Preface

As an engineer I have been fascinated by keyboards for many years. Always on the hunt for the next best thing. I have gone through a bit a journey to get here, and I wanted to take the next (and close to) final step. My Journey thus far:

1. Any keyboard I could get my hands on. Typically a 104 membrane based board, that comes with a new computer.
2. A WASD Hack Keyboard. Which introduced me to mechanical switches and allowed me to ditch the number pad.
3. Logitech K860 Which made me fall in love with split design, wireless, and low profile keys.
4. Kinesis Freestyle Edge RGB Which made me fall in love with a true split keyboard, but learn to hate CherryMX keys.
5. I built a Lily58 out of a bunch of different pieces I sourced. Which allowed me to get to my best and current keyboard. It is low profile, wireless, and a true split board. Plus it helped me get back in to soldering again (which is important for my step).
6. The reason for this post.

I have been using the Lily58 for a while now, and as much as I truly love it. There are some things that I want to do to improve its design.

• I really need 59 keys. Right now I have to hide ]/} on a new layer which is annoying. As it is the only character I have to do that with.
• I don't mind my tenting solution, but I would really like something a little more robust. I have a plan to create spots on the bottom plate where I can plug in lego pieces to build the tenting I want.
• I hate the tiny battery. It last a max of 4 days. Which is not terrible, but I would love to integrate a much larger battery to get me somewhere north of a month longevity.
• I was listening to a podcast about keeping up a hacking mentality as we get older. With my current career path, I don't get to do as much engineering as I used to. So I figured this would be a great learning opportunity, while building a tool that I want.
• It allows me to have something that is very functional, that I built from the ground up. I have loved these types of things. For instance I got into leather work for a number of years, because I wanted a wallet that was custom for me. I have used that wallet every day for over a decade at this point.
• Simply put, this will be great on a resume. You never know when that will be helpful.

Stage 1

• I have watched most of the videos from Ben Vallack on how to build a custom keyboard.
• https://flatfootfox.com/ergogen-introduction/
  • Stage 3 is where I got lost as their directions just jump to kiCad without explination. This is where I started to use the cli for ergogen to build the kicad file.

I started with the design through erogen online builder.