Prebuilt - Atreus from keyboard.io

Handwired.

I soldered a Planck kit, then an Iris v2 kit, then bought a recent Iris with hot swap and all that jazz when the first started acting up and I couldn’t figure out why.

I want to start actually making stuff - really interested in a Dactyl-like contoured board - and I have most of the stuff I would need for the electronics side of things, maybe upgrade the cheap soldering iron. The one thing holding me back is cases. With kids and a dog, I’m honestly not too interested in leaving bare electronics sitting on my desk. I want a pretty case too, and that mostly means 3D printing. I never had any room for a printer, and online printing costs were pretty prohibitive in my area last I checked.

Two hotswap boards, then switched to handwiring and designing cases - much more fun.

The whole spectrum: First a bought a pre-built board, then had a friend build one for me. Finally, I got over my fear of solder, bought the inexpensive equipment and gave it a tried. Made one $10 mistake on the first try and did a good-enough job on the second try.

I look forward to fixing more things now that I have this skill. I already used it to help repair an e-bike connector that came loose.

First keeb soldered, second keeb soldered too, third keeb designed, 3D printed and handwired 😅

All the boards I currently rotate between (3 at this time) have factory soldered hotswap sockets. I haven’t done much soldering myself, none on keyboards in particular. For PCBs that come assembled or unassembled I prefer to pay a bit more for assembled because it’s generally not a huge difference. Unfortunately some don’t offer that option.

I have a solderable PCB of one of the first custom boards I got a few years back and I still haven’t gotten to building it - I couldn’t commit to a specific switch, the PCB doesn’t support soldering hotswap sockets, and adding millmax ones seemed too much of a hassle. Moreover at one point they announced they’ll supply hotswap PCBs, so I’m probably going that route.

3D printed snd hand wired… by someone else

I got a Keeb.io kit and soldered it myself, and then I’ve handwired a Dactyl Manuform and (halfway) a Splaytyl. I love how many people can build you a 3d-printed keyboard these days, but I’m already equipped and experienced to do it all myself.

One thing I love about Lemmy is that posts like this show up and I learn of a hobby/activity that I never knew existed.

As a layperson who uses inexpensive fell off a truck level mechanical keyboards, I think it’s great that people are out there building their own.

3rd party MJF printed, but then i handwired and soldered the 6x5 orthosplit.

Get solid core wire and prepare to debug. But hey, you learn your Keyboard back to front. It’s good feeling afterwards :) also knowing you can fix it no matter what.

Journey not the destination.etc etc.

I have four custom keebs. The first three I soldered myself. My current home one is this:

My work one is prebuilt. I tried to solder it myself and may go back and fix the boards I have but I was so baked I put the lights on upside down, all of them.

Here’s the prebuilt at work:

I got friends to solder most of my keyboards and had one commissioned.

I could maybe still do it myself, but I don’t have the gear these days, and it’s also a really interesting hobby to share.