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Barnacle

The Barnacle is a modular ortho keyboard by floookay – heavily inspired by the Boardrun keyboards.

KBD.news
Published January 4, 2025
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Floookay shared his Barnacle, an ortholinear monoblock keyboard in an Alice-like flavor, with a modular middle piece. Heavily inspired by the Boardrun keyboards, its main focus is keycap set compatibility, modular design, and ease of sourcing/making.

I love the look of the boardrun classic and desperately wanted to get one myself but things happened so that's not likely anymore unfortunately – floookay.

Specs

  • 61 keys + 0-9 (module)
  • MX, hotswap
  • 0xCB Helios controller
  • OLED option
  • encoder option
  • per-key RGB
  • 3D-printed case (5 deg typing angle)

Pic:

The keyboard is a two-part PCB design where the middle piece can be switched for different functionality or layout options. The author created a couple of modules with encoders, OLED display, numblock already and plans on adding a few more.

The base layout stays the same and was chosen to achieve a symmetrical look while using the available mod keys of standard keycap base kits.

Pic:

Resources

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Published on Sat 4th Jan 2025. Featured in KBD #183.


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