I love the Voyager so far. 💜
I don't know anything about mech keyboards, but this showed up on my front page and it looks so cool. I have no use for one but I sort of want one now lol
this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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ErgoMechKeyboards
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Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards
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Posts must be of/about keyboards that have a clear delineation between the left and right halves of the keyboard, column stagger, or both. This includes one-handed (one half doesn't exist, what clearer delineation is that!?)
i.e. no regular non-split¹ row-stagger and no non-split¹ ortholinear²
¹ split meaning a separation of the halves, whether fixed in place or entirely separate, both are fine.
² ortholinear meaning keys layed out in a grid
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Some useful links
- EMK wiki
- Split keyboard compare tool
- Compare keycap profiles Looking for another set of keycaps - check this site to compare the different keycap profiles https://www.keycaps.info/
- Keymap database A database with all kinds of keymap layouts - some of them fits ergo keyboards - get inspired https://keymapdb.com/
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Be warned! That's how they get you... pretty flashy things that cost waaaaay to much money. You tell yourself you couldn't possibly justify spending that much on a keyboard. Maybe you'll just try an entry level mechanical keyboard. But what case? What Switches? WHAT CAPS!?! You get a Keychron or something tons of people recommend and at first it's amazing, unlike anything you've ever typed on. But then you see something NEW that has a feature you want to try or maybe a group buy Keycap set from your favorite franchise that just looks awesome (I'm looking at you Black speech of Mordor keycaps) ! The next thing you know you have an IKEA Billy bookcase displaying your collection and a $365 keeb is just another Tuesday.
Ergos can be actually relatively cheap. That's why I've spent god-knows how much and have like 30 of them.
This here is the BEST synopsis of this hobby
What Impossibility Box said is 100% true. But also I only got into keyboards because I had wrist pain, and the Moonlander took my pain away. And then I got swept up into the hobby. 😁
Absolutely gorgeous
Thank you!
Ugh... now I'm even more tempted to buy one of those. On a related note, those caps are really nice, but I've got to ask about the pink balls on them. Are those balls actually part of the cap, or is that something you added after the fact? I'm sure that's probably great to help with indexing and I'm kind of tempted to try it myself.
The pink dots are stickers, and if "indexing" means "I need these so I can keep track of which row I'm touching", then yep, that's what they're for. 😁 I can keep track of where my fingers are with only three rows, but with only two thumb keys I couldn't just remove the top row like I used to do on the Moonlander. I actually like this even better, and I'm going to put the stickers on the Moonlander, too. They're often called "gem stickers" or "jewel stickers" in shops.
Yep, indexing is to make it easier to make sure your fingers are in the right spot. Most keycap sets will include indexed versions of F and J for QWERTY layouts, although you can usually also buy additional indexed keys (such as T and N) for other layouts. The traditional indexed keys help with horizontal alignment while the traditional row stagger helps with vertical alignment. However with columnar stagger like most split ergo keyboards use I actually find vertical alignment to be the bigger issue most times since all the rows "feel" the same. Having some bumps on the top row would help with the vertical alignment I think.
Looking at the options though I'm not terribly thrilled with the colors/design/looks of most of the ones I'm finding. I think you found the perfect ones for your caps and it just all looks so clean (the alignment of those stickers on the keys is just chefs kiss perfect, well done). Unfortunately if I picked up a voyager I was thinking about replacing the caps with the MBK Legend keycaps and I'm having trouble finding anything that would look anywhere near as nice as your setup with those.
Aha! Yes, the stickers are working very well for that so far. Sorry you couldn’t find anything to work for your keycaps! Oh, you could also try looking for nail art crystals. They’re often pretty tiny, so maybe more likely to fit a wider variety of keycaps.
How is the moonlander? Worth the cost?
I adore the Moonlander, and absolutely think it's worth the cost. I plan to keep using both boards in different contexts.
I have a Moonlander and think it is great. However, if I were to buy a new ergo split keyboard today, I would seriously consider a glove80: https://www.moergo.com/collections/glove80-keyboards/products/glv80-soldered?variant=44253212377361
I’ve heard great things about the Glove80! I like a 40% layout, though, so it has way too many keys for me.
I have the moon lander and like it a lot.
The downsides to it are that it is not wireless, and it has too many keys for me. If you keep everything on within one row from the Home row, you really only need like 36 keys.
Otherwise, I think it’s a great keyboard, even though it is expensive. 
Unrelated, but what are those pens?
I almost got the moonlander, but decided on the glove80. Still getting used to it. I need to just bite the bullet and force it as my daily.
Nothing exciting, I'm afraid! The orange pen is a Pilot from the Retro Pop collection, and the silver pencil is a Pentel Graph Gear 1000.
You could have done far worse with both. Pilor and Pentel are great. You could have bought Visconti limited edition which fail to work out of the factory, horror of horrors. Pilot is reliable little worker and won't fail you. Great bang for buck.
True! In fact the Pentel pencil saw me through both undergrad and grad school (in math, so quite a lot of hand-writing of stuff). It's basically family now.
Indeed. I got my brother both of those, although I got Pilot MR Gold, not retro. But still. Great pens. Work reliably for awesome price. Fountain pen is a bit of a nail for my liking (Pelikan user here)... but you can't argue quality and reliability. Only character.
I like them quite a bit. I don't know what it is about pens and notebooks...
E: and keyboards, obviously. I'm here, aren't I? Haha
Pretty sure Extremely Special Office Supplies are a gateway drug, and one of the places that can lead you to is... here. 😁
You're not wrong. It's what started me on the mech kb journey so long ago. I wish I remembered what pen it was, but it was my teacher's and had a very satisfying click to it. He said that it was the same click as the old mainframe keebs that he used to work on. I was young, and had no idea what he was talking about, but a keyboard can sound and feel that good? I had to know! Fast forward to today, that dragon has not yet been reached, but the chase continues on both fronts (pen and kb).
Bruh that is legit!
Thank you!
what keys are those on the new board. They look like MBK but i dont recall seeing any with only dots. I actually love that idea. Do you have a link?
Just the stock unlabelled ones! https://www.zsa.io/voyager/our-keycaps
ooh. Not sold separately. Blast!
Ooh, true. But maybe there’s hope?
While ZSA won't be selling these keycaps on their own, the work we did to help Tai-Hao refine this new keycap profile is not proprietary. We wanted to push forward Choc keycaps as a whole, not just for us.
I forgot to say earlier... You have wonderful taste in keyboards and EQUALLY excellent taste in mechanical pencils.
Thank you! 😊
just curious but how would I get one of these? do I have to make it or is it something you can purchase as a prebuilt?
You can only purchase it pre-built. 😊 https://www.zsa.io/voyager/
You can only purchase it pre-built
nice def don't have time to build one
thanks for the link!
Oh my god they're so PRETTYYY
Thank you!
God I'm jealous l, are there any good alternatives for us poor people?
Lily58 or Iris?
I think it depends on what you're looking for. The Lily58, Iris, Corne, Aurora, and all other 40% boards I can think of have the thumb keys right up under the bottom row, which isn't comfortable for me. Of course the Moonlander and Voyager aren't 40% layouts, but I don't use all the keys. But if thumb key placement isn't a dealbreaker, those are excellent options!
For prebuilt, definitely an Iris keyboard without including switches and omitting the middle plate. If you're fine going smaller then I recommend a prebuilt piantor which is similar to a corne but has a more aggressive pinky stagger. I very much recommend the Iris however since it's the sleekest and well designed for its price with integrated rp2040 MCU making it feel "premium" compared to others in its pricerange with the pcb and mcu exposed in some manner.
How heavy is it? I'm afraid it might feel like a brick in the bag.
Just the Voyager by itself is 419g.