Anybody have the moonlander and enjoy it? I currently have an ergodox infinity, and want something I can swap to Kailh Choc White switches. The layout and programming seems perfect for me, though I'm disappointing that it's still wired.
I've also been enjoying the Moonlander. I was hesitant about the layout, but spilling liquid on my Kinesis Edge and damaging one of the switches forced my hand. The first few weeks were slow going (I dropped from 140wpm to 50-60), but I adapted fast enough. I haven't measured in a while, but I feel like I'm fully back to speed.
I love the customizability - I started with a layout that was influenced by 3 or 4 other programming layouts I found but have made a dozen or so minor tweaks to it over the last few months into something I (mostly) love.
For coding, it's fantastic and I have no complaints (once I found a system for getting to the bracket keys that work for me, at least). For gaming, however, the tap/hold pairing just doesn't work for me. I had Alt and Esc bound to the same key and could not reliably Alt+Tab or hit Esc in a game for the life of me. I split those out earlier this week and now Esc is better, but Alt is still combined with PgDn which is problematic.....I'm probably going to give up and make it a dedicated Alt key and move PgUp/PgDn to another layer.
I have larger hands, so I wonder if I should have just got the Ergodox and had more thumb keys, but now that I'm used to the Moonlander I have no intention of switching.
I'm new to mechanical and split keyboards, but so far the moonlander has been great. Well, in the beginning it was a bit of a learning curve, but coming from the ergodox that shouldn't be an issue for you. Not being wireless is the only complaint that I have.
I switched to a Moonlander from an Ergodox and am liking it. I ended up not liking their built-in tenting mechanism, so 3D printed my own shims that screw to the back, allowing me to tent the keyboard but also tilt the "wings" upwards. Very comfortable!
One thing I thought I hated about the Ergodox was how inaccessible the small keys on the thumb cluster were, and I thought I would like 3 big keys better. It turns out not to be the case... those keys are useless, but there are a lot of useless keys that are nice to have around (arrows, delete/insert, home/end, pgup/pgdn). I mostly do everything in Emacs and so don't use those keys, but when I'm using non-Emacs software, I do miss them.
(I ultimately decided on Backspace, Alt, Up; Space, Enter, Down as what I use the big thumb keys for. Not sure I love this. This transitioned my backspace key from my right pointer finger to my left thumb, and it broke my muscle memory. I still forget that you can control backspace words to kill them outside of Emacs (where I use C-w for that, which closes your window in every other program).)
I did eventually get parts for both sides. One of the flexible arm clamp tripod mount thingies was not stiff enough to hold the keyboard up, but the other one was great. Since they were both the same part from the same order... it's kind of a crapshoot as to whether or not it will work. But I will continue to experiment.
I tried mounting my Ergodox EZ to my chair like you (almost exactly too: 3D printed mount + gorillapod). I found the TRRS cable between the halves to be very very annoying to get in and out of the chair. How did you solve that problem? I once tripped and broke the mount (PLA is brittle) when I went to answer my intercom.
That’s fantastic. Is your 3D model on Thingiverse or anywhere else? I’ve been thinking about making exactly the same thing to use tripod mounts on the Moonlander.
Honestly, I measured the hole spacing as 19.5mm but it is definitely not quite right because it is tough to get all 4 screws in. I don't have gauge pins to measure it correctly, and the accuracy suffers. But you can get two screws in which was enough for my use.
I uploaded the Fusion 360 file so you can easily correct this.
I would also print it upside down from how it displays on Thingiverse. That way the mount <-> keyboard interface is as smooth as possible. (Well, if you have a smooth print plate, I guess.)
Yeah, there are 4 M2.5 threaded holes on the back, precisely for mounting your own stands. (The subreddit seems to think that some first-party things that screw in there are on the way. In the meantime, I'm happy with my own.)
There are caveats mentioned on the Thing page. I measured the screw spacing imprecisely and you will have to pick your favorite diagonal to put 2 of the 4 screws in ;) You'll also have to mirror the file to print one for the other hand.
I very much enjoy my Moonlander. This is my first split keyboard so I have limited reference points, but the layout still seems quite sensible overall. There's a few things I wish were slightly different, though:
The lowermost of the three thumb keys and the red keys are a bit of a stretch to reach and I already have rather large hands.
The two keys on the bottom row closest to the center are quite comfortable to reach with my thumbs and I use them for extra modifiers. I hardly use the other keys on that row.
I prefer not to use the number row, I have mapped a numpad to another layer instead.
I have the same issue with the ErgodoxEZ (I have small hands) - most of the thumb keys are too far, so I use the lowest index finger keys in their place.
I have a dying kinesics freestyle and the moonlander. The moonlander has been laying idle since I got it because I can’t find the time to learn it. Any advice on how to get started quick? I am switching between a Linux laptop and a macbook
