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Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: June 19th, 2023
  • kamen@lemmy.worldtoErgoMechKeyboards@lemmy.world•Long term ergo-mech keyboards reviewsEnglish
    1·
    26 days ago

    Boardsource Lulu. Built with Gateron Silent Ink Black and MT3 Susuwatari.

    It has been my most used daily board for the past year and a bit more. First split, first ortho, first custom build for me. Coming from a 75% board with traditional stagger there was some adjustment mainly due to the ortho nature (but otherwise I was already using IJKL as arrows on the 75% board for example). First couple of days I was typing at 9 WPM (down from my then usual 90-ish), I needed a week to get back up to around 70-80 (fortunately I was between jobs then, so it wasn’t critical).

    In terms of layout I think this is the perfect amount of thumb keys that’s manageable for me (on the bottom left I have Super/Win, Alt, MO(1) and Space, and Ctrl is to the left of A). I have another board with more keys there and they’re not all that useful. I think however that I could do with a few more keys in the inner columns - on this board in particular if I want to use rotary encoders, I have to sacrifice the keys in the inner column, and those keys are useful for brackets and also for some primary letters in my native language (Bulgarian - it has 30 letters in the alphabet). I’ve tried home row mods, but I don’t think I can rely on those as the sole way to access a mod. I personally couldn’t do without the number row even though I have a num block on a layer - so 60-ish percent is fine for me for most things.

    I’m pretty happy with the build quality. One thing I don’t like is the plastic bottom - if you don’t tighten it properly it rattles a bit, and every time I go about tightening it I’m afraid I might crack it.

    I really like the MT3 profile keycaps - they basically hug your fingers in such a way that it’s pretty hard to get lost on the layout, and it also encourages proper ten finger technique. As for the switches - I get why people generally recommend lighter ones for split boards - I find those a tad too heavy. Also in stock form they’re not fully quiet and have some mush to them (I guess it’s inherent to this kind of silent MX switch). I might do a spring swap and lube at some point, or maybe swap the switches entirely (since I have another board that I lug to the office, this one doesn’t really need to be quiet any more).

    Another board that I’m looking forward to is the ai03 Altair - it solves most of my gripes with the Lulu in that the case is fully aluminium and that the layout has a few more keys in the inner columns. As an added bonus the halves connect using USB-C, not TRRS. The only thing I don’t really like is that it has neither a display nor indicator LEDs - so managing multiple layers would be a bit harder unless I find a way to add a LED somewhere. I have the Dark Grey on preorder and I’m probably putting MTNU Graphite keycaps (or perhaps something like MT3 Darkness) on it.

  • kamen@lemmy.worldtoErgoMechKeyboards@lemmy.world•[Discussion thread] Did you solder your keyboard yourself or did you get it prebuilt?
    2·
    26 days ago

    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.