Unboxing a Bastard Keyboards Charybdis Nano!

Get it here: bastardkb.com/charybdis/
Yes, they voluntarily gave me one! xD
An interesting find from Clackycon 2024, this very light, 3D-printed ergonomic keyboard had been on my radar a while ago already, and now I'm finally showing it! Hope you enjoy the video :) .
Intro by Kyle Carter
Outro by Facundo Cabanne
My keyboard reviews: bit.ly/1TbOtft
My switch teardowns: bit.ly/2C1QGHz
My TOP X videos: bit.ly/2FmpZfd
My XL typing demos: bit.ly/2OoAW3w
My tutorials and featurettes: bit.ly/2OrkLUh
My unboxing videos: bit.ly/2TSrr0m
I'm Thomas and I do videos and reviews on mechanical keyboards ranging from the most sickening modern RGB gaming keyboards to vintage hardware relics, or sometimes keycaps or keyswitches ranging from Cherry MX to Alps SKCM to IBM buckling springs and anything in between.
Follow me on Twitter for updates on my keyboard videos! / chyrosran22

[@spageen]

Bastard Keyboards goes well with my Schitt Audio

[@noodles.is.awayyy]

all connected with your PYST cables

[@kenwood7195]

Do they have an Office in Schitt's Creek?

[@y00t00b3r]

This is a delightful video, and has that "monkey trying to get the banana out of the bottle" feel to it.

[@woldemunster9244]

Banana in a bottle?

[@Omikronik]

wouldnt recommend plugging out the headphone cables when the board is plugged in, because it slides out you can potentially short out the pcb if a power line slides over a data line

[@pietarus2485]

As someone else mentioned you need to connect the USB-C to the unit with the trackball. The cable used to connect the two units is a TRRS cable, basically a 3,5mm jack with 4 poles.

[@baraka629]

How do we get the 4 poles over to the UK though, now that they left the EU?

[@reav3rtm]

Lol

[@DJE7008]

Was great having you there! However, can you bring a beam spring to the next one xD

[@Chyrosran22]

I had a beamspring with me! xD They even talked about it during the presentation xD .

[@1fareast14]

12:34 Either Tom is confused or this is top-tier trolling 😏

[@xomm]

In QMK firmware you have to define one side of a split keyboard as the primary/master, so if you mistakenly plug in the opposite side to the PC, the keymap gets reversed :D

[@CharlesHydronium]

given his review on the planck, he has to be confused

[@vinzbe933]

Trackballs have been using optical sensors for a very long time, even before optical mice came out. The Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer was released in 1999 while the Logitech TrackMan Marble was released in 1995.

[@LDVSoft]

T-SHIRT IS NICE

[@DanielPetre]

it's Baba is you game

[@LDVSoft]

@@DanielPetre yeeeeep. Love it.

[@Chyrosran22]

Ever since I played the Poem level I knew I wanted a shirt of it but it took me a while to find one xD .

[@borntwisted]

Not sure about this specific split keyboard, but some can be damaged if you don't remove the power cable before the TRRS.

[@sevurueva5138]

Its always a risk with TRRS based interconnect. Basically you risk shorting out the power and ground pins because when removing a TRRS the different pins briefly connect with the subsequent pins. The same won't happen with a parallel oriented pins like in a USB connector.

[@gcolombelli]

@@sevurueva5138 I thought they'd put the power and ground pins as far as possible from one another, but alas, at least on my Corne, they're adjacent. Then I though "certainly the pin spacing is such that the risk of a short is very low"... nope, those two pins are the closest to each other on the TRRS jack and when plugging the cable, it briefly shorts those pins. Although, is it really that dangerous? I think USB ports on most computers have short protection. I distinctly remember plugging and unplugging the TRRS cable on my ErgoDox many times when I had issues with a flaky cable, while I waited for a new cable to arrive. The keyboard still works, as does the computer and every USB port in it.

[@1fareast14]

The large amount of thumb keys but small amount of regular keys means Tom will have to finally learn qmk/via layers. I recommend space and backspace on the thumb and have them be layer keys when held. By putting layer triggers in the position of the other key when the first key is held, you can make a layer that comes up when both keys are held. Edit: let's say key 1 is mo(1) or lt(1). Key 2 is mo(2). Putting mo(3) on key 2 in layer 1 and mo(3) on key 1 in layer 2 will have the tri layer effect I described. Separate navigation, symbol and fkey, numpad layers are one way to go. Spend at least a few hours on this, you will thank yourself later!

[@nickgoogle4525]

Sounds interesting, but i do not unterstand the example in the edited part.

[@codeforme8860]

I can’t wait for a full video on this

[@dmitrynikolaev5743]

You connected it wrong. USB cable goes into the right part, the one with a ball.

[@fayth78]

Since its your area of expertise I want to ask. I tried cleaning my keychron v1 with akko rose reds with an air blower and now some of my switches act strange they dont press until I press them really hard. How do i fix the switches without buying extra switches hehe. The PCB isnt damaged because if I change the switch that doesnt press properly with another one it starts working. I suppose some dust or debris has gotten inside the switch that is making it act weird. Please let me know what to do :3

[@Chyrosran22]

Switch it around for a switch you're not using.

[@sevurueva5138]

If its hotswap you can open up the switches and add lube as necessary.

[@SinaFarhat]

I use a trackball mouse for my laptops, it makes it a lot easier to use when i use my laptop in bed. Yes i do clean the ball now and then as i also have a cat that loves to shed his fur everywhere!

[@y00t00b3r]

I use a wired mouse, resting on an empty clipboard, lol!

[@N8_THN]

At this point I want a channel where you make cocktails

[@iaina3251]

ooh I like that. I like that a LOT! IMO Ergos are great and trackball are just awesome (except for gaming). Putting them all together is my idea of joy!

[@CharlesHydronium]

ergo keyboard... oh no, ergo keyboard i can already smell a vid with a WANING intro EDIT: OMG I just notice the Baba is You t-shirt. banger game btw

[@lightseeker6943]

Hey guys, unrelated question (need your help) : I have a blue alps board in very good condition, but my big ass enter key is binding pretty severely and my shift keys are extremely rattly. I guess lubing the stabilizers is what I should do right ? If so, would Krytox 205g0 be my best choice ? Thanks

[@Chyrosran22]

Lubing a key's stabilisers probably won't prevent it from binding, but it will probably prevent stab rattle, yeah. If the switch is binding, open it and clean it. I have a video guide series on Alps switch cleaning.

[@lightseeker6943]

@@Chyrosran22 Thanks a million Thomas! What I should have mentionned is that my big ass enter key only binds when I press on the very top part of it. That's why I was guessing that it had more to do with the stabilizers than the switch itself. But I'll give it a good clean up anyway !

[@wiebel7569]

My Marble FX from 1997 had already an optical sensor so not exactly the latest tech.

[@maciejnadobnik5081]

Yess, finally!!!

[@michaelhughes6065]

That was a surprisingly open minded review for such a weird keyboard! Soon you're gonna be daily driving a Eegodox!

[@voidmachines]

Now that's something I wasn't expecting to see on this channel. I am planning to buy one in the near future. Because the whole curved shape intrigues me. And spending a fortune for the kinesis advantage does not seem reasonable. I prefer the 42 key version though

[@alexandrecosta2567]

Digging the baba is you shirt

[@darkfire8615]

How did they get the name?

[@obosob-6326]

It's a one man company. The owner's surname is LeBastard (French for "the bastard")

[@Dvovsky]

Not sure if you’re gonna be checking this comments section, but would you be up to redo your top X switches lists? It’s been quite a while and I’m not sure if any modern switches would now make it up there

[@Chyrosran22]

The linear ones would just be a top 10 of contactless switches that are all equally good. The tactile and clicky ones would probably be unchanged tbh. Maybe I'd swap SKCP for clickbars or something.

[@y00t00b3r]

I could have sworn I just saw a reply to this... ?? Did it disappear?

[@y00t00b3r]

It reappeared! Hooray!

[@XanthinZarda]

Speaking of unboxing, I'll hopefully be getting my mitts on a new and odd keyboard soon: 🔌A Matias FK302 🔌, which will be replacing both this disappointing HP SK-2085, and my now at rest Unicomp Model M which was one of the last that rolled from their original tooling and has started to stick in some unpleasant ways.

[@1fareast14]

8:13 floating hands are fine for me, but a wrist rest may help if you're having issues with the trackball

[@purplelord8531]

oh no... ergomech is quaking right now

[@atemoc]

6:30 Tenting like this can, for some people, feel more comfortable. This is the case for me, even though I never thought I would end up liking it. Not only did I end up liking it (as long as you don't look at the keys whilst typing, which you WILL do when you learn a new keyboard/layout), but when I made my keyboard tilt back to normal/minimum, I actually felt a bit of pain in my wrists and arms, so I now stick with the more aggressive tenting. Though, I am not going to fully vertical way, because even for me, this is too much, and I don't see the point as I don't get any kind of advantage from it personally. For you, this keyboard will already be a pain enough to use as it is, so I would probably recommend against using the more aggressive tenting, unless you like torturing yourself. 10:25 Using a TRRS cable is recommended to avoid issues that a "standard" cable can give, and it will provide better compatibility in most keyboards like these. 12:24 This is the correct orientation. The layout in the keyboard's firmware simply seems to be bad, or maybe the non-TRRS connection breaks something stupid. In any case, if you get to review this keyboard, and any other keyboard with such ridiculously low amount of keys (even I cannot go below 70 keys *minimum*, and I have tried), making your own layout is basically mandatory, because whatever defaults are crammed into these tiny layouts is often much more of a pain to learn and understand "why the heck [X] is like [Y] instead of [Z]" etc than just making your own and ending up with something you like. But you already know that, I think. I just hope configuring that keyboard will not be a pain. 12:35 And of course, this is NOT the right orientation.

[@MicraHakkinen]

I'm using an "ordinary" keyboard and I used to have it tilted using the feet at the back. But my ergotherapist / occupational therapist told me it's much better for my hands and wrists to have the keyboard flat on my desk. Now that I'm used to having it flat, extending the keyboard's feet actually feels uncomfortable. I cannot imagine how anyone would enjoy a much more extreme angle than the few degrees my keyboard can do, yet apparently you do. I was slightly tempted to tell you "you're doing it wrong", but thought better of it ;)

[@y00t00b3r]

@@MicraHakkinen I think you misunderstand what tenting is. Tenting is done along an axis that is orthogonal to the axis of rotation which is involved when extending the legs on an "ordinary" keyboard.

[@MicraHakkinen]

@@y00t00b3r Ah so it's about rotating your hand by rotating your lower arm, not about tilting your hand by bending your wrist. That makes a lot more sense, thanks for clarifying!

[@exen900]

due to the sensor on the right half, the Charybdis needs the right side to be the main part of the split, and the left the secondary. Usually most splits on QMK can figure that out on their own, though I think it was the ammount of data or something like that the sensor communicates which is too mouch for the TRRS connection.

[@Bozhak]

Cool basterd, I recon this board is around 23047/1 the size of the pentagon with its single shiny red ball.

[@BlissBee]

Have fun lmao

[@pietarus2485]

That was fast!

[@Chyrosran22]

These unboxing videos are very easy to produce, there's a reason so many youtubers based their whole carreers around them xD .

[@OkayKeeb]

you got it plugged into the wrong side

[@InvalidOS]

i want that shirt

[@1fareast14]

This would be an ergonomic endgame for me, if I never had to use a normal laptop keybard. But I do, so I stick with Alice.

[@Chyrosran22]

Alice?! Who the fuck is Alice?! :p

[@1fareast14]

​@@Chyrosran22 Normal row stagger but split and angled. Keychron q8/10 are examples.

[@Chyrosran22]

@@1fareast14 It's a song ;) kzbin.info/www/bejne/iXnSdIGVg5eXgac

[@1fareast14]

@Chyrosran22 Thanks, somehow never heard it 👍

[@y00t00b3r]

@@1fareast14 OMG, that's brilliant!

[@lignorof8475]

very second!

[@87engr]

Manufacturers sending ergo boards to Chyros for review remind me of guys hitting on a lesbian girl: "aww c'mon, you just haven't been with the right guy yet!". Zero chances of success, but I can't help but admire their self-confidence.

[@y00t00b3r]

but they hit the bullseye, with their creativity and attention to detail. Just enough to engage Thomas' curiosity!

[@insertnamehere6559]

this keyboard is seven hundred fucking canadian dollars I love ergo keyboards, but this is robbery. it's just 3d printed plastic and a couple PCBs.

[@obosob-6326]

I don't know what options you went for to get that figure but everything bastardkb make is also open source so you can make it yourself for the cost of parts and time.

[@yeezet4592]

All in,with keycap and switch costs, you're looking at like 250. That's reasonable

[@DanielPetre]

Cool Baba is you t-shirt ! Not bad of a game !