deskthority

Just finished my first quasi-custom keyboard build! I'm pretty proud of how things turned out so I thought I'd share. Switches are Cherry MX Clears, with white PBT DSA signature plastics keycaps. Currently running the generic QWERTY Atreus layout, but I'm thinking about taking the plunge and switching to Colemak. The finish is piano black lacquer, with several layers of clear coat on top. Been lurking/spying on here for a while and thought I'd make my first contribution to the community!

Nice

not really my thing, but I respect the effort you put into it, and it looks great!

What material is the top plate made of? I think I'm eventually going to build a full metal Atreus one day.

The top plate is the laser cut birch supplied with the kit by Phil. It's got about 10 layers of spot-filling primer, 6-7 layers of black lacquer, and about 3-4 layers of clear lacquer on it. That being said, if I could do it over, I would totally make the top 2 plates, and the back plate out of stainless steel. The layout is small enough, and the steel would be cheap enough, that it would be worth it in my opinion. I'm a pianist though, so I'd always wanted to do a keyboard in the style of a piano. It definitely makes me appreciate the work that goes into the finish of a nice piano.

Did you hand wire, or do a pcb?

I did a PCB. I figured it was a good way to get my feet wet. I've started planning my next build already, which will likely be hand-wired. After that I'm planning on trying my hand at PCB design.

Did you order a kit for the pcb or did you have it printed yourself? If so where? I've been wanting to print out a few, but haven't tackled converting kicad to gerber.

I ordered the kit from Phil's Atreus website. I haven't gotten far enough into PCB design to have to worry about conversion of file formats. In other words, I have a rough idea of what I want to do, but I have yet to put pen to paper.