https://github.com/dlip/chouchou
Chouchou (Japanese for butterfly) is a minimalist unibody keyboard designed to be used with the Taipo layout.
It uses a cheap RP2040-Zero MCU and requires no diodes since the 20 edge pinouts it provides is the exact number of keys Taipo requires. It was created with Ergogen and KiCad.
very cool! I’ve been trying out Taipo on the UT22 recently and i really like the alternating strategy so rolls become basically irrelevant :)
Very nice!
Also, thank you for creating the Ergogen footprint for the RP2040-Zero MCU. I will probably use this for some projects of my own.
The taipo layout seems neat. How has learning it gone? I’m intrigued but not sure I wanna learn something quite like this for now. I appreciate having all my alphas accessible, again, at least for now but it’s a neat idea
It’s an interesting challenge, I’ve only been learning a few weeks after work and my record on monkey type is 35wpm. The hand swapping skill is something thats unique to the layout but I’m starting to get the hang of it now. With light switches, and some practice it’s starting to feel like the alphas and special characters are instantly accessible since its only combos and no layers. As a programmer that’s going to be really useful. Here’s a YouTube video of the creator typing random ASCII at 53 wpm! https://youtu.be/A_NVzUSEAxM
Creator already exceeded 100wpm and said it works equally well for random strings iirc.
Not quite sure how to think about the ergonomics though. This is different from steno as each chord only produces one letter, so on average there are nominally more keystrokes than letters produced. Exclusive chording probably also don’t work too well with keywells etc with uneven key heights. Would be interesting to know long term effect regarding comfort/stress
Wow. That look a so effortless lol. I like the concept of the alternation but that’s a big thing to jump into. Especially since I’m in between layouts rn, so I’m not quick at typing anything atm lol
Cool! What switches did you use?
Am experimenting with a TAIPO-inpired layout myself right now, and realizing my current MX board is not the best suited. So planning to build a choc board as well, just not sure what weight switches to use.
I use 25g light blue, which I think is perfect. If you’re experimenting, the heaviest I’d try is 35g pro red.
Cool thanks. Can you still rest your fingers on the board with 25 grams, without accidentally actuating? Or do you need to hover your fingers above the board? (and if so would 35g solve that?)
With the 25g I can only rest about half the weight of my fingers on the keys without triggering something, but with the 35g I can rest the full weight comfortably. If I’m practicing a lot then I do notice my fingers get sore after a couple of hours on the 35g, but for normal use it’s probably fine.
Thanks, that’s really helpful! I think 35g is probably good for my usage then. I’m not typing long paragraphs of text all day long.
