new model f troubleshooting and delivery rant

[califool]

Going through the steps in the 'Manual' and before I continue I want to see if this has happened with anyone else. My 'd' key just dies all of sudden but works perfectly and registers with the solenoid if the 'e' or 'f' key are held down and then I type a 'd'. I took all the keys off and did some compressed air, inspected all the springs and everything looks good so I put the keys back on and while it was a little better at first it only lasted like 30 minutes. I am going to download the testing tool and be ready to flash the firmware if need be. Before I open up and access the PCB I want to hear from some people on here.

Those are the facts.

*****************************************************************************************************************************************************************

This is how I feel about this situation. (skip if you are a facts only kind a person)

I am going to eventually love this board but I am disappointed to say the least as I've had it a month and change and haven't been able to use it as I have been swamped at work and only have random times to dedicate to this (which I shouldn't have to do) and my new poodle Rumi is much more entertaining and fun to be around compared to working on what is a several hundred dollar paper weight at the moment. I am totally okay with keeping up and maintaining and troubleshooting the board in the future, actually looking forward to keeping it alive for a long long time. But what I am not okay with is: Stating that this is *NOT a build kit yet being sent a board that is not in working order and reading in the manual 'this is expected' wtf? The board was shipped in packaging that was not even remotely adequate for any electronics especially one with it's price tag. My board showed up battered couple keys were destroyed, dot matrix receipt was torn from one of the gouges and obviously the board was shaken up badly and I have no idea if it got rained on or not. I would put the blame on usps, if the board was actually packaged properly. This isn't the first incident as I am finding out where damage is a result of being packaged improperly. For someone, (l'll get chatgpt to give me some numbers) that stated in the 'Manual' ad nasium that everything wrong is due to not reading the manual and a result of installation error, I get a little pissed. I bought into the model fuckall 'philosophy" in shelling out for the board, my personal philosophy is that when you pay for goods and services that you get a working version of the product, if not it would be deemed a "lemon". Thats usually at the top of my very short list of expectations when I engage in business transactions. Especially when there is someone doing "quality control". Which one would think hey, these people just paid a lot of money and there have been incidents in the past with the handling by usps, so I better reinforce/ double box/ add some peanuts/ anyfuckingthing.

NOTE TO ELLIPSE do not respond to this as you have on every single post on the internet concerning the model f keyboards. It is not needed or wanted. you have done enough and taken enough of my hard earned money. Frankly I'm not in the mood to be told that I need to read the manual or that this is my fault or that I don't understand the philosophy of the project. I'll reach out to you when I need those broken keys etc.

*sorry I am a very patient dude but this has been extremely annoying. Probably because of how excited I was to get this board...... I needed to get that off my chest. yes I do feel better, and can get back to getting this board working.

[Ellipse]

califool as we discussed over email, my apologies that USPS destroyed your packaging. Were you going to get back to me over email so I can replace for free any broken parts of your keyboard?

I can see by your post that you are trying to diagnose it yourself instead of following the manual fully. The manual doesn't say only to "inspect" the springs and blow compressed air as the primary troubleshooting step; you need to re-seat the springs and possibly replace them. Your packaging was so damaged by USPS that probably some of the springs may have moved out of place and may not be firmly on the nub.

You can't just look at the spring and think that because it is not visibly different from the other springs that the spring is fine and installed correctly, fully pressed down on the nub and in the correct orientation and distance from the edge of the barrel.

Someone else noted that reinstalling the springs of the affected keys 100% fixes issues with unreliable keys. I suggest replacing all 3 springs on d, e, and f keys and making sure the replacements are installed per the written notes in the manual.

Please note that I stand by these products and no one will be left with a non-working keyboard. As noted in the manual, the last step if nothing in the manual works is to contact me for additional troubleshooting and/or repairs on my side. Almost always however it's one of the few issues listed (springs needing re-seating or replacement, keys needing to be re-seated, debris inside the inner assembly on top of the PCB, requiring opening up the inner assembly and wiping the PCB, etc.). Please do keep me posted over email if you need help.

[xxhellfirexx]

With a keyboard that is this damaged, it is unreasonable to expect a customer to tear apart their whole keyboard, examine each piece and reassemble them. Not many people have the time, patience and skill to do this. Even if they could, they might not be able to differentiate between a good part and a bad part. As califool mentioned, this is a not a build kit. A good manufacturer will send a replacement keyboard and ask for the broken one back. Then the manufacturer salvages working parts, not the customer.

[Ellipse]

That is not at all an accurate characterization of the required installation and setup process noted in the manual. A complete disassembly and inspection of hundreds of parts is not at all recommended or required.

The project philosophy has been quite clear over the past 5+ years, that the end users are responsible for learning how to set up and maintain their keyboards now and in the coming years, and that the priority is passing along the lowest possible cost to everyone, instead of adding $150 in costs to each keyboard to allow for "free" international shipping and repairs for simple operations that require little more than a screwdriver, tweezers, and pliers. In the above user's example, simply removing and reseating the springs almost always solves issues that arise during initial setup and installation, such as unreliable operation from several keys. The time to go through the manual and learn about the Model F is often longer than the few minutes to resolve most specific issues that are expected during setup.

The project does not support a common philosophy of today's products which are essentially "rented" for the warranty duration where they are guaranteed to work, and then no end users can repair the product after that so it is discarded. If the project can't encourage folks to learn how to setup and maintain their Model F to fix common issues, then these issues would lead to the keyboards just being discarded after such a proposed warranty and after the project has shut down.

Yes in an alternative project philosophy, these keyboards would be fully set up and travel exclusively by IBM trucks as they were in the 1980s and would never have to endure rough shipping and dislodging of springs, but having to charge what was charged back then ($800+ in today's dollars) to cover all that overhead instead of the current project charging half that amount would not achieve the project's original goal of getting these boards out there at as low a cost as possible so as to make them affordable to many folks.

[wobbled]

More bullshit from the big guy. Allow me to translate.

‘I cannot be arsed to ship out a working product and do anything even remotely close to QC, so here’s a bundle of chinaparts and a manual, have fun jerryrigging the bastard’

Just replace his board Joe. I get a lot of your customers like tinkering, as do I. But others buy this without reading your borderline illegal small prints.
When someone reads ‘built to last decades, not years’
You kind of expect it to.. you know… work out of the box and last at least 1 day?

This guys board got fingered by the courier, and further dicked by your lack of QC.
get him to send it back, send him a replacement, and re-sell the broken one once you fix YOUR fuckup.

[genericusername57]

Going through the steps in the 'Manual' and before I continue I want to see if this has happened with anyone else. My 'd' key just dies all of sudden but works perfectly and registers with the solenoid if the 'e' or 'f' key are held down and then I type a 'd'. I took all the keys off and did some compressed air, inspected all the springs and everything looks good so I put the keys back on and while it was a little better at first it only lasted like 30 minutes. I am going to download the testing tool and be ready to flash the firmware if need be. Before I open up and access the PCB I want to hear from some people on here.

Have you tried removing and reseating the springs on D, E and F, and possibly swapping them around? I get that you "shouldn't have to", but it would have taken you less time than writing your post (albeit without letting you vent, which I guess is fair). The reason Ellipse keeps repeating the same things, is because he's right about it solving most issues. I have two of these keyboards and I've had non functioning keys on both of them that were resolved by simply reseating or swapping around springs between keys. It takes less than a minute per key. Even if Ellipse did have a no questions asked warranty repair service like a large business would, I would never make the choice of sending away the board with all the hassle that means if the issue can be fixed by myself with a tweezer in <5 minutes.

I only say this because you didn't specifically mention removing and reseating the springs in the steps you've taken. I would simply suggest that you put that on top of your list, way, way above flashing firmware, using testing tools and opening the keyboard up since it's an incredibly quick and easy troubleshooting step to take. There is, at least to my eyes, no way of visually seeing the difference between a working and a non-working spring.

This is all written from the "I want the keyboard to work"-perspective. If you want to focus on the business side of things and indulge wobbled in whatever he's polluting every thread with then obviously my post can be ignored.

[wobbled]

Going through the steps in the 'Manual' and before I continue I want to see if this has happened with anyone else. My 'd' key just dies all of sudden but works perfectly and registers with the solenoid if the 'e' or 'f' key are held down and then I type a 'd'. I took all the keys off and did some compressed air, inspected all the springs and everything looks good so I put the keys back on and while it was a little better at first it only lasted like 30 minutes. I am going to download the testing tool and be ready to flash the firmware if need be. Before I open up and access the PCB I want to hear from some people on here.

Have you tried removing and reseating the springs on D, E and F, and possibly swapping them around? I get that you "shouldn't have to", but it would have taken you less time than writing your post (albeit without letting you vent, which I guess is fair). The reason Ellipse keeps repeating the same things, is because he's right about it solving most issues. I have two of these keyboards and I've had non functioning keys on both of them that were resolved by simply reseating or swapping around springs between keys. It takes less than a minute per key. Even if Ellipse did have a no questions asked warranty repair service like a large business would, I would never make the choice of sending away the board with all the hassle that means if the issue can be fixed by myself with a tweezer in <5 minutes.

I only say this because you didn't specifically mention removing and reseating the springs in the steps you've taken. I would simply suggest that you put that on top of your list, way, way above flashing firmware, using testing tools and opening the keyboard up since it's an incredibly quick and easy troubleshooting step to take. There is, at least to my eyes, no way of visually seeing the difference between a working and a non-working spring.

This is all written from the "I want the keyboard to work"-perspective. If you want to focus on the business side of things and indulge wobbled in whatever he's polluting every thread with then obviously my post can be ignored.

Well I knew you wouldn’t be far behind, how much is Ellipse paying you to kiss his behind exactly? Or do you just like doing it for free..

Most people with an ounce of common sense can see through his shady business practices, but sure keep on buying whatever BS he is selling

[califool]

Going through the steps in the 'Manual' and before I continue I want to see if this has happened with anyone else. My 'd' key just dies all of sudden but works perfectly and registers with the solenoid if the 'e' or 'f' key are held down and then I type a 'd'. I took all the keys off and did some compressed air, inspected all the springs and everything looks good so I put the keys back on and while it was a little better at first it only lasted like 30 minutes. I am going to download the testing tool and be ready to flash the firmware if need be. Before I open up and access the PCB I want to hear from some people on here.

Have you tried removing and reseating the springs on D, E and F, and possibly swapping them around? I get that you "shouldn't have to", but it would have taken you less time than writing your post (albeit without letting you vent, which I guess is fair). The reason Ellipse keeps repeating the same things, is because he's right about it solving most issues. I have two of these keyboards and I've had non functioning keys on both of them that were resolved by simply reseating or swapping around springs between keys. It takes less than a minute per key. Even if Ellipse did have a no questions asked warranty repair service like a large business would, I would never make the choice of sending away the board with all the hassle that means if the issue can be fixed by myself with a tweezer in <5 minutes.

I only say this because you didn't specifically mention removing and reseating the springs in the steps you've taken. I would simply suggest that you put that on top of your list, way, way above flashing firmware, using testing tools and opening the keyboard up since it's an incredibly quick and easy troubleshooting step to take. There is, at least to my eyes, no way of visually seeing the difference between a working and a non-working spring.

This is all written from the "I want the keyboard to work"-perspective. If you want to focus on the business side of things and indulge wobbled in whatever he's polluting every thread with then obviously my post can be ignored.

Thanks for the response. Yes I have re-seated the springs, and when I open it up I'll replace the entire flipper/spring unit. I managed to get a hold of a windows laptop because I ran into errors on Almalinux and was not about to attempt on my work Macbook after that (getting a working tool to diagnose the problem was another source of frustration that I was faced with piled on top of dealing with an already frustrating situation. Flatpak, Snap, or an AppImage might work not sure what goes into developing those but if It were my project I would look into them to cater to linux more than just Ubuntu/deb packages)

From what I see the D key is on the low end of the range of the pandrew tool. I have to do the test again and I'll screen shot it for reference, but I believe the key was topping out at 160 with the press and long hold followed by pressing the key 20x. I think 160 was 20 below the average... I have a few keys that register and type perfectly but are silent when typing so I'll look at those as well when its open. I split up the rant for the reason that while disappointed with the business end and feeling a little ripped off my concern is with getting the board into a working state so that I can enjoy typing because I LOVE a buckling spring board! I definitely won't be spending much time on the "indulged wobbled".

edit- Oh you meant "to indulge 'wobbled'" bahahahahahah I didn't know "wobbled" was a name I thought it was a term for banter or something? YOU BE YOU, WOBBLED. I got no beef. My main goal and purpose of the post is to get a working keyboard as stated.

[califool]

More bullshit from the big guy. Allow me to translate.

‘I cannot be arsed to ship out a working product and do anything even remotely close to QC, so here’s a bundle of chinaparts and a manual, have fun jerryrigging the bastard’

Just replace his board Joe. I get a lot of your customers like tinkering, as do I. But others buy this without reading your borderline illegal small prints.
When someone reads ‘built to last decades, not years’
You kind of expect it to.. you know… work out of the box and last at least 1 day?

This guys board got fingered by the courier, and further dicked by your lack of QC.
get him to send it back, send him a replacement, and re-sell the broken one once you fix YOUR fuckup.

You know whats funny?
I just got a new sodomy iron, until buying this board I haven't been reached around to have to bust it out. Honestly I was hoping to practice on an arduino or maybe even a practice PCB board and not learning on trying to get my terribly expensive keyboard build project up and running into a working state. I agree with the sentiment, haven't bothered asking because it looks like that is not an option. I must say you definitely have a way with words wobbled, if you ever worked in a kitchen professionally I would begin to think I know you. Being an ex-chef myself who once had a mouth that made a sailor look like a nun.... LOL

[wobbled]

I hope you know my post was directed at this genericusername57 guy, he spends his life defending Ellipses douchery.
I hope you get your money back or a working board. Its BS what he tries to pass as ‘normal and expected’.

I was one of the first to receive my F62, paid for single digit serial etc etc. And my board was fantastic, absolutely no issues, felt like it had actually been checked. Only real issue was the shit paint, but without delaying the project through testing it as a daily driver for like a year, probably hard to get the paint right the first try.

I don’t think he checks them anymore because the project has outgrown that. This is kind of when you hire help, but this dude expects everyone to work for him for free. Im surprised he hasn’t asked plebs like genericusername57 to QC and ship boards for him free of charge yet. Maybe this will spark an idea.

[idollar]

Factual ... https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/c ... dex_en.htm

Legal guarantee

Under EU rules, if the goods you buy turn out to be faulty or do not look or work as advertised, the seller must repair or replace them at no cost. If this is impossible or the seller cannot do it within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to you, you are entitled to a full or partial refund. You always have the right to a minimum 2-year guarantee from the moment you received the goods. However, national rules in your country may give you extra protection.

The 2-year guarantee period starts as soon as you receive your goods.

If a defect becomes apparent within 1 year of delivery, you don't have to prove it existed at the time of delivery. It is assumed that it did unless the seller can prove otherwise. In some EU countries, this period of “reversed burden of proof” is 2 years.

Goods bought from private individuals are not covered by these rules.

As the period starts on reception, this means that transport defect are the reponsibility of the seller.

[idollar]

Going through the steps in the 'Manual' and before I continue I want to see if this has happened with anyone else. My 'd' key just dies all of sudden but works perfectly and registers with the solenoid if the 'e' or 'f' key are held down and then I type a 'd'. I took all the keys off and did some compressed air, inspected all the springs and everything looks good so I put the keys back on and while it was a little better at first it only lasted like 30 minutes. I am going to download the testing tool and be ready to flash the firmware if need be. Before I open up and access the PCB I want to hear from some people on here.

Those are the facts.

*****************************************************************************************************************************************************************

This is how I feel about this situation. (skip if you are a facts only kind a person)

I am going to eventually love this board but I am disappointed to say the least as I've had it a month and change and haven't been able to use it as I have been swamped at work and only have random times to dedicate to this (which I shouldn't have to do) and my new poodle Rumi is much more entertaining and fun to be around compared to working on what is a several hundred dollar paper weight at the moment. I am totally okay with keeping up and maintaining and troubleshooting the board in the future, actually looking forward to keeping it alive for a long long time. But what I am not okay with is: Stating that this is *NOT a build kit yet being sent a board that is not in working order and reading in the manual 'this is expected' wtf? The board was shipped in packaging that was not even remotely adequate for any electronics especially one with it's price tag. My board showed up battered couple keys were destroyed, dot matrix receipt was torn from one of the gouges and obviously the board was shaken up badly and I have no idea if it got rained on or not. I would put the blame on usps, if the board was actually packaged properly. This isn't the first incident as I am finding out where damage is a result of being packaged improperly. For someone, (l'll get chatgpt to give me some numbers) that stated in the 'Manual' ad nasium that everything wrong is due to not reading the manual and a result of installation error, I get a little pissed. I bought into the model fuckall 'philosophy" in shelling out for the board, my personal philosophy is that when you pay for goods and services that you get a working version of the product, if not it would be deemed a "lemon". Thats usually at the top of my very short list of expectations when I engage in business transactions. Especially when there is someone doing "quality control". Which one would think hey, these people just paid a lot of money and there have been incidents in the past with the handling by usps, so I better reinforce/ double box/ add some peanuts/ anyfuckingthing.

NOTE TO ELLIPSE do not respond to this as you have on every single post on the internet concerning the model f keyboards. It is not needed or wanted. you have done enough and taken enough of my hard earned money. Frankly I'm not in the mood to be told that I need to read the manual or that this is my fault or that I don't understand the philosophy of the project. I'll reach out to you when I need those broken keys etc.

*sorry I am a very patient dude but this has been extremely annoying. Probably because of how excited I was to get this board...... I needed to get that off my chest. yes I do feel better, and can get back to getting this board working.

I read that you are in Brooklyn.

You are close to: "Model F Labs LLC. 600 Franklin Ave. #7170, Garden City, NY 11530"

[last sentence removed by mod]

[genericusername57]

Going through the steps in the 'Manual' and before I continue I want to see if this has happened with anyone else. My 'd' key just dies all of sudden but works perfectly and registers with the solenoid if the 'e' or 'f' key are held down and then I type a 'd'. I took all the keys off and did some compressed air, inspected all the springs and everything looks good so I put the keys back on and while it was a little better at first it only lasted like 30 minutes. I am going to download the testing tool and be ready to flash the firmware if need be. Before I open up and access the PCB I want to hear from some people on here.

Have you tried removing and reseating the springs on D, E and F, and possibly swapping them around? I get that you "shouldn't have to", but it would have taken you less time than writing your post (albeit without letting you vent, which I guess is fair). The reason Ellipse keeps repeating the same things, is because he's right about it solving most issues. I have two of these keyboards and I've had non functioning keys on both of them that were resolved by simply reseating or swapping around springs between keys. It takes less than a minute per key. Even if Ellipse did have a no questions asked warranty repair service like a large business would, I would never make the choice of sending away the board with all the hassle that means if the issue can be fixed by myself with a tweezer in <5 minutes.

I only say this because you didn't specifically mention removing and reseating the springs in the steps you've taken. I would simply suggest that you put that on top of your list, way, way above flashing firmware, using testing tools and opening the keyboard up since it's an incredibly quick and easy troubleshooting step to take. There is, at least to my eyes, no way of visually seeing the difference between a working and a non-working spring.

This is all written from the "I want the keyboard to work"-perspective. If you want to focus on the business side of things and indulge wobbled in whatever he's polluting every thread with then obviously my post can be ignored.

Thanks for the response. Yes I have re-seated the springs, and when I open it up I'll replace the entire flipper/spring unit. I managed to get a hold of a windows laptop because I ran into errors on Almalinux and was not about to attempt on my work Macbook after that (getting a working tool to diagnose the problem was another source of frustration that I was faced with piled on top of dealing with an already frustrating situation. Flatpak, Snap, or an AppImage might work not sure what goes into developing those but if It were my project I would look into them to cater to linux more than just Ubuntu/deb packages)

From what I see the D key is on the low end of the range of the pandrew tool. I have to do the test again and I'll screen shot it for reference, but I believe the key was topping out at 160 with the press and long hold followed by pressing the key 20x. I think 160 was 20 below the average... I have a few keys that register and type perfectly but are silent when typing so I'll look at those as well when its open. I split up the rant for the reason that while disappointed with the business end and feeling a little ripped off my concern is with getting the board into a working state so that I can enjoy typing because I LOVE a buckling spring board! I definitely won't be spending much time on the "indulged wobbled".

edit- Oh you meant "to indulge 'wobbled'" bahahahahahah I didn't know "wobbled" was a name I thought it was a term for banter or something? YOU BE YOU, WOBBLED. I got no beef. My main goal and purpose of the post is to get a working keyboard as stated.

The boards rely on existing tools not developed by Ellipse so unfortunately you're going to have to figure that one out yourself. I haven't had to use the signal monitoring thingy at all, let alone on Linux, but I recall getting Vial to work was a bit fiddly myself due to udev rules and such.

Keys that activate but don't click are also probably due to the springs not being seated correctly but if you get poor signal from the keys not working it seems you have another issue too, so I have no suggestions unfortunately. I hope you get it working soon, and if it's actually broken that Ellipse will send out a replacement for you.

[Ellipse]

Yes, the troubleshooting steps are in the recently updated manual. Replacing the springs is one of the steps. Sometimes removing the keys and moving around the flippers by hand or with tweezers helps to dislodge some debris underneath the flipper that may have caused odd issues. A couple times I've seen reports that folks have had to open up the board and I've seen some stuck-on dust/debris on the PCB which resulted in transposed keys.

My guess is that since the pressed signal value is quite acceptable (160), if you have replaced the springs and correctly installed their replacement springs then there may be some debris or dust that entered the keyboard inside the inner assembly and resting on the PCB. The quickest way to get up and running is to remove the keys, open up the inner assembly, and replace the three flippers and springs with other ones, and wiping down the PCB while especially keeping an eye out for stuck-on debris in the area of those few keys. Sometimes there may also be stuck-on debris on the flipper, which would interfere with the flatness of the capacitive flippers making good contact with the PCB.

Not to worry, as I mentioned before no one will be left with a non-working keyboard, but you have to go through the troubleshooting steps. Since it's not an issue with an entire matrix row or column it is safe to say that the PCB is not damaged with a broken trace or poor solder joint or the like.