Chinese USB Hall Effect Keyboard - Review and Impressions

[andrewjoy]

XMIT had talked about a price of ~$100 and a date of "soon" - is that still feasible?

And 100 USD in shipping to the EU

Oh by the way what do the 70g versions feel like compared to say MX blacks ?

I relay would like 50g in bamboo see if 70 is too stiff

[citrojohn]

sigh...

Sorry, XMIT, if this is Massdrop or nothing it's going to have to be nothing. I'm very disappointed about this, but if you can't handle any distribution yourself (or get a proper commercial partner interested) I'll just have to do without Hall-effect. I'd be very interested in one of the prototypes.

A suggestion: if you needed a few orders to make MOQ, would you consider proxying some boards from Massdrop? I imagine there's a number of people on here who'd trust you more than Massdrop (me, for a start), and it'd be a pity if a buy went under for want of a few orders.

[zslane]

Sounds like Europe needs its own MassDrop. And maybe the UK too, since they would probably just Brexit from a EuroDrop if it existed.

[andrewjoy]

We could ask mass drop about mass shipping i guess ? Dunno if thats something they can do.

I am not too happy with massdrop they appear to be one of them companies that forget the rest of the world exists outside of the US, but i aint going to miss the chance at super smooth hall effect.

[XMIT]

Keeping this thread focused on the keyboards. Please use this thread for Massdrop discussions:

review-f45/massdrop-customer-support-t14887.html

I'll answer andrewjoy's and citrojohn's concerns there now.

[XMIT]

I relay would like 50g in bamboo see if 70 is too stiff

I can see about throwing in some extra springs, if you want to change them out for yourself!

[andrewjoy]

I relay would like 50g in bamboo see if 70 is too stiff

I can see about throwing in some extra springs, if you want to change them out for yourself!

How do the 70g feel compared to MX blacks ?

[XMIT]

How do the 70g feel compared to MX blacks ?

From a very crude measurement: 50g and 70g are bottoming out force. This means that 50g is a little lighter than MX Red, and 70g is a little lighter than MX Black. The actuation point on the production boards will be 1.8mm.

[andrewjoy]

If 70g is slightly less than MX black ( so similar to vintage black) then i am good with them. In between red and modern back is my sweet spot.

so don't worry about 50g bamboo then.

[XMIT]

I've just received a sample of click leaves from the manufacturer!

They are delightful. The tactile bump is pretty substantial. With a 50g spring (25-30g actuation force) they feel a bit like clicky ergo Clears.

With a tiny bit of modification the manufacturer can produce tactile leaves as well. The difference here is that one leaf is taller. The shorter leaf is the click leaf. It moves *up* as the key cap goes down, slamming into the key switch housing making a sound. A taller leaf would not move and would be quiet.

It's hard to understand without photos - those are coming soon - but it really is an improvement! I think the board is great with or without them.

I'm still not sure if I'll be able to offer click leaves as part of the group buy. Sure, you can add them on later, but it requires a full board rebuild, which takes about 2-3 hours.

[Techno Trousers]

I've just received a sample of click leaves from the manufacturer!

They are delightful. The tactile bump is pretty substantial. With a 50g spring (25-30g actuation force) they feel a bit like clicky ergo Clears.

Wow! That sounds fantastic. That quoted actuation force might be a little on the low side for my taste, though. Did you try it with the 70g springs?

This project is getting more exciting all the time. I don't mind waiting until later for the tactile option(s). I always figure it's best to get everything right ahead of time.

[XMIT]

Wow! That sounds fantastic. That quoted actuation force might be a little on the low side for my taste, though. Did you try it with the 70g springs?

Not yet. I only put a few click leaves on 50g springs. The manufacturer said they wanted to tweak the click leaves a bit so I didn't want to put all 87 in. It's tedious.

The bump is pretty substantial. Again, perhaps we can fine tune this in the future.

[Techno Trousers]

I definitely like the big bump. It sounds super promising.

[fohat]

The tactile bump is pretty substantial. With a 50g spring (25-30g actuation force) they feel a bit like clicky ergo Clears.

With a tiny bit of modification the manufacturer can produce tactile leaves as well.

I have been very interested in this in a somewhat disaffected way, planning to buy one (either size, 50g) out of curiosity if nothing else.

This development moves it into the "awesome - must have" category, but I would want to buy a finished product rather than fiddle with all those switches myself.

[XMIT]

This development moves it into the "awesome - must have" category, but I would want to buy a finished product rather than fiddle with all those switches myself.

That has been a common concern. For this reason I will probably wait to offer the click and tactile solutions until they are more mature. The manufacturer is still exploring some different tooling options to make more consistent leaves.

I mention the retrofit option for early adopters who are interested in later upgrades. So far all the upgrades to sliders, springs, click and tactile leaves, stabilizers, body design and material, and even controller and PCB improvements, have been backwards compatible mechanically.

And - yes! - these have all been things I've tweaked with the manufacturer. They wanted to discontinue Cherry style stabilizers on bamboo boards due to some manufacturing problem; I developed an improved tool path that solved their fit and tolerance issues. And so on.

[Chyros]

This project is moving in the right direction fantastically. It would be great if they could also offer tactile and clicky versions, that'd possibly be a genuine first for Hall effect switches.

[XMIT]

Here's a teaser shot of the production ready bamboo case with XMIT Keyboards logo and hidden screws! I'll take some more photos tonight.

Many iterations later, the final prototype.

600_4213.jpg (116 KiB) Viewed 12394 times

[andrewjoy]

Mate that looks amazing, i cannot wait to get one.....so i can put some decent caps on it .

[ohaimark]

No kidding. That's the first thing I did with my prototype.

[Techno Trousers]

Looks awesome!

[geostation]

looks neat. a bit too higher profile than i expected. any chance the bamboo case can be extended a little for a wristrest
anyone know keycap sets that go well with wooden case ?

[XMIT]

[A]ny chance the bamboo case can be extended a little for a wristrest[?]

At this point the design is frozen as we move toward production, so, no, sorry.

[XMIT]

So, I took some more photos and sent them to my friends at Massdrop. They said it would be better to just send them the boards and let their professional photographers have at it. So, my three final prototypes are in a box now, heading out tomorrow.

But something surprising happened. Now, don't get me wrong, I like these boards plenty, but with previous iterations there was just enough wrong with them to not make them great daily drivers. Maybe the stabilizers were binding. Maybe there was rattle or clicking or pinging. Maybe the upstroke was too loud.

But, for the past few days, I've been dogfooding the acrylic 87-key 50g variant of the board. I'm glad I did - I worked out some important firmware discrepancies that made it into my written manual.

Now that it's packed up ... I miss it! I'm back on my Hypersphere'd Novatouch for a little bit. It's just a touch too heavy, and somehow feels slower.

I mean, take my review with a grain of salt since I'm trying to sell them, but these are wonderful boards. I've been using them for hacking and writing exclusively for the past few days. I just fly on them. I'm really looking forward to the upcoming refined clicky and tactile versions. For now, since I have some spare sliders, I'm going to retrofit an older prototype with updated parts to get a daily driver for the time being.

If the group buy goes really well I'll offer a 104-key option as well, this was a popular request!

[Techno Trousers]

GLWS, XMIT! I'm looking forward to seeing the listings on Massdrop. I'll see if my wife is interested in a linear full-size.

[zslane]

If the group buy goes really well I'll offer a 104-key option as well, this was a popular request!

Just out of curiosity, once you step into 104-key territory, is it significantly more difficult to just go to 108-key instead? (The other four keys being above the numpad) Of course, I'm hoping for an ABS case someday too (in white of off-white, not just black).

Ultimately, I'm trying to end-game my Space Cadet board, which is a 108-key layout, and these Hall Effect switches could very well do it (it's either them or MX Pinks, probably, though a tactile version of the HE switch might go head-to-head against the RealForce RGB board I plan to try out as well).

[XMIT]

If the group buy goes really well I'll offer a 104-key option as well, this was a popular request!

Just out of curiosity, once you step into 104-key territory, is it significantly more difficult to just go to 108-key instead?

Yes, it is more difficult. 104-key is ready to go today. 108-key requires a PCB revision which costs time and money. It is difficult to route all the signals for the sensors and LEDs correctly.

The manufacturer is clever: the 61-key, 87-key, and 104-key boards share a common PCB design that they can chop down to size (since the MCU is under the 61-key section). I'm going to ask them to do a PCB revision that will include 108-key (104 + 4 media keys) and 120-key (108-key plus 12 keys off to the left).

[Techno Trousers]

120-key (108-key plus 12 keys off to the left).

Wow, that would really stand out in the crowd!

[andrewjoy]

Can we get hyper7 layout!

With round4 on

Its as close to space cadet as 99.9% of us are going to get

[XMIT]

So, here's my current thinking: a single PCB design that can be sliced along four different paths creating a whole bunch of configuration options.

The fleXMIT layout.

keyboard-layout.jpg (156.31 KiB) Viewed 12143 times

You can imagine a whole bunch of possibilities here: Sun layout, NeXT layout, TKL without Fn row, etc. All with a single PCB design.

Ideally, if I had the time, I'd do something similar for Model F projects as well, but I don't see myself having hours to devote to PCB layout any time soon.

[zslane]

That looks lovely.