I have never soldered in my life. But, as it happens, one morning, I woke up with the strong urge to get a split keyboard. Not the thing you buy in a store nearby thought. I decided to create one.
I didn't want to do something irreversible with a split keyboard PCB, so I bought a Navi10 kit to practice. And a week or two ago (yeah, I'm a bit slow on writing this post), I soldered my first keyboard. The Navi10 macropad. Here is a photo of the final result:
What a beautiful way to spent few hours! Challenging and fun experience with the esthetically pleasing result. Not that useful, to be honest (my planck also has media keys). But it was more of a soldering gateway drug, so no worries here.
Before soldering Navi10, I thought that might create a small “how-to” blog post. Tutorial-like. Describing, step-by-step, how to, actually, solder Navi10.
However, look at this gorgeous PCB back:
It's all instructions you'll need if you know a thing or two about soldering. I didn't. So, I “cheated” and also used this video. It has some useful tips on assembling for soldering rookies.
For some time, I wanted to start a blog. Hopefully, to entertain you. At least, to practice committing thoughts to text. I even almost started few times. But analysis paralysis never sleeps. There are just too many ways on how to start writing. WordPress? Or, maybe, static-generated blogs hosted on GitHub? Self-hosted-something? Also, Netlify seems good. Or should it be WordPress? Yikes.
Even without this horror of choosing a platform. It was hard even to decide on things I want to write about! Writing only about work, software-related stuff seemed dull. Journaling personal stuff online feels too, ahem, personal. Board games are just too fun to play, so it is tough to write when boxes look at you.
And just a few days ago, it occurred. Hey, I'm a beginner at 3D printing and DIY keyboards! Writing about things I'm excited about? Checked. It may prove to be interesting for someone on a similar path? Bold “maybe”! That is why, for starters, I'm going to document my journey with these two hobbies. Not to mention, at this point, I picked a platform for blogging almost instantly. I'm too eager to start doing something and writing something about my doings.
And then we'll see how it goes.
P.S. I hope this is enough to make a blank canvas of blog-to-be less intimidating in the future.
