Hey! I saw posts from here on my feed, and have been sucked in. Beautiful keyboards!

But, I’m a bit overwhelmed with options. If I want to get started with an EMK, what would you suggest?

I am comfortable with general soldering (though haven’t done surface-mount), so putting a kit together should be doable. I use a Dvorak keyboard layout, so would prefer a way to customize keycaps. But … I would prefer a kit that comes with everything (or at least a checklist), and doesn’t require me to figure out what components to order, to help ensure I have compatible parts.

Thanks for your suggestions!

  • MouldyCOPEnglish
    3•2 years ago

    Thanks! I’ll also want to use this with both my home and work computers (Linux and Mac), but I imagine info on setting things up should be easy enough to find.

    • @GumshoeEnglish
      3•2 years ago

      That shouldn’t be an issue. All the configuration lives on the keyboard itself (except for some specific not too common tools some people use that live on the OS and do some keystroke processing there which you can easily avoid). And you shouldn’t really need to do anything that is only Linux or only Mac compatible any more than any other keyboard.

      Because you plan to travel with it, if you go wireless, you may want figure out how to add a power switch which is an uncommon feature for kits to offer. Its really only needed for wireless that also get thrown into bag because if buttons get hit in your bag it’ll keep it awake draining your battery and also potentially sending random keystrokes to the computer in is connected to.