Keyboard Builders' Digest / Projects
The Chaotist
Tschibo's idea manifested as an astonishing open-source PCB: Chaotist is an ergoish 40% keyboard.
Published February 11, 2024
Creators! Feel free to tip me off about your keyboard related projects to bring them to 100K readers.
Mentioned last week in its concept stage, the Chaotist is here with creator Christoph Ballhause aka Tschibo00 sharing the KiCad files.
The PCBs have arrived, so I can finally bring my cursed layout - The Chaotist - to live :) […] Born from a stupid idea this thing actually proves to be surprisingly usable. At least after reducing the column stagger on the pinky from over-enthusiastic 1.75u to 0.75u :) – tschibo00.
Inspired by the Bruce keyboard (however, 2 columns wider), this unusual layout is the result of projecting an ergoish columnar layout on a rectangular keyboard shape, implemented by using 1u caps for the home row and various sizes for the top and bottom rows.
You can be sure that the madness isn't over if you see a mold for the cement weight:
The keyboard is case-less and is done as a sandwich with two PCBs, cement weight and foam – Tschibo.
Specs
- unique layout
- 37-43 keys
- MX, soldered
- multiple bottom row and outer column layouts
- RP2040 Pico
- cement weight, PCB sandwich
Typing test
Resources
- Chaotist on Github.
- More photos
- Even more photos
Published on Sun 11th Feb 2024. Featured in KBD #154 (source).
Related
Black Ice ortho
Custom designed angled ortho by ashinything with 3D printed hot swap sockets.
La Lettre
A 35% unibody split by somepin: La Lettre is a 3D-printed, handwired mechanical keyboard.
Mantis with Hex caps
The Mantis prototype, shared by Felix Kuehling, is designed around the Hex caps.
Unibody Corne case
SirFodds created a gasket-mounted unibody case for the Corne keyboard.
Unsplit Thumbs Up
Thumbs Up! turned into a monoblock by u/ak66666 – with one more level.