This Split Keyboard Uses VGA
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- Опубликовано: 17 ноя 2022
- I’ve been teasing this project for a while now and decided it was time to release it. The keyboard itself is handwired just like all my other boards but this time it is split and uses VGA cables to connect the two halves. The switches are stock Outemu Blues and the board is powered off by an Arduino Pro Micro running QMK. The keycaps are DSA Astrolokeys from Drop.
~ Links ~
My Keyboards: keyboards.scottokeebs.com
Cases, Keyboards, and Keycaps: scottokeebs.com
~ Parts ~
- Arduino Pro Micro - amzn.to/3LwgAUq
- 1N4148 Diode - amzn.to/3DMbQZ5
- 8mm M2 Spacer - amzn.to/3r1xdxO
- M2x6mm Screw - amzn.to/3r1xdxO
- Switches - amzn.to/3ToYyGb
- VGA Connectors: amzn.to/3EgstL6
- VGA Cable: amzn.to/3UNPhZF
~ Tools ~
TS100: amzn.to/3LCsrkb
63/37 Solder: amzn.to/3DOBv3y
~ Social ~
/ joe_scotto
/ joe_scotto
ko-fi.com/joe_scotto
/ discord
~ Disclaimer ~
Some links may be affiliate links where I will make a small commission. Nothing in this video was sponsored by any outside party and I wasn't paid for the content in this video.
#mechanicalkeyboard #3dprinting #electronics 
Наука
So yeah, that's the VGA keyboard idea I've been teasing for a while now. I plan on eventually expanding upon the idea with a numpad or arrow module but if you have a different idea, let me know!
Nice build! Two options come to mind to avoid having to use such bulky cables or a second microcontroller:
1. Use a digital shift register to convert the parallel line data to serial. They are cheap as chips and easy to use.
2. Use an analogue multiplexer and a resistor network where each key in a column has double the resistence value of the previous one. On the microprocessor, use ADC to figure out which keys are pressed. (Latency might be an issue and you couldn't have more than 10 keys per column, though less would be better.)
Either solution can be done with an ethernet cable and would offer *LOTS* of expansion options. In fact, the first solution can even be done with a shielded USB 1.0 cable.
Does that make sense to you?
Your builds are from out of this world.
So cool, so unique.
I have a need for a split keyboard as I am bedridden. The cord between the two sides would not need to be coiled as it either would go over my body at my hips (ugh) or both sides would go directly to the computer. That would be preferred or better yet WiFi if blankets don't interfere with transmission.
I would need a ten-key on the right side and we would have to determine where to put the function keys. I'd want a spacebar, delete, backspace and enter on both sides with arrow keys on the right side, possibly emulating the 108 keyboard.
I have been thinking about this and needing it for years. It would allow me to go back to work and get back to writing. I'm a 70 year young widow needing to learn coding. A laptop is too difficult to use when laying mostly prone due to spinal issues.
I have some floating monitor needs, too, but one thing at a time. Thanks for reading my post.
duuuuuuuuuude what an insane idea; i love it! this is the kind of chaos that i love from DIY boards. very very cool.
I was surprised to see you got only 5k subs... Video quality, sound and edit are great. Keep up the good work man, respect!
production quality is top notch!
"old days for monitors" Well my school ONLY has vga ports on the AIOs in the classrooms, and none of the teachers understand how to operate them for some reason, so i'm forced to spend a minimum of a cumulative 20 minutes a day just screwing in vga cables 😭
Rip 🪦
Gotta say I love your videos. Found you recently and am watching you since. Your videos look so professional and you explain everything really well. Maybe something I'd like to see more are different case designs? Anyway, keep up the good work man!
Thanks a lot! Glad you’re enjoying them and I plan on doing more boards here soon. First I plan on doing some more tutorial type videos to show a bit more of the code side along with how things are done with these tiny boards.
@@joe_scotto Good idea, the whole package!
Nice! You could have used a DE9, the connector usually used for serial port/rs232... It has exactly 9 wires and a shield, may have been a bit easier to wire
I considered it but went with VGA as it’s more common and already had the cable.
Really good quality and understandable explanation! I was surprised you don't have a lot more subs already : )
Glad you could understand! I was worried I went a bit too fast at times haha
So awesome man. Your videos have really pushed me over the edge to becoming a weird keyboard guy
Such an informative 5 min vid of a cool project! I would love to see a WKL 40 if thats possible to do with 3D printing. Keep it up man your channel definitely deserves to blow up with this quality of content
Thanks a lot! What exactly is a WKL 40? I want to start doing some more community suggestions here as well… playing around with ideas for that.
@@joe_scotto a winkeyless 40, something like the humble40 from
Eye oh designs.
Great work, man!
Thanks dude!
This is genius! I actually had a similar solution using ribbon cables but never got around it. This is a way more cool solution, though maybe not quite as easy to manufacture
I love your content. That keyboard is crazy!!!!
Thanks! I really enjoyed making and sharing this one!
love to see it
I love this so much!
You have me a new 💡. Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed :)
@@joe_scotto by the way, which typing test page or app are you using?
monkeytype.com
Love cool videos like this. Innovation always comes from the ppl. Free the patents!!
Can’t wait until the ultimate input device is created!!!!
Those blues sound so good, I honestly thought you lubed them at first.
Yeah I was surprised. I don’t typically even bother lubing colicky switches since the click makes 90% of the sound.
Nice video! very informative, im gonna try to make one of these but maybe not on vga ;)
Can you make a video about connectors to link handwire split keyboards (types, pros/cons). Best ways to mount most popular connectors on 3d printed case etc.
To lock in the VGA connectors use standoffs and screws behind them or standoffs with a male screw at one end and secure with a nut.
I've been thinking about this exact topic -- not VGA cables specifically, but some other compact-ish cable that mitigates the need for a second microcontroller (or a shift register, or some other means to expand GPIO pins). An ethernet cable is good for 8 pins, but that limits a split board to 16 keys per half. JST connectors might not handle the stress of moving split keyboard halves around.
USB C (the connector itself, no using any USB protocol) seems like a decent choice for a larger keyboard -- passing 24 pins through, or 12 if you want to keep the cable reversible. Just needs some physical indicator on the keyboard to remind users not to use it as a USB port.
But of course, half the fun is in using some obsolete cable. Some of my earliest, fondest computing memories are connecting an external CD-ROM drive via a SCSI cable to play Myst. Apple's early PowerBooks used an HDI-30 connector for the SCSI port, which arranges its 30 pins (225 keys per half!) in a nice compact 5 by 6 grid. 10 of those are ground pins though, and I'm not sure whether the male and/or female connectors physically shorted the pins together.
2000-something I had an Acer ERGO split keyboard which had a removable keypad which connected to the main body with a 9-pin serial cable.
Oh that’s cool
very cool. you think hdmi, microhdmi or Mini-Displayport could be usable too?
next time, please use non-clicky switches though)))))
Have you thought about LPT cable?
Also, maybe you have or could make a video for KiCAD (If you have any exp with that) and 3d modeling a case from zero? Cause I would like to make a case and PCB (Matias and choc switches).
Good video!
One question, what layout are you using?
Greetings.
Colemak :)
😮Beautiful
Cool, cool. Hopefully that's the last time we will see VGA being used anywhere.
yeah i thought up a keyboard where it uses a 10 pin IDC cable to pass between the split halves. ...not sure if i'm gonna make it tho.
You should, it would look sick!
Grate video, but was wandering if using a usb c cable instead of vga would be doable?
Maybe, I’m looking in to it for another build. USB-C has I think 9 pins but the question remains how many wires in the cable and of any of them are grounded together.
I love the idea of saving a micro on every build, but how did you actually wired the two halves together? Just extend the cable for each row and column into the other half?
Basically just connect the rows, so row 1 on the left attaches to row 1 on the right. Then the columns get passed over and fed into the controlller.
@@joe_scotto so you have twice as many columns?
No. There are 10 columns, just each half has 5. There are 4 rows in the board, they’re just split up so they’re connected with the vga which basically takes the place of a wire.
So put short… the rows on each half are just connected and then each column gets sent to the controller. It’s just the right half is sent over the VGA cable first.
@@joe_scotto right, you have 10 columns, but with 2 micros you connect 5 to one, and 5 to the other controller on the same pins.
With just one controller, do you connect the columns from the slave half to the pins on the master side as well?
Yup, the rows and columns from the slave connect to the master controller. The best way to think about it is if you split a regular board in half, it’s wired the same.
This video is really cool but I’m gonna need a 5 minute 24 second video mashup of keyboard clicking with acrylic nails pls 💅 ❤
It’s painful just imagining that.
Could you please elaborate more on why a Pi Pico did not work? I was thinking of building something similar with that controller, so I would like to understand.
A Pi Pico would work but if I remember correctly, I didn't use it in this build because it would be a tight fit for the design of the case. If it fits, there is no reason to not use one as it's a superior controller.
crazy
also didn't expect blue clickies to sound that good; guess i just associate them with cheap & mass produced peripherals.
Right! They wobble bad though lol. I plan on using some box jades in a build again one day, those are my favorite clicky switch. That double click bar does some work for both sound and tactility.
If it requires a wire for each row/column then how does it w9rk with the normal TRRS cables. Thats at most 4 right?
When a split uses a TRRS it uses two controllers and links them over those 4 wires. By doing that you basically double your available pins.
Looking at the way you wrote, it seems that apart from the outermost key, the keys from the thumb cluster will not be very comfortable to use. Or maybe I'm wrong?
Great video 🙂
The thumb cluster is super comfortable but of course with any keyboard, it can always get more ergonomic.
hello
I have a question for you
no one else can figure this out
I am trying to make a fully 3D-printed glove
I know there are some on Thingiverse but I want to design my own
can you help me out
If I want to start 3D printing these things, what 3D printer do you recommend?
Ender-3 Pro. Probably the best you can start with and is what I currently run for all my printers.
is hdmi or mini hdmi cable suitable? Probably use two female hdmi ports (the one which is connected to a pcb which spreads out the connections for soldering wires). Solder wires to the female hdmi port and use a regular hdmi cable to bridge the connection. I have no idea about the pin out or compatibility of wires etc tho.
I briefly tested it and it could work but I never confirmed it. You just need enough "clean" lines meaning they're not connected to anything else on the cable.
i see thanks for sharing! I might try it out and if I do, I'll share my results here again@@joe_scotto
o snap that was you on reddit
For 9 wires you might get away with using a shielded ethernet cable.
Cool project!
Maybe if I cut it and used the braided shield as the ninth wire, but then it wouldn't be detachable... unless there is something I'm missing?
@@joe_scotto there are shielded connectors, that are connected to the mesh in the wire. That would be the 9th cable!
The rationale for VGA makes sense (sounds like you lucked out it was exactly 6 ground), but why clicky switches?
Because I wanted clicky switches.
@@joe_scotto Can you help me appreciate what it is about clicky switches that appeals to you?
@@narkfly I literally just wanted clicky switches on this board. It’s the same reason some days I want chocolate ice cream and other days vanilla.
Fuck this is cool. Will this be made available on your store, for those of us who are too lazy to DIY?
Probably not fully built as it's way more in-depth than my other boards.
@@joe_scotto Fair. Shame 😅
Now as you mention weird "cables" to connect keyboards... My first thing which pop up in my silly mind - OPTIC FIBER. I mean this shit is thin, and fast.
that’s a digital connection, the way splits work is over analog. I’m sure there is a way to do it but it’s outside of my area of knowledge.
The next build will be a dactyl manuform like? Called Scotto manuform 🧐😅
Haha. I want to do something more organic eventually or just build a regular dactyl
So, how about hdmi or mini-dp?
Been looking into HDMI but right now I’m actually starting work on one with USB-C. I think the smaller cable would be more practical
I got another Idea
How about put couple of encoders one for columns (8 to 3) and another one for rows (4 to 2) this will make us able to make 8 by 4 matrix representing it by just 5 bits
We can use a shift register to transmit this 5 bits to other half by aux cable Which got a Arduino or other microchip to reserve thes serial data
And we can repeat thia process of other half alos and save couple of chip gpio
I hope that i think in tight way 😅😅
Finally excuse my bad English 😬
Usb-c should have plenty of wires
Why not DB-9? 9 pins, 9 wites.
I considered it but I wanted to specifically use VGA for looks.
@@joe_scotto Good pick then :)
I made it before with rj45 headers and the cables not very flexible (its more flexible than vga cable). So it covers lots of space at my desk. Beside the cable is bulky, it moves your keyboard if the cable gather itself so you cannot move the keyboard as you like.
So I dont recommend this builds!
I just saw the thumbnail "why this keyboard uses vga". If the answer is not because it looks cool, then I'm gonna be disappointed.
Because it looks cool :)
cool concept. clicky switches are horrible!
I've always enjoyed clicky switches.
@@joe_scotto well, as long as they are not enjoyed at the office it's fine. ;)
can't you use ethernet
You could, but it only has 8 lines. I needed 9 for this build