Going down to 34 keys

After using the 36-key Chocofi keyboard for a while, I decided I wanted to actually build one of these keyboards myself. I mainly noticed that I wasn't using the two thumb keys on the thumb cluster, meaning that I was basically just using a 34-key keyboard. This made the decision to go down to 34 keys easier.

Building the board

I noticed that my university had an electronics lab where I could use a soldering iron and an air vacuum and other nice tooling. The build itself was fine except for the fact that I had burned one of the jumpers on the PCB. This meant that I had to cut a small piece of copper wire and solder it to the PCB to connect two points together without the jumper. However, with some help I was able to do this. Now I'm just afraid that the wire will break at some point, but I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Future plans

Building the board was really fun and I most likely will be building some kind of split keyboard in the future. Maybe a Dactyl or something like that. I think, however, that I will be sticking to 34 keys as I don't really see the need for more keys. It keeps every single key at a comfortable distance from the home row, and I also found that the two extra thumb keys on the Chocofi caused some weird thumb positions when reaching for them.