7 levels will be approximate)

Communication between two halves are half duplex with TRRS (effectively TRS). I'd make it full duplex at some point, but half duplex still works great for me. Same with MCU. Got plan to change it with blackpill (STM32F4), but RP2040 is not that bad.

I think I saw Dactyl-like HE keyboard some time ago. And I was really surprised to discover Hector this morning! split HE keyboards got their era!!!

Hector will be superior in performance due to MCU, direct map, and UART. Calculated accuracy seems to be absolute beast, like 64 times more accurate than Boardloaf-HE. Better engineering, you got my admiration.

But everything is tradeoff... and I think I made a viable tradeoff with effort, price, and performance.

Sincere thanks for all the predecessors, and those who are on the way with me!!