Tag: keyboards

It’s been almost a year since I wrote my last update about Sofle Keyboard. At that time, I had one prototype of Sofle V2 on my table and was happy with the state of the design. My attention moved onto other projects and hobbies and I didn’t really feel like evolving the design at all. Recently I have built my second (only!) Sofle V2 build and realized a lot has happened for Sofle since the last time and it might be nice to write an update.

It’s been half a year since I published my articles telling a story why and how I modified an existing design for a split DIY keyboard (Lilly58) and created one tailored to my preferences - SofleKeyboard. I already started to experiment with more modifications.

Update: for an up-to-date and improved build guide go to the SofleKeyboard’s website.

This article is partly a build log and partly a build guide for SofleKeyboard (introduced in the previous article) ~~since there’s no build guide for the keyboard yet and there are already people who would like to build it. ~~

In the first article, I explained my experience with custom keyboards and my requirements regarding a layout for my next DIY keyboard. I have also promised there will be another article featuring a custom keyboard with such a layout.

Behold, this is SofleKeyboard - a 6×4+5 keys column-staggered split keyboard with encoder support. Based on Lily58, Corne, and Helix keyboards.

I built my first custom keyboard (Katana60) back at the beginning of this year and the second one (Corne) a few months ago, but I am already designing another one. Apart from the fun I have as I build and customize those keyboards, it is about looking for a more effective keyboard layout for my daily work. This article sums up my journey which leads to the decision to design own keyboard.

I have build katana60 - a custom mechanical keyboard - a few months ago and I use it on a daily basis. But there are so many interesting keyboard designs out there. It just too tempting not to build another one.

This time I chose the Corne Keyboard - or ckrbd if you want. This one is designed by a guy from Japan who calls himself foostan.

When you have a custom keyboard with some nice keycaps and case, you might start to think, what should I customize next? Let’s start with the cable which connects my keyboard to my computer!

I learned recently that there’s a huge community around making of custom mechanical keyboards. Even though building such keyboard is actually quite expensive I failed to resist the temptation and decided to build my first one.