I have been using a Moonlander keyboard ⤤ for a few years now. I’m using it every day, and this is just the best keyboard I’ve ever used. The ergonomic of the keyboard is really good, in two halves, ortholinear keys. And fully programmable. The perfect combo.

Programmable you said?

That's what has been a revelation for me. It's not just a keyboard with some different physical disposition of the keys. It's a keyboard on which I can decide what's under the keys.

And I have a lot of different layers, to do a lot of different things way better. For instance I have a layer that is full of Rectangle shortcuts. So I can very easily move my windows all day long.

I also have a layer dedicated for my IDE. One for my terminal.

No more shortcuts to learn, just the position of the keys I want. And no more multiple modifiers, just a selection of a layer.

And some of my layers are consistent, for instance left, right, up and down are at the same place when it's about moving my cursor, moving a window or selecting a pane in my terminal.

If you haven't done already, I can only advise you to try out such a programmable keyboard!

I’m using it with The Platform ⤤ that allows to put both sides at an angle. That has been a game changer for me. And no more wrist pain since then. It feels way more natural than it seems.

But there’s a big problem with the Moonlander: traveling! It’s heavy, more than 1600g, and quite big. It can fold, that’s great, but once in the carrying case, almost 10 cm height. When I’m traveling, it takes a lot of space in my backpack, and it’s too much weight to be comfortable.

So I thought about how to make it better for traveling.

First, I had to agree on the compromises to make:

• no more feet: they are small, but I don’t use them, so let’s remove them.
• no more palm rest: they are nice, but I can leave without them for a few days.
• no more tenting: the platform is super great, but it’s more than 900g on the 1600g. If there’s something to remove, this is it.

You can find all the 3D models I designed on this specific collection on Makerworld: https://makerworld.com/en/collections/20455949-moonlander

Removing the feet

Ok, this is one easy, and the impact is low. But that’s a good start.

On the Moonlander, there are two small feet that can be flipped to have the keyboard at a (low) angle. I never used them.

So let’s remove them. But if I remove them, I will have holes in the bottom of the keyboard. Not very nice. So I designed small plugs to fill the holes.

Just to give some background, this was more iterative than I thought…

The 3d model for the plugs is available on Makerworld: Moonlander plug ⤤

Removing the palm rests

The palm rests are good. Not small, but they are comfortable, and not too heavy.

When it’s time to travel, they fold under the keyboard, nice. But still, it takes some space. So let’s remove them.

Once they are removed, you have a void that is, this time, not comfortable. But it’s quite easy to create a piece that will fill those voids.

Those notch blank are available on Makerworld: Moonlander notch blank ⤤

Removing the tenting

Now, the big piece: removing the tenting.

Wait, that should be easy, no? Just remove the platform, and that’s it. No?

Well… in theory, yes. But in practice I started to have some more ideas. All started with a 3d model I saw that is a bracket to connect both halves of the keyboard. And I wanted to explore this area.

So I designed multiple things. First, a set of brackets that I can connect to each half of the keyboard. They are using the original hardware, without the feet of course. I designed them to encapsulate the bolts, just to be a bit nicer to what I already saw here and there.

That also took a few iterations…

Those brackets can receive a dovetail, so I designed a few different spacers to connect both halves at different angles, with different lengths.

They are available with 0 (straight), 10, 20, 30 and 40 degrees angles, in short and long sizes. That should cover a lot of different use cases, at least enough to test different variations.

While traveling, it means I'll not work in the same conditions than in my (home) office. In my office, I can setup my keyboard without any kind of brackets in a way it's always working fine for me.

But while traveling, it means I need to accommodate with different locations, different desks, different positions. And here come the idea of brackets to connect the two halves: reproducibility.

I can be anywhere, if I just connect the two sides with the same bracket, with the same length and same angle, I know my keyboard will be the same and my typing experience will also be consistent. At least more than without.

If it was clearly not something mandatory to have to use my keyboard, it was at least fun to do!

I also tried to go a bit further, by integrating my Apple Magic Trackpad in the setup. I’m using it all day, no mouse at all. Usually it’s placed on the right side of the keyboard. That’s what I found the most comfortable. But I wanted to try to place it between both halves, a bit like on a laptop.

And the same way, by placing it inside the spacer means that it’s very easy to reproduce the same setup everywhere.

So here it is, a very specific spacer that contains support and little holders for the trackpad. It’s only available with a 20 degrees angle, but I might try with some others, will see.

The brackets and all the different spacers (10 in total + the trackpad one) are available on Makerworld: Moonlander brackets ⤤

Conclusion

So, what’s the final result, including cable and carrying case?

• before: 1744g
• after: 770g 🎉

1 kg less!

That’s a lot when you have it in your backpack all day. Or in your checked luggage where weight matters.

It’s also 2 cm less in height when in the case, which is nice to pack.

With the spacers, it also allows to have a more consistent typing experience when traveling, and to better accommodate different locations.

The plugs and the notch blanks are mostly there to have a nicer look, they are all but mandatory. And at the beginning I wanted to have them prinited in white. But I ran out of white filament, so I used matte yellow for everything. Not that bad after all.

I think one of the best setup for myself is probably the long spacer, 10 degrees angle.

This feels natural, and typing is nice with it.

I'm still unsure I'll use the trackapad spacer. I like the idea, but I need to test it more to ensure it's comfortable enough to work with. But it would be the perfect setup to be able to work anywhere with the same experience.

Here is my, at least for now, final setup for traveling:

But maybe I’ll try other configurations later. Who knows!