Missing the (most?) affordable and I wrote a book on them Goldtouch keyboards with their weird ball-joint split
con: doesn’t let you move them far apart
pro: locks them in tenting, and desk position so they don’t move around in an annoying way
not the greatest cheap keyboard, but I think it’s the cheapest 30° tenting keyboard on the market
If you want tenting like that it’s the $50 Goldtouch or like the $350 Dygma or $$$ and DIY print your own tenting solution
So the Goldtouch deserves a vote 🗳️
I think I prefer the 6x6 dactyl manuform. Ohkeycaps has one made to order, but it takes a while to reach you. The moonlander has the same problem. All they DIY builders here - how do you deal with ghosting/n-key rollover
So, personally, I'm building the dactyl manuform, but the dactyl's instructions are here.
Parts needed are virtually identical, though the person doing the dactyl used a custom made flexible PCB, whereas I think it is easier to just wire it up using diodes and wire.
Quick price breakdown:
3D Printed Case - Cost of materials if you do it yourself, or $120 for both pieces from Shapeways
QMK compatible Microcontrollers (2) - $8.99 a piece for cheap ATmega32U4, or $19.99 for expensive ones
Electronic parts - Next to nothing, haven't taken everything individually into account so I'll overestimate at $30 ( I suspect $15 or so)
Switches (60, depends on size, though) - Depends on what you want. $30 for some run of the mill, or you can be like me and combine some Zilents and Cherry Mx Silent Blacks and spend $140 on switches
Keycaps - Also depends on what you want. $25 or less for some alibaba keycaps, or you can buy an ortholinear set of keycaps from Drop for $60+.
Total: $115 on the low end to $300+ on the high end. Most builds probably fall in the middle, and if you search on Reddit, you can usually find people's build logs or photos in the comments.
Example 1 Example 2 Example 3And here are the githubs for the dactyl and the dactyl-manuformI believe that the author of the dactyl github commented lower in the thread, @Adereth
Anyone fancy dactyl manuform variant over the vanilla one ?
The thumb cluster seems more comfortable, and getting the keycaps is easier as you don't need 4 2u keys
You could have a look at the Iris split keyboard. It's a solder it yourself kit, but they can be found assembled and used on reddits mechmarket. Should be around a hundred all included.