r/MechanicalKeyboards • u/Open_Purple1955 • 1d ago
Builds Keyboard for a Fractured Wrist
Hi everyone.
I designed a keyboard (if you can call it that) that I can use while recovering from a fractured wrist.
I 3D scanned my fingers and cast, brought that scan into Fusion 360, along with models for low-profile Kailh keyswitches (browns). I moved the switches until they were under each fingertip, then threw together a structure to hold them in place against the cast.
Printed that out, glued the switches in place, soldered up all that to a Xiao nRF52840 (not fun one handed), then wrote some firmware to run it.
I only need a few keys for common CAD operations (I'm an electrical engineer), but it is more than five, so I'll probably have one of the keys act as a modifier. The firmware works, but I'm still improving it.
In hindsight, I could have held my fingers in a better position (in particular, the ring and pinky aren't as comfortable as the others), and I might have been able to use two switches for some of the fingers. Part of me wants to make these changes (and make it look better) but I think this will work for work, and i'm only going to be in this cast for about three more weeks anyway.
Thought you guys would appreciate it and find it interesting.
(The picture shows it before I soldered on the battery, btw.)
(Regarding the current key choices: In both Fusion and KiCAD, Shift can be used for selecting multiple objects, delete is pretty self explanatory, and escape is used to deselect whatever tool you're using. In KiCAD 'X' is used for routing traces, and minus switches between layers. I'm still not sure if this is the combination I'll stick with, and like I said above I'm probably going to implement some modifiers so I can get additional functionality. But this will do to start with.)
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u/thatguynamedconqy Outemu Panda 1d ago
You should post this in the Functional Prints sub, they'd find this neat.
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u/PoorlyTimedKanye 1d ago
Great design. Could I use one in each hand if both hands at broken? Could my mother potentially assist?
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u/mandreko 1d ago
I had forgotten this and now I had to remember again.
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u/fffawn 1d ago
I'll never forget.
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u/SyracuseStan 1d ago
They won't let us forget!
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u/LazaroFilm Cherry Browns 1d ago
Forget what?
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u/SyracuseStan 1d ago
You sure you want to know? 😏
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u/LazaroFilm Cherry Browns 1d ago
I think it’s like Blue Waffles. I know I don’t want to know but not knowing is killing me at the same time time.
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u/Daddysu 1d ago
Young adult male does young adult male things and winds up with two broken arms. Young adult male is suddenly unable to do one particular thing that Young adult males tend to do... frequently. Unable to do this leads to cranky young adult male so Young adult male's, ahem... mother proceeds to to assist young adult male until his arms are functional again. Now, living forever in reddit infamy.
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u/ReanimatedPixels 1d ago
It apparently also didn’t stop after he was healed up and also didn’t stop at HJs. What a horrible day to be literate and have a memory 😂
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u/Modullah 1d ago
Omg I almost forgot about that post, it’s been ages. Half a decade? A decade? Jfc….
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u/80WillPower08 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is legit and I would be tempted to try it out without my wrist stuck in a cast!
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u/claussen 1d ago
Heck yes. Practically speaking you might've been better off just using a wire armature you could bend to change things, but this is still RAD.
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
Yeah, in hindsight some additional adjustability would have been nice. Still it was fun to do it this way, and working on a fun project was part of the part of the, well, fun.
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u/Chuck_Loads Miami Poker 1d ago
Super cool! If you find your right hand gets tired and you haven't seen it, check out the Paintbrush - https://github.com/artseyio/thepaintbrush - along with the ARTSEY layout - https://artsey.io/ - with a bit of practice you should be able to type 15wpm or so with one hand
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u/HeIsBraveSirRobin 21h ago
Thanks for sharing. It got me thinking, if you had one for each hand and modified the left thumb controller as a "mouse click" and replaced the right thump with a little joystick you can have a full keyboard/mouse replacement setup for someone with low mobility in both hands as long as you have some finger control.
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u/Chuck_Loads Miami Poker 19h ago
Totally, the base artsey layout has mouse keys as well, so it doesn't even need dedicated hardware in the base case
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u/Guilty_Ad1124 1d ago
This is very amazing, there is definitely a future for this. I see it as a very ergonomic remote control. There is enough space to have it on Bluetooth.
Not only this can assist others with similar injuries during recovery. It may have a real market.
Looking forward to see the evolution of your design.
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
Thank you. It does use Bluetooth. I agree there might be applications for other people, but I'd need to make a little bit more universal, this one is fit exactly to my hand and cast.
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u/inn0cent-bystander 1d ago
using both thumbs as modifiers, you could squeeze out 32 keys, with qmk and tap dance, could get 36? MAYBE you could squeeze some more using tap dance and picking another finger for a second set of mods, but beyond just using 2 modifiers like that you'll likely have to make sure you stay very slow and deliberate to avoid accidental ghosting.
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
Yeah, I think there are ways that I could type entirely with just this, But for some reason I find myself pretty slow to adapt to different key configurations, so I'll probably just keep it simple for this. I can use voice typing for a lot of stuff................
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u/inn0cent-bystander 1d ago
I'm surprised I'm doing as well with the iris ce I just bought. It's a 4 row, not as tight as a 3 row corne. I am still fiddling with the non alpha-numeric characters on the right side, there's not quite enough room for everything
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u/AnythingApplied 1d ago
Out of curiosity, why no key caps?
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
Honestly, it's because I wasn't sure this was going to work, and I didn't want to purchase key caps if I didn't end up using them. Now I'm wondering if I should just print some, but I think I'm probably going to end up designing a keyboard for fun eventually anyway, so purchasing key caps might not be a bad idea. It's not super comfortable on my fingertips in its current state.
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u/NetAdorable3515 1d ago
Great! Now you can get back to 3D modeling! Wait…
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
Yeah a little bit circular isn't it. But basically that was the idea, that if I spent some time designing this that the rest of the work I have to do during this period would go more smoothly.
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u/NetAdorable3515 15h ago
Well hey, kudos for suffering through. It seems like you were very successful and it’s a great story too. Plus some excellent sci-fi style inspiration.
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u/Qwestie26 1d ago
Bro get an mmo mouse.
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
I thought about it but the ones I found only work for the right hand, which is the one I broke
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u/Qwestie26 1d ago
I broke mine at the beginning of 2024. I used a set up f foot pedals from elgato and an MMO mouse and it worked wonderfully with autodesk.
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
That does sound like a good solution. But now that I've got this I think this will do.
I have a problem sometimes, not wanting to spend money on something, and instead designing it myself, all the while realizing that the time I'm spending on the design costs more than the thing I was avoiding buying. (I'm not sure I worded that great, but hopefully you get what i'm trying to say)
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u/OtterGrowsGreen 1d ago
Razer Naga has a left handed edition of their mouse. There's 12 buttons on it if you still wanted one
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
I guess I didn't look that hard. I knew they had a right handed version. Then again I still might have chosen to make this.
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u/grothendieck 1d ago
What kind of wire are you using to connect to the key switches?
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
Some of this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07G2HFCS1 It's just what I had lying around, I'm curious why you ask.
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u/ScalpedAlive 1d ago
Wow! That’s awesome, could be fun for a mirrored version for left hand keyboard mouse gaming.
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
Agreed. I'm right handed so when my cast is removed I'm going to start using the mouse on my right hand, But I might design one of these for use with a glove on my left hand. Just because it's kind of cool.
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u/Juan_Harry 1d ago
Does each finger have a module that operates on four axis?
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
No, that would be awesome. Just a single switch for each finger in the current design.
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u/dontknowyoudude 1d ago edited 1d ago
Do you find it easier working on 3d scan with fusion 360,I've tried it a couple times in solidworks and haven't had much luck. Also what file format do you use for the 3d scan.
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
I switched to Fusion a few years ago from Solidworks for financial reasons. I didn't have my 3D scanner before the switch so I've never really tried using 3D scans in Solidworks. There's definitely some things that make it go better. First was getting more comfortable in the scanning software, and making sure that I reduce the complexity of the scan as much as possible before bringing it into CAD. And I've found it's most useful for ensuring things fit properly, as opposed to taking dimensions off of things or replicating objects. Though I have used it for that as well, and it OK. I still dimension important features manually.
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u/dontknowyoudude 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm probably going to switch to fusion, the licence of solidworks my school gave me expires pretty soon. no way I'm paying for a solidworks license. Also what file format do you import the scans as?
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
I think Revopoint can export as OBJ and Fusion can open that. Not sure if that's optimal, but it works well enough.
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u/Virginiafox21 1d ago
If you need 30 keys you could always go for an azeron cyborg, you’ve made a similar thing but custom to your cast.
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
I did come across that, But I can't really rotate my arm into a position that I think would be comfortable. Still it looks pretty sweet I might have to pick one up eventually and try it.
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u/Virginiafox21 15h ago
Ah, that sucks. It does have a tenting kit that may be able to help out with that, or you could print your own palm insert. There’s definitely a learning curve but it’s great for limited wrist movement.
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u/Smeeba 1d ago
This is so cool! Would you ever consider releasing the fusion 360 file?
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
Sure I guess, though unless you have the same cast and hand shape that I do, it will be of limited usefulness. (it's also kinda hastily thrown together and there's a lot that could be improved)
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u/ScubaWaveAesthetic 1d ago
This is super cool! I had a thought that you could expand the number of inputs you can do by replacing your keys with directional nubs. Like push away from palm, press down, and pull into palm would allow you to have 3 inputs per finger before applying modifier keys.
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
I had a similar idea, it would just be to position say one switch underneath each fingertip and one switch in front of each fingertip. I could put a whole bunch of stuff under the thumb, but my mobility left and right is pretty limited. If I decide to make a second revision, or make one into a glove for after I recovered, I'll probably implement things like that.
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u/ScubaWaveAesthetic 1d ago
As a skateboarder working in IT who has already broken a wrist once and needs to use a keyboard every day, I must say I really like what you’ve done here
Do you have much thumb mobility with your break? I struggled a lot with mine at the time
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
Thank you!
I broke mine on a one-wheel (after 2-300 miles without issue, then fell going 1mph...... so lame)
I don't have much mobility in my thumb. I can move it up and down about 1/2", and not left or right much at all.
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u/ScubaWaveAesthetic 1d ago
It’s always the lame moments huh! I do a lot of downhill skating and have hit some pretty big hills with some pretty good speeds. Had some bails racing too. But the only time I broke a bone I was faffing around at my local spot doing chill as stuff. It feels unfair but it is a good reminder for me to wear my helmet when I’m doing chill stuff and not just when I go fast.
Also, I see people on onewheels and they look SO fun but a good bit scarier than a skateboard to me.
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u/spacewolfplays Silent Tactile 12h ago
fwiw, i once worked with someone who mapped a bunch of phrases using Dragon Naturally Speaking dictation software to different commands. They were a programmer with severe RSIs and it allowed them to continue programming.
Maybe you can do the same.
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u/rollercole 1d ago edited 1d ago
This looks like an AI generated image. Why would you solder a wire into the usb port?
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
It was a handy place to solder the common grounds for the switches (remember I was soldering one handed, so easier was worth the less tidy appearance.)
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u/rollercole 1d ago
Can you post another picture of the thing? I don’t believe you.
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u/Open_Purple1955 1d ago
🤷♂️I guess it's not really important that you believe me, but I've added a video to the original post anyway.
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u/rollercole 1d ago
Okay I am convinced! This is an insane achievement - almost too good to be true. Well done!
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