r/olkb

I'm using a Phenom split with a concave keywell and dual trackballs. The stock tenting angle wasn't enough for me, so I designed and 3D‑printed wedge stands to tilt each half to ~25°. This keeps my wrists neutral and reduces forearm pronation.

With that much tilt, the keyboard sits high above the desk, so ordinary wrist rests don't reach. I printed custom armrest pedestals that support my forearms at the right height – no more floating arms.

On the firmware side, I mapped the left trackball for mouse movement and the right one for scrolling. Works great in CAD.

Hello! Decided to share my keyboard and the customization setup I’ve built around it :)

This is the K:03 — a wireless aluminum model from Ergohaven. I’m using two types of switches, five different keycap styles, and an encoder. My main focus here is tactile feedback and overall comfort. I found standard keycaps pretty uncomfortable because of their sharp edges — if your finger lands even slightly off-center, you hit that hard edge, and it doesn’t feel great. That’s where MOG keycaps come in — their rounded shape completely solves that issue. The keys on the outer edges are more traditional in shape, so I can easily tell them apart by touch, and since I don’t use them as often, those sharper edges aren’t a problem.

Most of the switches are Outemu mid-profile browns, which keep the keyboard feeling nice and low. A few keys, however, use Gateron high-profile browns — this lets me distinguish them by feel, and since I only need to press the corner of the keycap, it reduces travel distance and minimizes finger stretch. On the left half, you’ll notice two low-profile keycaps that gently lean toward each other — this design makes it much more comfortable to press Shift + Control together.

As for the layout, it’s mostly standard QWERTY, but I’ve shifted the whole thing slightly to the right — mainly for better gaming comfort. I’ve also moved L, O, and P just a bit to make them easier to reach, and punctuation lives on a separate layer. Beyond the regular layers, I’m using an AltGr modifier, which gives me even more freedom to customize characters, including access to non-English symbols. This does require creating a custom system language (which isn’t too difficult, btw), but it also means the keyboard only works on devices with that custom language installed. That’s not an issue for me since this is a stationary setup.

The keyboard is also MagSafe-compatible, so I’m currently experimenting with tenting using MagSafe stands.

And finally — this setup is fantastic for gaming. Not only does the keyboard shape feel more natural for my hands, but I also have more keys within easy reach: five for my pinky and three for my thumb. It really makes a noticeable difference for gaming.

Hi everyone,

Ergomech Store has been sellings Aluminum keyboards for more than 6 years now and we're still going strong. This is an indication of our commitment to quality products. All customers of our store walk away with something they like and proud of.

If you're looking for premium feeling keyboard, look no further, we have them all at https://ergomech.store

https://scottoacademy.com

Hey guys! I've been posting about this for roughly the last month and registration closes tomorrow August 16th so if you want in, now is the time :)

Together over 3 live Discord sessions we're going to be building a full 4x10 ortholinear handwired keyboard and I'll be guiding you the whole way. There will be time during the sessions to ask questions if you get stuck and a dedicated Q&A at the end of each.

You can either bring your own parts or purchase a parts kit with everything you need including pre-cut copper minus tools of course.

This course is beginner friendly and I think you'll be surprised at just how easy it is to handwire!

I often leave Codex running in the background and wanted a quick way to see whether it was still working or waiting for me without constantly switching back to the app. So I built a small local companion for my Ergohaven Macropad.

The display shows the current phase — ANALYZE, RESEARCH, REVIEW, EDIT, VERIFY, or RUN — along with the elapsed time and number of active tasks.

The RGB lighting reflects the current state:

• blue while Codex is working;
• amber when it needs my approval or input;
• green when the task is finished.

It runs locally on macOS using Codex hooks and Raw HID. No changes to the macropad firmware or Entropy are required, and the previous RGB profile is restored after the last task finishes.

The tool does not store or transmit prompts, responses, transcripts, commands, tool data, or full workspace paths. If an event is ambiguous, it shows APPROVAL rather than risk missing a real request for input.

So far, it has only been tested with my Macropad.

Source code and installation instructions:

https://github.com/suregoodru/codex-macropad

What else would you find useful to see on the display or through the RGB lighting?

Hey everyone, this is my first PCB design ever and I'm building an 8 key macropad with a rotary encoder as a birthday gift for a friend. I've never used KiCad before this project.

What I'm using:

Microcontroller: Seeed XIAO RP2040 8x MX mechanical switches, direct solder, no hot swap sockets 1x rotary encoder module with CLK, DT, SW, plus and GND pins Firmware will be QMK with VIA support

Since I have 8 switches and the RP2040 has enough spare GPIO pins, I wired every switch straight to its own dedicated pin instead of building a row and column matrix, so there are no diodes anywhere on the board. All the switch grounds share one common ground bus back to the MCU. The encoder is wired the same way, three of its pins go to three more dedicated GPIOs, plus goes to 3V3, and GND joins the same shared ground point the switches use.

Attached is the schematic. Since this is my first time doing anything like this, I'd really appreciate if someone could sanity check it before I move on to laying out the actual PCB and ordering it. Is the direct pin wiring approach actually fine here, or am I missing something that would normally need a diode or a pull up resistor I'm not accounting for? Any feedback is welcome, trying to avoid an expensive mistake on my first board.

Thanks in advance.

I've been working in a case for keyboard version of the JK206 (a PCB design made for my brother and me of a macropad with the option of connect three of them and make a keyboard. The last two images maybe leaves a bit more clear what I am talking about) and after months of hard work learning how to use FreeCAD and multiple tests with the macropad version, finally the keyboard case is complete.

I made the top piece easily detachable to make easier the keyboard cleaning (if you live with dogs their hair will be over the screen in no time XD), I've tested putting the keyboard in my bag for commute and it didn't came off, the 16 magnets in the case are doing a good job.

Soon I'll complete the jk206 github repo and add information of the case, right now I'm really busy with the paperwork to graduate from college :'v

it's a bm40 pcb with the plate on the krepublic shop, some blank keycaps i also bought on aliexpress, and some spare ones i had. i plan on 3d printing a case

i'd love to tinker with this as much as possible, i'm going to put vim macros on the left layer and functional stuff on the right, give me more ideas!! this is so fun