This repo holds schematics and code for the Spock keyboard that was designed by me (Wez Furlong) and modeled on my hands.

The keyboard is a split ergonomic layout in an ortholinear (straight columns, aligned to your fingers rather than staggered) arrangement with splayed columns that more closely match the finger separation when the hand is at rest, thumb clusters to make use of the strong but underused thumbs and a cluster for classic inverted-T arrow keys.

The Spock name comes from the finger splay which is reminiscent of the Vulcan hand gesture.

The initial hardware revision is designed around a prototyping friendly arrangement, with the PCB set up with a minimized keyboard matrix (saving the headache of routing the matrix while soldering) that is terminated at header blocks. No controller hardware is proscribed, making this a more convenient physical base for experimenting with different controller and interfaces (USB, BLE and so on).

The hardware directory holds the kicad pcb defintion, gerber files and plate definitions suitable for building a sandwich style case. The PCB and gerber files meet the DRC requirements for Seeed's PCB fabrication service. The case design files are suitable for use with Ponoko's service.

The Spockduino directory holds some basic code for a keyboard firmware that uses the Adafruit Feather M0 Express controller, and a SparkFun SX1509 breakout to implement a USB keyboard.

You can view the layout for the left hand here:

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/912c57ebc2bcc78ba9ccc6bbb83db161

Should you decide to build one of these for yourself, you will need:

• 84 x Cherry MX compatible PCB mount key switches (each half requires 42)
• 70 x 1u Cherry MX key caps
• 8 x 1.25u Cherry MX key caps
• 6 x 1.5u Cherry MX key caps
• 84 x 1N4148 signal diodes
• 20 x M3 spacer to hold the case top and bottom apart. Choose the height that meets your taste and internal electroncs selection.
• 20 x M3 nuts
• 20 x M3 screws
• Top and bottom plate. See hardware/spock-case-ponoko-p2.svg for left+right and top+bottom. I recommend using matte acrylic for its appealing combination of weight, appearance and price. Note that you don't strictly need the plates if you want to rock a bare PCB, but you should take care to avoid shorting the contacts under the PCB.
• 2x 2x12 header block. Pick this to match your wiring. I used right angled male header block to save on vertical space.
• Microcontroller of your choice. I'm using an Adafruit Feather M0 Express with the Spockduino code. You should be able to use other Feather boards without changing the wiring.
• 1x SX1509 IO Expander
• Misc jumper wires
• 2x Jack and 1x connecting cable with 4+ wires. Some folks like TRRS audio cables and jacks, and others like RJ45 jacks (+breakout) and cables.

note: you can trade two of the 1.25u key caps in the thumb clusters for 1u to make room to trade two of the other 1.25u caps with 1.5u caps for a total of 72x 1u caps, 4x 1.25u caps and 8x 1.5u caps.

There are no explicitly designed in attachment points for the controller, expander or jacks so you may want to apply friction, tape or hot glue as suits your taste and overall assembly.

The PCB is reversible and can be used for a left or right hand. For left hand assembly you will place the switches and diodes on the side that has the keyswitch labels (eg: k01 through k77). For the right hand you will place them on the other side of the board.

If you are using the top plate, take care to assemble in the order described below as it can be difficult to go back to correct a missed step once you start soldering the keyswitches.

This initial rev is designed for prototyping, so I attached header to the Feather and expander breakout boards and used jumper cables to connect them up. Play around with this before you start soldering keyswitches to make sure that you can fit everything together.

1. Solder the diodes first. The black bar of the diode must be aligned to the thicker white bar. For the left hand the diodes go in on the side with the dkXX labels, for the right hand they go on the opposite side.
2. Solder the header block second. If you are using a plate the header pins must be on the other side of the board from the diodes. If you are rocking a plateless build then you may want the header pins on the top side.
3. If using a plate, insert the M3 nuts and spacers now. The nuts go on the same side as the diodes, with the spacers on the other side.
4. Place the plate; it goes on the same side as the diodes and should click in and lightly grip on the top of the M3 spacers where they protude through the M3 nuts
5. Place the key switches through the plate. The switch stem should be on the same side of the board as the diodes and plate. The switch should friction fit in the PCB. Take care to check that both of the pins on the underside of the switch are protuding from the holds on the reverse of the PCB. You should see the pins in the holes and they may protude by about 1mm. It is possible to fold a pin over when placing it, so you may need to wiggle it out of the plate and pcb and straighten up the pin. Make sure that you check every switch!
6. Satisfy yourself that you can assemble the case and house the controller and expander before you go further.
7. Solder in the key switches. Make sure that you solder both pins on each switch!

The Spockduino code assumes that you connected the pins like this:

The Feather is attached to the left hand. Take care: the header block labels on the backside are wrong; see the errata below!

• Pins labelled A0-A5 on the left side are connected to r0-r5 in the header block
• Pins labelled 5-12 on the right side are connected to c0-c6 in the header block
• 3V3, GND, SDA, SDL are connected to the pins with the same names on the IO expander. These 4 lines are intended to be carried over the connecting cable between the halves so you may want to connect the feather to a TRRS or RJ45 block and do the same on the other half for the Expander

The SX1509 is attached to the right hand. Take care: the header block labels on the backside are wrong; see the errata below!

• Pins 0-5 are connected to r0-r5 in the header block.
• Pins 8-14 are connected to c0-c6 in the header block.
• 3V3, GND, SDA, SDL are connected to the pins with the same names on the Feather as noted above.

Use the arduino IDE to upload the spock sketch to the device. I found that this often requires a couple of attempts with the Feather M0 Express, as the bootloader seems to take a little longer to kick in than the uploader expects.

The first and current rev of the PCB design has incorrect labels for the header block on the back side of the PCB. The labels on the front side are correct. In case you are unsure which is the front, the front side of the pcb also has labels for the switch positions.

Unless stated in individual files, the contents of this repo are made available under the terms of the MIT License.