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Comment by samstave | Hacker News Reader

I have a design wish for people who make things like this: “row modules”

Basically, as an example - i wouldnt be fond of the size of that spacebar, and would like other modules.

What if each horizontal row of the standard length on a qwerty were its own module, and you can snap several together to make the board you want.

Want a touchpad? Snap it to the base or side. Want a touchbar oled strip: snap it to the top. 9-key? No problem - gamer config wsad side module? Yep.

Want to just pull out the small qwerty section for some reason - just unsnap whatever you need.

Also, from a connection perspective, they should be little round rare earth magnet cylendars in dowl posts and you just mate the pieces this way.

Fyi, Daiso Japan carries these in packs of 8 for $1.50.

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I'm curious why you want modular parts rather than just designing a board that has what you want? Keyboards are surprisingly easy to design now (as seen in this article), and you can design things that would be completely unreasonable for any modular system.

Indeed, and this guy did it the hard way. Get a teensy, some switches, diodes, and wire, and read this: https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/blob/master/docs/hand_wi...

There is no need to spend any time on the software side of things. It's already been done to death.

even if you want a custom plate, PCB, case, firmware, you can use community-developed web tools like these to do it all:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/

https://kalerator.clueboard.co/

http://builder.swillkb.com/

https://config.qmk.fm/

A neat response to this article would be someone making a keyboard using only these tools.

This is how I made mine:

(post is in Spanish, I wish to brag with my old mates:

http://clubdelpra.cluster003.ovh.net/foros/showthread.php?p=...)

I've been doing that myself recently. I have a 3d printer, so I took the dxf plate generated by builder.swillkb.com and just extruded it in OpenSCAD a bit for some thickness. 3D printed it, put it together with some screws (the generator even comes with screw hole options), hand wired the switches together, to a Arduino Pro Micro and programmed it with QMK.

There is no need to spend time on the hardware either, but OP wanted to learn something.

For those who might be interested here is my firmware project: https://github.com/marcv81/umk. I like to think it's more approachable than QMK, at the cost of features.

>I'm curious why you want modular parts rather than just designing a board that has what you want?

A design requires an effort (the TFA author worked for 3 months on it) and future changes to it requires extra effort. Plus you need to have the knowledge, the time, and the will to go through all this.

Whereas a modular component could be assembled by anybody, tested, changed to a different format if their needs change or they don't like the first one etc, at a moment's notice.

I agree, but... designing one, two, even more entire keyboards is probably easier than designing a good flexible system of modules. It only becomes a total effort savings if you get lots of buy-in from others. The idea is definitely appealing to the programmer in me, though (make the most generic/flexible/composable design possible).

I actually made some single-switch PCBs with some (IMHO) clever design ideas to make one-off keyboards much easier to solder together, but never went much further with the idea.

>It only becomes a total effort savings if you get lots of buy-in from others.

I think there would be lots of buy in -- lots of devs (kickstarter level of "lots") would want to make a customized keyboard but can't afford the time/bother with going from scratch.

I can chime in here. I've been on a quest for the last 18 months for an apple layout mech keyboard. I thought I found one in the z70 pro board, but it's just subtly off. I want 4 keys to the left of space, and 5 to the right. I don't need both up and down arrows, just one there.

The first person to build a "row" based multi layout platform will really start to hit the right spot because some people would want a function row, others not, some would want an ISO enter, others ANSI, and as long as it was plug and play, it would eat the market whole.

People on Geekhack seem to love collecting keyboards. I just want one, that I can use, that will match my mac layout.

Hmm, 4 keys left of space and 5 to right is a really specific requirement. My Filco TKL JIS(Japanese Layout) has this and I made it fully reprogrammable using the Pegasus Hoof from here: http://bathroomepiphanies.com/controllers/

right, and that keyboard has a weird shift to try and accommodate the arrow. I wish it didn't. If I could pick row by row, I might spend more upfront due to cost of components, but not having to solder, and getting the "perfect" layout, I think it'd take off as long as it was stable.

It's one of those "I wish someone else solved this so I could spend my money on it vs. my time"

Thanks for the suggestions tho!

I think you're talking about the Minila Air, I removed that sugguestion as I noticed that it actually had 6 keys right of space. The keyboard I left has the correct number of keys on each side of the spacebar and arrows are separated: http://www.diatec.co.jp/products/det.php?prod_c=883

I'm gonna sound like a jerk, but the _dream_ is 60% with those 5 keys. That also has ISO enter :(

It's clearly possible, but nobody does it yet. I considered building my own board, but now I'm leaning modular. Thanks for the suggestion though, it's helpful to illustrate how "close" so many keyboards are and the obsession us KB nerds have.

Rows can be very different between different layouts. The modularity of a generic row-module would be somewhat limited to specific layouts. Additionally it would enhance cost and complexity significant, while reducing certain practical aspects of such a design. I don't think todays technology is really there yet for a good enough solution.

If you wanna see a step into this direction you can look at the "Ultimate Hacking Keyboard". They have a collection of modules to be attached on the side of the keyboard. You will also see some of the problems of such a design there.

Personally I would aim more for single-key-modules. Make lego-like parts for a keyboard where each single key can be arranged on a board as you wish, like with lego-bricks. Does also scale far better across all used layouts, because at the end you have only a handful module-types which can be used for all designs equally. Makes mass-production cheaper on the long run.

It would be difficult to make this rigid. Keyboards need to be able to take a lot of abuse.

Make all modules magenetically sit atop a flat ridget baseplate.

I have something similar with my tiny bluetooth ipad keyboard which magnetically attaches to the ipad case

Not exactly as comprehensive as you are looking for but there is this: https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/

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