ErgoMechKeyboards @lemmy.world dactylmanuform @lemmy.world 11 mo. ago

is dactyl manuform having hot-swap function a good idea?

I have do some research about doing dactyl manuform, and I see people mostly solder directly diodes and copper wire to the switch. So i want to know that if i build dactyl manuform with hotswap function, will there have some problems which can kill my board? And when comparing handwired and hotswap. which is easier to do if i'm a beginner? And another question: is reset buttons neccessary for this build? (because i saw many guides are always including this component)

7 comments

Kill your board? No! They're all data pins, so there isn't current to kill anything unless you short to the PCB or a battery somehow!

I make flexible pcbs with hotswap for dactyls (and other curved / flat keyboard production). They save oodles of time, and make troubleshooting easier too! All you need is a little hotglue on the edges to lock the pcb fully in place (I have a screw version produced too just need to get a good source of screws to include).

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1367143291/dactyl-flexible-pcbs-4-and-5-high?click_key=5d7649fe8152c918995eb10e441b6f5cf89c8d13%3A1367143291&click_sum=4fdd455d&ref=shop_home_recs_4&pro=1

Handwired builds, especially uninsulated are more prone to shorts that will cause unexpected switch behavior. PCBs even per key help minimize that risk.
If you use hotswap, you’ll need something solid and immovable to mount those hotswaps to. That’s generally the pcb, as they both slot in and get soldered on. So you’d need to have a pcb with hotswaps that could work on a Dactyl, and a way to mount it so that is was stable and would take the pressure of pushing in a new switch.

Amoeba Kings is a per key pcb. I have one I built in my git that is choc spaced with RGB too. But you then have to solder each of these together, and attach them firmly to the case. So it would certainly be more work/effort/planning than simply hand wiring.
Regarding the reset button, depending on how your firmware is configured it might be necessary for flashing they keyboard. It seems like most firmwares have keyboard combos for flashing without a reset button though, see this.
- I have a dactyl manuform and for the life of me cannot get any of the keyboard commands to actually reset the board. So I have a reset switch on mine for that reason.
  
  QMK or ZMK?
  
  I've used ZMK reset and bootloader keys for well over a year.
All my Dactyls are hotswap, so I cannot compare... But it seems that, as expected, stuff is more likely to move and break solder joints when you have hotswap sockets.

A cure for this is to make sure everything is securely glued to the case, but the point of hotswapping, in my case, was the ability to hotswap the whole matrix wrt the case so I can iterate case versions until I print the one with the best parameters.

So after the prototyping phase is over, I encourage you to glue everything you can glue, and screw everything you can (some per-key pcbs, such as the su120, have screw holes... but probably it is even better to use flexible per-column pcbs, instead of per-key, as solder joints that do not exist cannot be broken!).

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