Two tiny 10x10cm PCBs for keyboards

Did you know that the price of fabricating a PCB jumps at the magic threshold of a ten centimetres square? That seems to be especially true in the USA where hobbyists only use local firms for tiny prototypes, and otherwise import from China etc. You can currently get a set of five PCBs shipped from JLCPLC for only USD $5. As long as you're happy with tiny keyboards, that's incredibly cheap!

Bivvy16D (in red) and Bivouac34 (in green) PCBs

So, I ordered two designs in January - the Bivvy16D is a split keyboard with 15 or 16 keys and a 5-way navigation button on each half (so 30 to 32 normal keys in total), while the Bivouac34 is a monobody keyboard with a left and right PCB joined with a ribbon cable using "gold finger" edge connectors (with 32 to 34 keys in total). I want to make a tented keyboard with this.

Small girth 8 graphs for keyboard wiring

This post is a less interesting follow up to my recent catalogue of girth 6 graphs for keyboard wiring, which give 4-key roll over (4KRO). As explained in my first keyboard and Graph Theory blog post, the idea here is applying these graphs to the design of diode-free computer keyboards where the bipartite matrix becomes a sparse scanning matrix. Using a graph with girth 8 gives 6-key rollover (6KRO), high enough not to be a practical limitation, unless perhaps for stenography? Sadly from a mathematical point of view these are mostly subgraphs of the Tutte Coxetter Graph (aka the Tutte 8 Cage), the unique smallest trivalent graph of girth 8.

5-way switch in a diode-free Graph Theory keyboard

My first post about keyboards introduced the idea of Graph Theory applied to keyboard wiring. I have since used the girth 8 Tutte-Coxeter Graph to build a 6KRO keyboard (the Gamma Omega TC36K), and several girth 6 graphs to build 4KRO keyboards (see table of girth 6 graphs for keyboards in this recent post). But what about other kinds of switches like 3-way jog dials (up/down/push) or 5-way directional buttons (up/down/left/right/push)?

Almost a year of DIY Mechanical Keyboards

I did a retrospective in August of how looking for a replacement keyboard led up to building a Ergonomic Mechanical Keyboard with a self-designed PCB roughly six month later (the diode-free Graph Theory based Gamma Omega TC36K). That design is beginner friendly, and went smoothly. In October someone else made a pair of them - nice!

A pair of Gamma Omega TC36K keyboards

So what have I done with keyboards since? Just designed and built three more...

Slump52 - an ErgoMech keyboard with number pad

Up until now, I have had three different keyboard PCBs fabricated to my own design - all diode-free using Graph Theory. The Gamma Omega TC36K, the Gamma Omega Hesse, and the Forager Acid, with 36, 36 and 34 keys respectively. They've been getting smaller. Well now for something bigger, requested by our nine year old: They want a keyboard with more keys, and deserve smaller keys. Here is the Slump52!

Slump52 keyboard PCB design in KiCad