Hi Mike,

Thanks a ton for the help over on the project page. Quick question for you: it seems since you've figured out the wireless aspects of this, any plans/interest to make a version that works on a "split" design? I'm thinking splitting the advantage into two would make it into the ultimate keyboard I've never had, but I don't have the electronics expertise to figure out how that could work alongside your wireless implementation. I guess there are two options here:

1. Use the wireless set up you've got, but have a cable connecting both halves.
2. Set up both sides to be independent with a feather controller for each side, and have them recognized as two separate keyboards/bluetooth devices on the OS side.

Any thoughts on this?

This is pretty cool...I'm gonna build one. Just one question...do you remove the keyboard cover every time you charge it? It seems to me it would be better if the feather was rotated 180 degrees and you drilled a hole through the back. Or am I missing something?

Hi Mike,

I built the board without much trouble and checked all connections for continuity all the way to the NRF52, but I'm not able to get any keys working at all. Even the firmware level commands (e.g. reset bluetooth connections) don't seem to elicit a response. The battery indicators work, the board even goes to sleep, and I can see the KinesisBLE in the bluetooth devices on MacOS and can connect to it but key presses seemingly do nothing, on any of the key wells, thumb clusters, or the F rows. They don't even wake up the board. Any ideas? I am using BSP version 0.8.6 as you suggested.

I'm realizing now that maybe I used the wrong port expander for board version v4? I saw in the components that you had listed MCP23017 or MCP23S17, and I got the former without thinking about it. Maybe I should be using the latter?

Sorry if I'm getting annoying! Quick question: is there a quick way to turn off the pomodoro timings feature? I looked through the build log but I believe some of the discussions there are outdated wrt to the current firmware.

Hi Mike,

Just finished building it. Everything works flawlessly (after swapping out the I/O expander for the correct one). I'm super excited about this. I'll be writing my build thoughts on /r/ergomechkeyboards soon.

Are you planning on writing something up about how to change keymaps around? I tried looking through some of your old commits, and looked through the firmware code but couldn't quite wrap my head around it. I was also curious about how you set up shortcuts like the reset bluetooth combo -- are those easy to add?

Thanks!

First of all, thanks for this exciting project.

I have a Stapelberg mod in my own Kinesis, but this surely looks like the next level. I unfortunately are fairly reliant on some features of the QMK firmware. So I can't jump on board right away.

I have also noticed you posted an issue in @sekigon-gonnoc's QMK fork with the driver for the adafruit boards.

This issue should merely serve as a signal for when QMK firmware would be available for this project.

I uploaded the gerbers.zip to dirtypcbs.com and got the error "no board outline file" is that something that would be easy to add?

Couple of suggestions for V6 (primarily from my experience building this board, but also stolen from this project: https://www.reddit.com/r/olkb/comments/hmxitl/bluetooth_kinesis_advantage_bluemicro_project/):

• For the thumb clusters, include a row of 10 holes for header pins so that for those with the original Advantage or even earlier versions, they only have to solder headers on either board and connect them with Dupont cables (or a directly soldered ribbon) instead of trying to work with the staggered holes for the Advantage 2 ribbon connectors. If you look at the above project you'll see what I mean.
• Reposition the key well ribbon connectors down a bit, that way the classic versions of the keyboard where the flexible keywell PCB connects directly to the controller will also be compatible. See here for an example of how the old versions connect. Doing this shouldn't affect compatibility with the newer ribbon connectors as it's just a small deviation from their current position.