I’ve made the 0.1 design available to the public now.

Ive been using it for a few weeks myself and its quite nice to use, particularly with the aluminium chassis (the GitHub repo has FDM and CNC designs).

In any case, for those curious the GitHub is here: https://github.com/MickiusMousius/RolioKeyboard

I am working on the V1.0 model, PCB’s should arrive in a few days. I think the V1.0 release should be good enough for others to make. The current model is nice, but there are a lot of improvements in the pipeline particularly regarding aesthetics.

V1.0 sample below:

  • UndeadLeech@lemmy.world
    3·
    1 year ago

    It’s interesting to see these rollers popping up some more, especially with two posts about them in such a short period of time(https://lemmy.world/post/4760068?scrollToComments=true). They’re much better than the normal rotary encoders and I’ve enjoyed using mine a lot. Though sourcing them is unfortunately a bit tricky (and thus on the more expensive side).

    I’m currently making a new board using the Nintendo Switch joysticks to replace them, I’m curious how the two compare.

    • MickiusMousius@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I’d love to see that.

      I have a design I’m tinkering with as an idea that has two 5 way sticks. The actuation force is too high IMO, but I could not find a suitable digital switch.

      Are you interfacing to the switch sticks using analog or do you have some nice low power digital solution?

        • MickiusMousius@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Ah, sadly I don’t have this with ZMK, going wireless very much limits what can be done. I’d love to add a small trackball for example (PIM447 maybe) but the energy budget is a big factor.

    • MickiusMousius@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      No worries, you’re very welcome.

      If you’d like I can share the V1.01 files to you too. The improvements are also electrical as well as mechanical (eg some caps to smooth out the rollers). Otherwise I anticipate publishing in about 4ish weeks time.

  • choas@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    no one has asked about the very detailed key caps … but you have a link in the github repository to fkcaps

    • MickiusMousius@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I expect once it’s at a “now it’s done” stage that might come up more.

      Right now this is little more than a nice POC. I think the refined version will be quite a bit better…. And easier to make all going well.

    • MickiusMousius@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Thanks.

      I took some hand measurements and this is what it came out with:

      I didn’t add the splay, I started to add it, but decided that in practical terms it likely doesn’t make much difference but it made things quite unwieldy looking.

      In practice I’ve found the pinky column needs to drop by about 3-4mm which is a change I have in the newest iteration.

        • MickiusMousius@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          Ah, yes, I did suspect this was muscle memory at work.

          The stagger is very similar to that of a Sofle though, and, inline with goals it should hopefully be usable by other newcomers.

          • Siegvar@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            Also wanted to chime in that I appreciate a more conservative pinky drop, as a compromise between ergonomics and keeping it useable while gaming with minimal rebinding (keeping the vertical stagger between the a and s keys in the usual wasd navigation cluster within a reasonable threshold since it’d be used with the ring finger instead of the pinky in those context)

            I feel this is also inline with the apparent (I’m making some loose assumptions here) goals of being a little more newcomer friendly, along with the fact that it has a bit more thumb keys than what many consider optimal for ergonomics and other details. It really feels like the intermediate step between the typical entry point split ergo boards like the Lily, Iris, or Sofle and the more optimal ergo boards.

            Pushing those additional eronomic quality of life tweaks may improve the board, but it also brings the board much closer in target demographic to existing boards like Hillside or Cantor/Piantor for example, and arguably makes this board less uniquely appealing.

            I hope I don’t come off too strong with my opinions here; The design middle grounds picked in this board so far really resonates with me in a way few others have that I can’t help but get excited. 😁

            on a different note entirely: Good callout/reminder on the pitfalls of over-relying on that tool in a way that reinforces existing habit that may not always be optimal.

            • MickiusMousius@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              Thanks. The loose assumptions are dead on.

              Funnily enough after implementing the “math mode” I realised I’d made a gaming half board.

              If you use szxc instead of wasd in math mode you have all your numbers still. The left side has a USB mode so you can avoid lag that come from BT (though that hasn’t been an issue for me). SZXC could easily be remapped to WASD on the firmware.

              It got me to thinking whether I should tinker with a games mode…. But I don’t play enough PC games to have the right perspective for that. I suspect it’d be a very poor fit and more the kind of thing best left to people that like to make their own stuff to update the keymap who do a bit more of that than me.

  • Siegvar@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    This is lovely. I’m currently using a lilty58 while leaving the number row empty, and have been looking for a board to downsize to. I don’t feel ready to go down to as low as 42 keys, so the corne is still a bit intimidating.

    This? This looks like the Goldilocks medium I need at the moment. 😆