[s_m_t]

A nice hack for building a small keyboard/macro pad that is 80% of the way there is to buy one of those cherry mx key testers, a microcontroller dev board of your choice, and a small lipo. All together it might cost you something like $40 depending on how many keys your key tester has and you should only need a soldering iron and some wire to put it together.

[TylerE]

Those are handy to have anyway. I have a tester that originally had 64 keys that is down to 56 or so… I normally like really light keys, like 30-40g, but it’s nice to have much heavier action on a few keys like backspace and numpad enter so you can give em a really satisfying thwack without bottoming out.

Sure there are places that will sell switches in lots of 5 or 10, but it’s really nice to be able to swap out and experiment and see just how much heavier works for a given key.

My actual ideal would probably be something more like a layout that aimed for equal perceived (instead of actual) force. So basically heavier towards the middle and lighter towards the outside, but done mindfully of kinematics and ergonomics.

[gtrevorjay]

I second this as a great way to get started. If you look on Amazon there are a bunch of cheap eight key macros (Lichifit makes one) that are built via layers of acrylic: a base layer, a layer that houses the microcontroller, and a layer for the keyboard. It's easy enough to sub your own micro and 3D print a replacement layer.