Group Build prototyping phase

[Muirium]

Hand wire it, stat!

[matt3o]

holy cow!

[pyrelink]

Wow. Now that is impressive. Is that fully assembled? Like soldered, screwed, and glued?

[matt3o]

yes it's 99% complete.

[pyrelink]

Looks beautiful.

[Muirium]

I didn't expect Dolch to go well with wood. I was wrong! How about Granite?

[matt3o]

I'll put Granite on it as soon as I get them.

[Muirium]

Tease! What's still to come, Cyrillic?

Anyway, it looks like a sound success. So, have we reached more or less the beginning of The Good Stuff when gone group gets to build?

[matt3o]

ok. for the PCB we need a machine. Home made is really too much work. I'd say it's still feasible with very (very) small keyboards (like the HHFox), but as soon as you reach a 60-65% I'd say either you go hand-wire or factory made PCB.

To go with factory we need at least 5 samples to reach a nice price point, but I need to design it with kicad first and make a prototype (hoping to make it right at take 1). The alternative is of course CNC, but I don't know when I'll get one (I will sooner or later...)

Regarding laser cut. I can have 2 cases (plate, sides and bottoms) cut for approx 90 euros at any time. Shipping originates from UK since the laser cutter is from over there and I have an agreement with qwerkeys. If we reach 5 or more I can have some discount.

[Muirium]

UK shipping for a change! Don't give me bad ideas!

Have you got a very rough figure for a single factory made PCB, and for the price when doing 5? Just for calculations…

[matt3o]

1 PCB €70
5 PCBs €160

plus shipping

[matt3o]

forgot to say that sound is perfect. no need for dampening.

[pyrelink]

Hm... All of my devices are running out of battery, and I have no access to battery chargers here. To keep it short, I would like to help out to meet MOQs, for the PCBs if that is what people are interested in. However, I am more then happy to hand wire, and if it means getting pieces (specifically the plates) sooner, then it might even be my first option. Love to know how others feel about this before I decide anything though.

[Muirium]

Pyrelink and I have been talking about both making the same layout of 56 key wireless M84 keyboard. M84s take MX caps but are PCB mount only (there's no plate clips on them) so we would definitely need PCBs. This is my current draft layout from yesterday:



Maybe if we got 5 people interested, we could go the pro PCB route. I'll talk with Kile and PJE to see what they suggest for PCB suppliers. Their OneHand boards are tiny, very small runs, and low cost.

I'm open to going to a standard 6.25 space bar if it makes this more accessible. I'm also thinking of cross wiring the left and right mods to open up matrix space for a couple more keys, if we can pull it off on the PCB. Probably easier to do on a double sided PCB like the OneHand's. Maybe going double sided we could even put a Teensy mount on it so people can choose between wired and wireless.

[scottc]

I'd possibly be up for that. I probably wouldn't bother with a plate, then.

ne0phyte recently told me about an Irish company that does small-batch PCBs. I could proxy them too, then. I'll get more info about them now!

Edit: That spacebar is much too small for me, though... It looks like a Round 5 exclusive.

[matt3o]

that would be jackaltac.com prolly.

[scottc]

That's the one!

[Muirium]

Yeah, I designed this to use my fancy 4u Round 5 space bar. But I'm not exactly short of 6.25u myself so not a problem.

[Broadmonkey]

holy cow!

That shit turned out mighty fine! The gap next to the arrow cluster looks great with the higher edge on the case (that also hides the switches)!

But the big question, does it make it easier to home in on the arrow keys?

[Memoren]

forgot to say that sound is perfect. no need for dampening.

we need a recording of what it sounds like when typing

[matt3o]

But the big question, does it make it easier to home in on the arrow keys?

I haven't used it enough to tell, but what I can say is that on the Leopold FC660C I sometimes mistakenly press the key to the left of the left arrow. with this setup it is practically impossible.

forgot to say that sound is perfect. no need for dampening.

we need a recording of what it sounds like when typing

will do, but I'd say the sound is really perfect. better that a full plastic keyboard for sure.

[Ryan_Alan]

forgot to say that sound is perfect. no need for dampening.

WOoo! Look amazing, Matteo.

[Eszett]

The wood case looks great and valueable due to the darker wood color. In my eyes the gap is awry, it’s hard to avoid though.

[SL89]

I already sounded off on your reddit post but i had to just come over here and say how awesome it looks! (and how it must sound good too!)

[matt3o]

thanks man, there's a lot of my sweat and blood in it...

[Muirium]

Sharp edges, eh? I got that once, working inside a PowerBook…

But yes, it's gorgeous, as always. Still interested in hearing it, too.

[matt3o]

the only thing remaining to solve is... the feet. gosh I hate those rubber sticky bulbs.

[Muirium]

When you do come up with something, my Shiny 60% has mounting holes ready for them too! The rubber bumpers work, but aren't nearly metal enough for my taste.

[matt3o]

Sound test for the wood keyboard. I believe I will call it "Elf Board" (wood and steel), while robot-65 was the dev name.

https://soundcloud.com/matt3oaudio/robo ... sound-test

[Muirium]

Sound test for the wood keyboard. I believe I will call it "Elf Board" (wood and steel), while robot-65 was the dev name.

https://soundcloud.com/matt3oaudio/robo ... sound-test

Sounds good. A bit reverberant, like my M0110, but more solid too. I think wood is going to be in fashion for custom builds this year!