Posts tagged: keyboard

Portajohn3 Ironing Issues

2026-01-01T21:51:26Z

A close-up view of portajohn3 during build, it has most but not all keycaps installed.

This photo really highlights how bad the 3d printer did on ironing the top of this keyboard. Luckily I had printed it has a lower profile, and am putting full size keys in it, so for it to sit flush I need to print some extra blocks to fill it in anyways.

Vertical combos are dumb, this makes way more sense. · WaylonW...

2025-08-29T00:28:21Z

Vertical combos are dumb, this makes way more sense. · WaylonWalker/zmk-config-42block@48c30d2

Contribute to WaylonWalker/zmk-config-42block development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub · github.com

This commit to my keymap gets rid of vertical combos, those were a bad idea to me. Maybe I didnt give it a shot, but hitting two keys at once on purpose with the same finger is a skill, one that I don’t have. This change maps those symbols so that they work as a combo or layer switch, so getting the layer key in first does it by layer, but pressing them at the same time gives me the combo, kinda feels genius. We will see how it goes.

Custom Keyboard Keycaps

2025-05-11T11:39:40Z

A fresh print of caps and a 2x2 test board.

hollow knight home row layout

2025-05-05T20:44:36Z

I just made it past 100% in my main hollow knight run, so now I will allow myself to get silksong when it comes out. I did this with a little bit of YT guidance, but mostly just figuring it out. I only just discovered the ⭐ ReznoRMichael hollow-knight-completion-check which got me an extra 2% for a few items I must have got and not saved on, because I was sure I had them.

Controller #

Hollow Knight is a game that can be played with keyboard or controller, You can use analog stick for movements, but they just translate to dpad, there really are no analog moves in the game. This makes it ripe for playing on pure keyboard. I really favor controller when there are more than one analog (throttle, brake, steering for example).

On controller I’ve switched to only using d-pad as I feel like it gives me the most crisp of controls. It is really easy to miss a pogo on analog by hitting slightly left or right.

My Keyboard #

My daily driver keyboard is a custom built 40% monoblock keyboard I absolutely love using it, it perfectly plops down on a laptop when I am in laptop mode and really fits me quite well for my wrok as a software/infrastructure engineer.

WASD #

We’ve got to talk about pinky stagger

I can use wasd perfectly fine on it, I have a layer that has no holds on any keys so that they are all nice and crisp and tailored to gaming operations that would require a hold.

Now what I haven’t ran into before is that trying to game with wasd and use the right side is very uncomfortable with this steep of a pinky stagger. Generally with keyboard an mouse games I have the keyboard a little slanted and move my fingers to wasd just fine, but it just does not work well with both hands on the keyboard.

Enter asdf #

Today is day one, I’m not quite sure how long it will last, but I am giving asdf a try for arrow keys. This will work much more akin to a fight stick where each finger has a primary direction instead of using one finger for both up and down.

vim keys, but mirrored

I chose to mirror vim keys with down towards the middle.  I had it the other

way, but when I played, I kept pressing it the other way.

a - left
s - up
d - down
f - right

power keys

I wanted to put the most common keys on the strongest finger (feels like

left pinky breaks this mantra, but whatever).

j - attack
k - dash
l - focus/cast
h - quick cast
e - inventory
u - super dash
m - map
g - dream nail

This seems weird #

So Ya, I know it’s weird. I did some searching wasn’t able to find much other than this one reddit post talking about using asdf. oddly one person reccommended sdfg, this souds so much like vim, which makes a lot of sense, but brings back moving fingers off of home row position or using one finger for down and right, which aint gonna work.

First thoughts #

I’m about 20 minutes in and struggling on False Knight, I could be a bit more patient, but I’m trying to work on pogos on all the mobs on the way in.

Holding up or down #

The ability to just hold up or down as you run through the map with enemies coming from above or below feels superior, and its going to be nice, I really just got to put some time in to get use to the layout, maybe even make some changes.

I realize now that Hollow Knight rarely needs quick swiching between up and down and would probably be fine on a wasd layout if i were to be using a split keyboard or a bit less pinky stagger that would work out, but for now I am giving this a shot.

My Son’s experience #

So my son is playing along with me, new save as well. He went with wasd and mouse, while this sounds insane to me to use mouse for clicking and no movement the natural feel that it has, has him blazing through faster than he does on controller, doing pogos he’s never done before.

False Knight down #

The recording somehow stuck on the menu screen and did not record video, but I got this screenshot of the victory.

Vengeful Spirit #

Day 2 I managed to make it to the Ancestral Mound and get the Vengeful Spirit cast. Everything is starting to feel much better and more natural. Surprisingly my main issue is with up and down since they are used a bit less, left with my pinky has not been any issue.

hollow-knight-keeb-run-vengeful-spirit.mp4

Hornet Battle 1 #

I made it successfully through the first hornet battle I was able to snag this clip of a few nicely timed pogos. Its getting better, I am still really struggling between down srike and up strike.

hollow-knight-keeb-run-hornet-pogos.mp4

Mothwing Cloak #

I got so lucky with the finish of hornet, I thought she hit me while healing, kinda lost where we were tanked a hit and almost took one last hit again and beat her to the final punch.

hollow-knight-keeb-run-hornet-finish.mp4

Gruz Mother #

After completing gruz mother I went to grab my macropad to click the clip button when her babies came out, and it was at this moment my son told me I was done for, there was no recovering from this. I was already at 2 hearts, and a mistake left me with one. You can see me fumble for the up key in the clip as I get repositioned fully on back on the board.

hollow-knight-keeb-run-gruz-mother.mp4

Now we have Sly the merchant unlocked and can buy items from him.

City #

I made it to the city, but on my way, it looks like one of the smokey layers were getting put on top of the game instead of layer in behind. I’ve never seen this, so I really have no idea what it is. During the thorny area it was in and out and right as I entered the city it locked on top and did not leave.

Soul Master #

I made my way over to the soul master, dying several times along the way to a few Soul Twisters, its time to battle.

hollow-knight-keeb-run-soul-meeting-master.mp4

After beating his second room, (this clip makes him look way too easy as he wasn’t targeting me fore some reason at the end), I picked up desolate dive, which brings a new key combo to get familiar with down+cast.

hollow-knight-keeb-run-soul-master-finish.mp4

Moss Knight #

I took a break for awhile on the game, my son got bored and moved on. He tends to switch out games a lot faster than me. I came back to it tonight after a few months off and just got some geo from the moss knights for awhile. I got this decent clip of clearing them, I’m no pro, but getting better at timing on the keeb layout.

hollow-knight-keeb-moss-knight.mp4

Lumafly Lantern #

While I had a lot of geo from the Moss Knights I finished out getting 1800 geo to get the lumafly lantern from sly’s shop at dirtmouth.

hollow-knight-keeb-lumafly-lantern.mp4

Royal Waterway #

I decided to head back to the city of tears and into the royal waterway to fight the dung defender and collect Isma’s tear.

hollow-knight-keeb-royal-waterway-unlock.mp4

hollow-knight-keeb-royal-waterway-entering.mp4

hollow-knight-keeb-royal-waterway-bench.mp4

The Dung Defender battle, great lore with this guy, lots of bouncy movement, but overall not too hard of a boss. He is not very accurate with attacks, so you have time to just sit in the corners and heal.

hollow-knight-keeb-dung-defender.mp4

Once the Dung Defender was defeated, I continued on up to the Kings Station and unlocked it.

hollow-knight-keeb-kings-station.mp4

I could not remember where ismas tear was and I ended up all the way down in deep nest, the climb out is a bit of a challenge, here I am going right by the route you take with crystal dash to get isma’s tear.

climbing-out-of-deep-nest.mp4

Isma’s Tear #

I managed to find my way through the royal waterway and where you crystal dash over to isma’s tear. This battle took two attempts, because the first I had no health left and walked in with two masks.

hollow-knight-keeb-ismas-tear-battle.mp4

Now the tear coats our shell and allows us to swim through the acid, and we can get a lot more places, and some places are just easier to get without precision parkour over the acid.

hollow-knight-keeb-ismas-tear.mp4

Thorny Mask #

I wandered around the world a bit today and found a few small items, nothing of major concequence.

hollow-knight-keeb-thorny-mask-shard.mp4 hollow-knight-keeb-spore-shroom.mp4 hollow-knight-keeb-thorny-wanderers-journal.mp4

Challenging Mantis Lords #

It felt like time to challenge the Mantis Lords. For the reason to prove to myself that I am getting better at this layout.

I drew my nail and ready for the challenge.

hollow-knight-keeb-challenging-mantis-lords.mp4

First try I made it past the first one, and deep into the second one, I think If I would have remembered the healing window for them I would have had a shot at a first try on them.

hollow-knight-keeb-mantis-lords-1.mp4

After three tries I had it. Maybe its not apples to apples with my first ever run years ago on steam deck, but it took months. I would have about 20 minutes a day waiting for kids pickup at school and I would just keep grinding at them for what added up to be likely several hours.

hollow-knight-keeb-defeating-mantis-lords.mp4

After defeating them I’m let into the treasure room where I get a bench, Hallownest seal, a big loot box, and the mark of pride. This is actually one of my favorite charms as it gives you an extra 25% range to your nail attacks. This opens up the window for pogos and reach attacks without taking damage.

hollow-knight-keeb-mark-of-pride.mp4

Mill-Max Hotswap Sockets – Keebio

2025-03-14T01:02:15Z

Mill-Max Hotswap Sockets

Mill-Max sockets for adding hotswap support to regular PCBs. Sold in packs of 60 (good for 30 switches). Info about the different types 7305-0: Gold-plated sockets (7305-0-15-15-47-27-10-0) Shorter...

Keebio · keeb.io

looking into trying these Mill-Max pins on a handwired 3d printed build to see if I can get away from specialty hot swap sockets. Damn they aren’t exactly cheap, I really want the nice short ones but they start at $20 per 60ct and you need two per key, that adds up quick.

Ergonomic Laptop — Evan and Katelyn

2025-02-28T14:01:14Z

Ergonomic Laptop — Evan and Katelyn

Back pain ends here.

Evan and Katelyn · evanandkatelyn.com

This is such a cool idea, I tend to not use laptops at all because they are so uncomfortable I just wait till I’m back at my desk. This solves two main issues I have with laptops, the posture to use them is shit, the keyboards that come on them is not what I want to use. I’ve solved the latter with my own custom keyboard.

XCMKB: ZMK/Bluetooth Boards

2025-02-21T14:23:18Z

XCMKB: ZMK/Bluetooth Boards

XCMKB: Key Remap Dear beginner, there is no real time key remap like Vial, but thanks to nickcoutsos for his work on Keymap Editor, a browser app allows you to load ZMK keymap code and manage it wi...

XCMKB · xcmkb.com

Nice overview to getting started in zmk

Search: 5 results found for "box white" – Kailh switch

2025-02-03T15:24:40Z

Prime mentioned on stream that Whites were his favorite switch. I tend to like lighter switches and want to give it a try. I really like my Durock lupine’s at 55g, the box whites are 45g, that feels like it would take quite a bit more control, floating over the keys.

SuperMini nRF52840 Wireless Controller Development Board - kri...

2025-01-13T01:51:24Z

nRF52840 Wireless Controller Development Board - kriscables

SuperMini nRF52840 Wireless Controller Development Board

kriscables - Custom Ergo Keyboards and Cables · kriscables.com

The SuperMini nrf52840 is a sick controller for building keyboards, affordable, easy to get, and compact. Bluetooth and wired setup just works in zmk. This page has a nice image of the pinout.

My Firs Keycaps with Symbols

2024-11-25T08:03:39Z

Finally got my first set of keycaps with letters! These low-profile keys look perfect for customizing my keyboard setup.

First Self-Designed Keycaps and Symbols

2024-11-25T06:59:13Z

These are more keycaps from my very first set that I designed and printed myself. Some of the symbols are a little wonky, and a few were too thin to print cleanly.

My First Printed Keycaps Are Here

2024-11-25T06:57:42Z

Completing my first batch of keycaps designed and printed entirely by myself on the Bambu Lab A1.

ticklemykeys on X: "Porta john got some pink caps https://t.co...

2024-10-27T02:20:51Z

Post

X (formerly Twitter) · x.com

Loving this 6 pink with blueforward multicolor combo the porta john has going right now. Also my son printed me a cute black pumpkin.

Not a split keyboard, but perhaps a companion to one: the Ploo...

2024-10-20T00:02:57Z

Reddit - Please wait for verification

reddit.com

ploopy just dropped a trackpad that runs qmk. This sounds so cool. I’m excited to see some videos on it. It would be sick to get this incorporated into a porta john running zmk, one bluetooth device to run all the peripherals.

ticklemykeys on X: "working on a new model. * seams less visib...

2024-10-04T01:49:28Z

ticklemykeys (@XTicklemykeys) on X

working on a new model.

seams less visible

hotswap

more room for build

X (formerly Twitter) · x.com

porta-john design update, working on moving the seams to line up with an edge to eliminate long noticable seams. These seams are required because I don’t have a printer big enough to print this in one shot.

hotswaps are going in. I’m getting really excited for hotswaps as they will make keebs more repairable, and users can self change out the switches if they want. I can also pre-build them ready to go, and drop in switches at the time of order. I did learn today that these are hyper specific to gateron, damn all these switch manufacturers and their special pinouts.

Last thing I gotta make more room for wiring the microcontroller and running wires out to the rows and columns, my first prototype build took waay to long to build.

ticklemykeys on X: "New cap of my own design https://t.co/j63q...

2024-10-04T01:42:01Z

ticklemykeys (@XTicklemykeys) on X

New cap of my own design

X (formerly Twitter) · x.com

This low profile design almost made it to 9. I think blending together the custom brim to make them all one piece really made the final difference here. The custom brim is two layers thick, only touching on the top layer making it very easy to peel off, but gives better adhesion to the bed, and does not loose one like this print did.

ticklemykeys on X: "Full size MX caps, printing flawlessly wit...

2024-10-04T01:39:38Z

ticklemykeys (@XTicklemykeys) on X

Full size MX caps, printing flawlessly with minimal cleanup required.

X (formerly Twitter) · x.com

really excited for how these caps of my own design are working out. Having the extra control is the first time I’ve been able to print more than one at a time without some hacky gcode. I’ve got a set of nine here that I have printed 4 times without a single failure.

Cherry 8 mm keycap mount

2024-10-02T12:58:55Z

MX keycap stem dimensions. I used these to create my new caps and all these dimensions worked great. The one dimension I had issues with was the outer diameter off the cap stem, not shown here. 5.3mm ended up being a good outer diameter for me. I print them at an angle and the bottom of the stem can get a bit of sag, pressing out on the outer wall of the switch and can actually stick the key.

urob/zmk-config: Personal ZMK firmware configuration for vario...

2024-09-29T16:50:30Z

GitHub - urob/zmk-config: Personal ZMK firmware configuration for various boards (34-keys, Glove80, Planck)

Personal ZMK firmware configuration for various boards (34-keys, Glove80, Planck) - urob/zmk-config

GitHub · github.com

This is a very well thought out zmk config featuring many macros, numword, and timeless homerow mods. The build system to build locally looks on point, I really need to give that a try!

triliu/Heawood42: Files for the Heawood42 ortholinear split ke...

2024-09-18T22:57:30Z

GitHub - triliu/Heawood42: Files for the Heawood42 ortholinear split keyboard

Files for the Heawood42 ortholinear split keyboard - triliu/Heawood42

GitHub · github.com

The Heawood42 is an interesting diodeless keyboard that is not direct wired. According to the repo this is the only keyboard to be diodeless and not direct wired. It does this through the use of a graph.