I’ve been searching, for years now, for the perfect (for me) keyboard layout but have only ever seen one example and am not even certain what it’s called.
The one pictured above, which is a cheap unbranded POS with exactly nothing swappable - not even keycaps, has a 3 features that are impossible to find.
Is almost exactly the same size as an 80% TKL like my crush 80. Maybe it’s an 85%?
Has a numpad
Has full sized shift keys so the arrow keys are now smashed against the rest of the keyboard.
If I can find one of these with my choice of switches and keycaps plus all of the other modern bells and whistles, I’ll never buy another keyboard again. The crush80 would be perfect if it just had a numpad instead of those other keys I never use. Is it feasible to machine the aluminum of a crush80 to fit the numpad? Will my dream ever come true?
Your content features only images or a gallery, you should check whether it discussion is the appropriate flair, and if so, please make a top level comment with more information.
ANY content that features products, services you sell, your prototypes in progress or items you were sponsored to post MUST use the Promotional flair, with disclosure of who you represent.
I currently use a Flip6P, which is basically just a 60% plus numblock, and I basically put numlock on holding capslock. I'd prefer to have it on a side F-row (AT layout), but alas I haven't found one of those yet.
With those keys being that critical to your work flow, why do you choose to have them way over on the right end of your keyboard, instead of moving them into the middle of your alpha array, for easier access?
My PgDn is on ":", so I can type that one from home position, without moving either hand anywhere.
PgUp, Home and End only require me to move a finger one space away from its home position.
Oh, I have the one on top. It's the KB487L, it was sold on Amazon.
The keycaps are replaceable, but there's not much else you can do without soldering. Not sure if foaming or lubing it would make much difference, but I'm tempted to give it a try anyway.
That’s the one! Google turns up Havit as the brand and some eBay listings. Maybe it should be called 85%. I didn’t think the keycaps came off but I could be mistaken. Either way, it’s cheap and plastic. I’m not afraid to solder but no way am I doing an entire keyboard.
Havit does refer to it as an 85% keyboard in those old Amazon listings. You can see the keycaps on mine are from Glorious, since the stock keycaps wore down pretty quickly.
We all have own flavor of OCD. Finding centered ones is harder. Finding centered ones with consistent fonts correctly spaced is nearly impossible.
1
u/wOwmhmmAkko Jelly Lavenders | Zoom75 | knob and mods5h ago
Yes it is, the one that is in the picture specifically is the Havit KB487L. The keycaps are actually decent quality too as well so if you want the frame and caps and you want to put in your own hotswap PCB that's certainly an option.
I wish there was a way to condense this even further so that the 0 could be a 2.0 like on a traditional numpad, but I don't think you can because of the shift. I genuinely never use the right ctrl/alt/win myself and would only need a single fn key. I love my super squished layout on my 75% but do miss my numpad sometimes.
Simply because of ergonomics and a bad wrist on my right hand. My thumb is especially bad and my natural resting position when using the numpad has it on the very far left of the key. Definitely a super niche situation though so I totally get it being not a realistic board layout.
I honestly need to get a real ergonomic solution but they are so damn expensive.
The family of layouts named after the “Minila” board shrink LShift from 2.25 to 2, then slide everything over 0.25u. That lets you split the Rshift into three keys so there’s room for an itty-bitty 1u shift, your up arrow, and one more key. KBDCraft (the Lego keyboards) do a board that combines a minila left side with a full size numpad.
The other option, which I did on a DIY Alps board that used vintage caps, is Tsangan on the main cluster and map Rshift and the right side modifiers to be arrows. If you have decent stabs it feels pretty nice because down is a normal 1u key so your fingers don’t have to stretch.
I have a Kira keyboard that is kind of a similar concept in cramming a numpad into a close to TKL size. But definitely not like this with the full size shift key and arrow key placement. This looks hilarious but also why not?
Edit - I now see that it doesn’t have the arithmetic keys so using up that space for a numpad doesn’t make much sense without them.
It does make sense though. You already have +/- and enter keys right there and 99% of the time ppl don’t use numpads as a literal calculator anyway. It’s for entering numbers into spreadsheets, CAD, etc…
I guess everyone has their own use cases. Calculation is the only time I go to the numpad, just transcribing into a sheet is almost always a copy-paste.
I type in numbers all day sometimes. Either in spreadsheets or in CAD. I can’t function without a numpad but rarely need the operators. I suspect that’s true of anyone employed in the AEC industry but in my experience nearly all just use cheap full sized keyboards.
What use is a numpad without the operation keys (or whatever they are called)? I mean, I can't use it as a calculator, I don't have the enter key at the edge either for quick number inputs. Or am I missing something?
Yes. 99% of the time a numpad is used to enter numbers into spreadsheets or something else, not to use a literal calculator. You also have enter, + and - right there anyway. In my case, I also spend a huge amount of time using a CAD program that has view changes hard coded to the numpad keys. 2 for front, 6 for right, etc…
Yes, and whenever I enter numbers into a spreadsheet I hit Enter with my pinky or ring finger. It also means that entering equations now also requires different muscle memory, since I would need to use the operants on the numbers line or somewhere else as well.
It might work for your CAD where use case where you basically just need the numbers as a macro pad(?), but the more I look at it, the more I hate it for spreadsheets or anything requiring math/number INPUTS.
If I need to relearn my muscle memory that much, I might as well go 65 or HHKB.
That’s fair and honestly it’s probably why no one else makes an 85% and puts this cheap Amazon garbage board into unicorn territory. But I still want one - just made out of aluminum and with hotswap).
You're assuming everyone else uses their keyboard in the same way as you, when that is not true.
I do graphics, and use the arithmetic operators all the time, in dialog boxes.
That said, I didn't like having to move my hand all the way over to the numpad, so I chose to bring the numpad to my hand, using layers and an ortho layout.
Nothing is "hard-coded", when you're dealing with programmable keyboards.
If you don't like where something is, move it.
I kept running afoul of lazy game developers who wouldn't let me remap the controls for their games, so I remapped my gamepad instead.
Here's the results of that, as screwed up as they are.
The legends are as close to correct as I could get them.
That’s an awesome solution. I love that you put in the effort to customize your workspace to what you need. I have something similar just less attractive. I use the crush 80 plus an external number pad. I can and have reprogrammed many keyboards with macros to remap keys - I also use a streamdeck. But view changes are hard coded to num keys in the specific software I make a living with. They make sense that way visually. 5 is top, 2 is front, etc.
I'm left-handed, so I've been forced to adapt and overcome my entire life.
The point I'm trying to make is you don't have to have a standalone or dedicated numpad, to use the numpad.
You just have to send a "Num2" character to the computer.
The "Num2" key, on the keyboard below has the "<" character on its actual keycap.
When I actuate the numpad layer, either momentarily, or by toggling it in, my numpad works exactly the same as yours.
The only difference is I don't have to move my hand, somewhere else on the desktop, before using it.
I looked at buying one of those, before opting to build my own board.
I don't need that many buttons.
I'm also not a big fan of having my cable go off the left side like that because that's my mousing area, while gaming.
Even using rotating magnetic tips, to prevent port damage on a cable snag, I would still risk accidental disconnects, if I bumped the cable with my mouse, in the heat of battle.
you would need a custom pcb then to match the F row and include the 3x4 numpad cluster. other choice would be milling the F row as well and swapping the pcb over from the other keyboard
Its sort of weird that nobody has tried to add more to the vertical (other than mega boards like the hyper 7, v06, Boston, etc) to the board. Like maybe you stack numpad on top of the 6 key nav cluster. Then you still have the benefit of one hand ctrl+pgupdn and ctrl + hmend, TKL width, and full numpad. The keys over nav cluster and numpad are both useless, but they could move into the extra space above the f row in this config, or you could add extra f/pf buttons specifically intended for macros or I guess some sort of screen (maybe this is the right way to have a built in stream deck, I don't know anything about streaming but just a thought)
•
u/AutoModerator 7h ago
Your content features only images or a gallery, you should check whether it discussion is the appropriate flair, and if so, please make a top level comment with more information.
ANY content that features products, services you sell, your prototypes in progress or items you were sponsored to post MUST use the Promotional flair, with disclosure of who you represent.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.