Fink Different: Keyboards as counter-culture.
If you watched Star Wars for the first time, without seeing images of the Empire’s perfectly spaced thousands of goose-stepping minions in spotless white-lacquered armor. If you didn’t see the fleets of black and grey tie-fighters, the immaculately designed star cruisers, the evil moon-shaped flagship… you wouldn’t know that the rebels were rebels. After all, rebels don’t look like rebels if they don’t have something to contrast them against. They just look like normal people. That’s probably why when you see Luke Skywalker, Han Solo or Finn (all rebels) dressed in stormtrooper garb, they somehow seem even more rebellious then they were before. It’s not what they’re wearing, it’s how they wear it. Dirty, scuffed, broken. Helmet missing or askew. An out of place, beat up weapon slung diagonally across their body. It’s the simple act of defacing the uniform that identifies them in our mind as counter-cultural. Funnily enough, it works in reverse. To the dismay of...
Oct 6, 2024
Motivations and Design Choices 1. It is a design that I had for quite a while, that combines many good elements from all the top-notch 65% boards I own, trying to optimize and come up with an ideal design, for my own taste. 65% keyboards comprise a significant portion of my life out of the busy work schedules, and some of you have probably heard of and joked about my owning many Canoe boards. Indeed, the amazing designs like TGR910, Canoe, Zephyr, etc are the true inspirations for me, and I am trying to come up with a design that looks good and also optimizes typing sound. The final two candidates are 4.5mm PC plate vs. a gasket 1.5mm aluminum or 1.5mm brass plate. In our testing, thicc PC plate stands out. 2. From the typing sound perspective, we adopt a thick 4.5mm PC plate integrated to the top plate, PC helps to preserve the sound of the switch while simultaneously maintain typing consistency. No metal rattling or high-pitched sound from thick aluminum or brass. 3. I have always advocated for affordable premium-quality boards. Gray certainly shares this value. Therefore, for this board, the pricing will be very affordable and competitive compared with current offerings in the market, as per the tradition of prior Gray Studio GBs. Personally, I will promise you that as a designer I will not take a single dollar of profit out of a potential GB, the money will go to high-quality material, best processes, and Potter's and our PCB designer's manufacturing costs and operating expense. 5. Angle will be 6.5 degrees, hence the name. In my experience, 5° is a bit flat (feels ok), and 8° is too steep, so why not 6.5°, it feels good. 6. It will be PC only. Currently I do not have the intention to make an aluminum case, I believe there are many good aluminum board options in the market. If there are many requests, we will do a slight modification to make the metal version either top mount or gasket mount, shouldn't be too much work as we have other top and gasket designs already. 7. A high-quality, good looking, hotswap, QMK, Type-C PCB with underglow is being developed and will be included if this ever goes to GB stage. I know god-like Wilba's PCB is hard to beat, but our goal and material and process we use for this PCB will be that kind of quality. TL; DR, What are the Features? 1. Premium-quality, affordable Polycarbonate (PC) board, different colors of PC material is being considered 2. 6.5 degree angle 3. PVD Brass Badge and PVD Brass Weight 4. 4.5mm, perfectly-cut PC Plate optimized for both the sound and consistency with most switches (not your regular metal integrated plate!) 5. Three versions: ANSI Hotswap with badge, ANSI hotswap without badge, Compatible-layout non-hotswap 6. PCB is QMK, type-C (connector position in the middle), underglow, ESC key 4XRGB, hotswap (non-hotswap PCB for compatible layouts). Shooting for Wilba quality, let's see. 7. GB price estimation (case, with or without brass badge, brass weight, 1 hotswap PCB, designer box, accessories): under $300 8. A few ready-to-ship, non-profit raffle spots: estimated around $250 9. Design: oldcat and airpotter 10. manufacturer: gray studio and factory 11. Final simpler brass weight design is pending Planned Layout
Planned Timeline Late March: Raffle Early April: Regular GB Progress: 2/28/2019: 1.Case: Initial design complete, prototypes production in progress, eta 1-2 weeks. Will make multiple prototypes regarding badge placement. 2.PCB: Design complete, prototypes production in progress, eta 2 weeks. 3/1/2019: Sincere thanks to so many friends who have filled out the IC form! Based on the feedback from the first day: 1.Confirmed that we will make 1 case with badge (badge placement TBD), and 1 case without the badge. The blocker near the arrow cluster will stay. 2.We are exploring different colors of PC materials. 3.We are working on simplifying the bottom brass weight. 4.Most likely a second non-hotswap PCB will be provided either as a kit bundle or as an option (TBD). 3/2/2019: 1. new renders updated 2. PCB design posted 3. Received additional feedback and working on them 3/3/2019: 1. Badge with 3 upper indicator light has been adopted. 2. We will provide different colors of LEDs for the indicator lights, and hotswap SIP led sockets 3. Confirmed PCB design for the build-in 4XRGB circling on the ESC key. 4. Stepped capslock will be compatible 5. Font orientation on the badge being tweaked 6. Finalizing weight design and send .step file to factory 7. I believe we have addressed most concerns and feedback so far, and any additional feedback welcome. 8. Confirmed a third case option that supports compatible layouts (7u space, ISO, split BS). 3/4/2019: 1. Still working on refining the badge (alignment, font orientation) and the weight (some don't like the horizontal stripes, we are coming up with a better design). Rendering software hung a few times, it was frustrating and maybe time to get a new computer 2. Decide that we will make the badge's 3D model opensourced after GB, so that participants can make their own badge and print out with other materials. Default brass badge will still be included for #1. 3/5/2019: 1. Redesigned weight plan is out. Gather feedback to finetune 2. Renders for our meticulously-designed 4.5mm plate is out, optimized for all MX switches including Holy Panda 3. Badge design has been finalized. Still working on weight design (overnight). 4. PCB design finalized. 3/6/2019: 1. Weight and badge design completed. 2. PCB sent for prototyping 3. Cases sent for prototyping Links of interest Follow me on Instagram Chat on Discord Channel Geekhack Interest Check Page
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