Seems interesting. I currently use a German made keyboard: Das Keyboard. Works beautifully.
I had one for a while! Solid keyboard, but I made the mistake of getting the MX blue version, that stuff is loud for a home 😅
Wow. First post I can actually contribute to!
Yes, I have ordered a keyboard from keebart. I ordered the 3w6 and asked on his discord for some custom changes. He helped me with the customization and gave me a few options to choose from.
I wasn’t really too precise in what I wanted but keebart was really good in giving me exactly what I wanted.
Really happy customer. I picked it up in person and the response times on his discord are incredibly quick.
That keyboard looks pretty sweet. When coming from a “regular” keyboard, what’s the learning curve like?
It depends. (Yeah I know I hate when people say that, too)
I first started my mechanical keyboard journey with an olkb Planck. That keyboard is already ortholinear but also a round about 40% keyboard.
Getting used to the size took some practise. I used it for a while as a hobby keyboard. I used monkeytype to increase my precision about 10 minutes a day and after about a week I was already pretty good. I can still remember being proud of myself when I first hit 60 wpm. After a month I was at 80 to 90 wpm.
With the 3w6 it did not take that long. Probably 2 weeks. It is my daily driver and I can recommend it. Especially if you have some shoulder pain or underarm stiffness/soarness.
Biggest issues are non standard/non US letters. But there are ways to work around it. Vial or QMK let you customize everything and are easy enough to use.
If you want some more info do not hesitate to contact me!
That’s great input, thanks!
Perfect, thank you! And wow, first comment ha ha
In over a year wow!
I usually just post if I can contribute anything meaningful. Seems like I a might be the embodiment of a lurker. Haha
Is it actually Made I’m Germany? Or is this just a German store which sells keyboard Made in China?
As far as I can tell at least assembled in Germany. Cases are 3D printed by the seller.
The seller is a German local and approachable. PCB’s are ordered from somewhere but I can not tell you from where. Might be European might be Chinese.
Seems like a one person company and the German market for custom ergonomic low profile split keyboards isn’t too large.
So if you are interested just sent a message and ask yourself! His discord is active but as far as I can tell E-Mail works as well.
What on earth is this thing in this picture?
It’s called a split keyboard. It’s used for a few different reasons but mostly ergonomics. By splitting the keyboard you can adjust the position of each side to fit the resting position of your hands. Also it makes you ten times cooler and improves your hacking abilities by about 30%
Also you can see that the keys are a little different than a normal keyboard. That is also for ergonomics and also for typing faster. So the keys are not diagonally aligned but actually vertically aligned. And you can see that they’re a little bit stacked to align with the length of your different fingers.
It’s either a lily58 or a sofle.
Both good kbs, but a few too many keys for me.
Be careful before you search for these - it’s a very deep cave you are entering, and you may find youself stuck in the dark with solder burns and leftover PCB brns before you know it. Fun hobby though.
Also hijacking this post because why not
Hello keyboard enthusiasts,
So I’ve been postponing the purchase of my first split keyboard for a while now. I had things like the Kinesis Advantage360 on my radar, but the price is quite steep (I live in Europe, so it’s around 550€), and I’m not sure it will be “the one” for me, so I would prefer to get something a bit more affordable for a start.
I’ve seen those two boards on keebart.com:
A few questions for everyone:
- Does anyone have experience with this store?
- Are those boards model generally good? I’ve heard that the first version of the Dactyl Manuform could actually be quite bad for some nerves (pinching the thumb nerve?), would it be the case here too?
- Do you think that a well is necessary, or is tenting “good enough”?
Both are great keyboards, but the lack of column stagger (particularly on the Corne) may bother you. The sofle is quite feature complete - and more than enough in terms of key count.
The corne is very easy to build, the sofle is an order more difficult. They are all better than the Kinesis, and the Glove80, if you are trying to avoid spending hundreds of €. For that money you could get a build from bastardkeyboards.
I have never ordered from that store. For EU I used to order more from splitkb.com (check out their kyria.)
I think that many people going down this path get a sofle, or a lily58, and then move to a smaller 36 or 34 key. I recommend looking at miryoku.
I have some favorites that I will add to a new comment.
I recently built a “pepper and salt” from an Estonian designer (https://pipar.koit.dev/) which is a great 36 key wireless which uses a third PMC as a dongle to save battery life on the units. Great unit, and great dev.
I should mention that he has a newer version incoming with LEDs and screens, but the original unit is a great working KB with good battery life and mostly by default.
I built mine for cheap by odering PCBs and components of Ali, and I just use foam feet instead of a case.
Thank you !
