[rmaus]

There are certain kinds of fully custom keyboards, such as the one I use (Dactyl Manuform) where the keys do not sit on a single flat plane. Such a build would require a flexible PCB. This is doable for the advanced-amateur EE but the geometry is fiddly, at best, and doesn't allow for easy experimentation on key placement (spacing, offset, radius, etc, the bigger problem for me).

I've found the happy medium with single-switch PCBs ("Amoeba" is a popular one), which are fast and easy to wire up. Most notably you don't have to do the painstaking row wire stripping -- just use a plain wire from one PCB to the next in the key matrix (or an insulated wire if you have to traverse other components, which still only requires two stripped ends).

I have a few pictures floating around from my build(s) if that interests anyone.

[onetimeuse92304]

Couple years ago I started building my own keyboard from scratch. Custom PCB, custom circuit design, custom MCU, custom programming, custom CNC-ed enclosure, some custom keys... In hindsight I should have relaxed a bit on building everything custom and then maybe I would have finished it.

The main idea was to get a keyboard with built in steno and ability to get programmed any way I want. It would also have a small built in OLED display to aid some of the functionality.

Another idea was to have built in mouse (trackpoint + keys that can be used as mouse keys).

[533474]

I'm interested in your build ;)

[rmaus]

https://imgur.com/a/wyqPSeo (unsure why this is marked 18+, sorry; it's SFW).

You can see my first build (blue) in several of these pictures following similar advice to OP's guide (looping diodes, etc), with one modification where I used copper tape for the columns instead of wires.

Then the first picture you can see how much cleaner the single-switch PCB ends up, and I can assure it was far easier to solder / strip / assemble.