A friend recently told me he ordered parts for a split mechanical keyboard. I have been using a split keyboard for several years (the Kinesis Freestyle 2) and like the experience. I was looking for a new split, this time a mechanical keyboard, but it seemed all good options (that is, without awkward thumb keys) are custom builds. So I jumped on the opportunity to build one with him.

Parts🔗

I ordererd the following:

• Nyquist 60% ortholinear PCB and plates from keeb.io
• Cherry Brown switches
• DSA keycaps from pimpmykeyboard.com
• Fancy TRRS and USB-C cables

The assembly process, with the help of my friend, was pretty simple. We installed the space bar stabilizers, soldered the switches and assembled the top and bottom plates.

Designing a layout🔗

Due to the keyboard being a 60% keyboard, and missing some keys, several layers are needed. Here are my layers for the Nyquist:

Flashing the firmware🔗

The hardest part was surprisingly flashing the firmware, which is why I decided to document it here.

1. Install qmk
2. Build your keymap on https://config.qmk.fm/
3. Download the keymap json and save it in the qmk_firmware folder (the qmk installation location).
4. Generate the firmware by running the following command:

$ qmk compile mylayout.json

This copies the firmware into qmk’s firmware folder. 5. Reset your keyboard. 6. Flash the firmware:

$ sudo make keebio/nyquist/rev3:mylayout:flash

The end result🔗

As you can see I had to be creative with some keycap labels, but more are on the way :)