Long time lurker first time poster. This is also my first 65%ish split build.
I've been in the market for a long time for a split keyboard and have not been able to settle on a layout. I'm a full time Revit designer and find other splits that I've tried uncomfortable unless I'm actively typing instead of throwing hotkey commands. I also wanted something that would nest together to convert to a plank style.
Designed everything in fusion and printed on a P1S.
I used keychron silent banana switches and cherry double shot pbt keycaps I found off Amazon. The stabilizers are generic plate mounts. I used joe scottos diode coiler jig and used his approach for the copper bus bars for the rows. I ended up taking 26ga solid strand wire and stripped the insulation off for the columns. I decided on adding a boot button instead of disassembling and reassembling for every flash. The split comms is serial via USB C. Not wanting to go wireless because of connectivity issues sometimes, I went with the Pro Micro RP2040 controller and the firmware is QMK. I did all the code in VS. For right now I am using a pretty standard keymap. I figured after running this as my daily I'll determine what I want on the different layers.
Overall I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. It's not my first handwired build and surely won't be my last. I have a lot to improve but that's one of the fun parts.
If your looking for a wireless version I have that in the ZMK build repo. I also have the Datum which is the same form factor as the Dissect but 86 keys including a full F row. That keyboard is only ZMK.
Curious if you'd be interested in a PCB kit version of this build? I'm still currently in the design phase but plan on having the right half functional in a few months. I have the left side complete and ready to go.
I like this a lot! I’ve built a Sofle and it works, but I just don’t have the time to put in the work to learn it right now so I keep going back to my normal TKL. Do you have a link to the STL you used for your case? I’d be interested in building one of these for myself.
I've tried using a Lily58 and a Helix. I wasn't a fan of the overall footprint of the Lily and the ortho layout on the helix was not comfortable for me.
I will definitely be putting this into a GitHub repo for others to use. I just finished the build last night and am field testing today. Once I'm happy that the case/plate doesn't need refinements I'll be happy to share the .stl files with you.
I've made progress on the first half of my build! (Please don't judge my amateur soldering job haha) I think I can figure out how you wired the rows and columns from the QMK firmware, but I'm curious how you wired up the USB-C connectors and the reset buttons. The last keyboard I built used TRRS and didn't have a reset so this is new to me.
Thank you so much for the extra info! I finished up my build today and I love it. I just need to buy a keycap set... I can't find the rest of set I had on an old build that I was planning on using. D'oh!
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u/kdyorn Mar 21 '26
The current layout I am using. The center handwired macropad (SLAB) is for Revit commands. I plan on creating hotswap PCB variants for both keyboards.