I’m not exactly experienced or particularly capable with the engineering involved here, but after about a year using Chad Transtrum’s Lintilla (based on GEIST’s KLOR) I figured I’d stop beating around the bush and prevent anyone from ever using my FW16 again. The Lintilla was a big step up in portability from using a ZSA Moonlander, but it’s very much still a hassle to use a split keyboard on lecture hall desks and in cramped cafes, and what kind of split keyboard user would I be if I left a standard rowstag qwerty keyboard on my laptop for anyone to use?
Hermes is an RP2350a based board that takes the entire FW16 input deck width for a split keyboard and center numpad. Minor tweaks to the Lintilla layout were made to fit the available board space, but it’s otherwise as close as I could get (besides the tucky thumb key). It connects as any other framework 16 input module would, but for flashing and perhaps limited external use, includes a PCB board edge USB female connector on the top.
Hermes is as far as my limited understanding of CAD, Ergogen, and KiCAD (in addition to my patience) will take me. Special thanks to the Absolem/Ergogen discord server, especially FlatFootFox whose tutorials I relied on heavily and .fuzzytomatohead who shared a demo board and footprints with me.
As it currently stands this board is not in an operable condition; the choice of a full 6 rows on the numpad (possible with 18.6mm spacing instead of the listed 19.2) throws a whole hell of a routing challenge at me. That design choice may change in the coming weeks as PCB development (me learning KiCAD) comes to a close.
I’ll do my best to update this thread until the board is completed and testing can begin. Once I have a physical example a GitHub page containing the Ergogen config file, the KiCAD board that config will give you, as well as the 3d mockup used for the above images will be appended to this post. I may do a small production run of boards to reduce the individual order cost / number of people ordering the minimum number of boards and tossing 4/5ths (OKMs ordered separately) depending on the response to this post.
here’s a funny rendering error Autodesk Fusion threw at me
