Keyboard Builders' Digest / Editorial
Behind the scenes #150
Keyboard projects, quick news, in the mailbox, meetups, new vendors and discount codes!
Published January 12, 2024
Hey, what's up everyone!
If you are new to kbd.news, you can read how this started out and what this is all about nowadays. If you like what you see, subscribe to the newsletter (free) and donate some bucks to keep this otherwise free and ad-free project alive.
Posts I thought are worth sharing this time:
- I spent a lot of time with compiling this piece: With the Promenade, Krado Industries tries to resurrect the Boardwalk, an ortho board with 1.5u Ergodox modifiers, and I looked into the history of this layout.
- Joshua Chung's Saturn is a pretty sick monoblock split PCB with chunky hotswap controllers via DB25 parallel connectors.
- A tented monoblock case of Churn, a handwired split by Luke Schutt.
- The SS Centurion, a 39-key monoblock split with a trackball, is the latest keyboard by Protieusz.
- Salvatore La Bua's Saru48W+ is a handwired 13x4 ortholinear keyboard in a nice case.
- Retrospective: I just rediscovered the eek! by Klackygears, this unibody split with brutal 90 degree angle from 2020.
- Soufflé v3.1 released. Jesus Climent added a new pin for Nice!View compatibility.
- The Archaeoptereeks (successor of the eek!) by klackygears makes me smile every time I see it. Such a fun creation!
- IXKB is a nice 60% ortho by afriggeri.
- A self-made azeron gamepad version by No-Programmer.
- Art: FLKB, a wooden style (3D printed) Dactyl keyboard by Least-Composer.
- Eloquentclicks has a new keyboard depot:
2023 has been a year of many challenges, very difficult times but all of this is a launch pad for a bright 2024. We have so many projects we can’t wait to show you ??
— ELOQUENT CLICKS | Mechanical Keyboards (@eloquentclicks) December 31, 2023
We truly appreciate your support and hope for the best.
Thank you, happy 2024.
The Eloquent Team ?? pic.twitter.com/ay1XYmicZI
Speaking of shops, commercial stuff and group buys, as you know, I try to avoid featuring them. That said, this resulted in some missing keyboards from kbd.news, ones that became popular and unavoidable sometime after their release. So while the main focus will be always open-source, I may include interesting for-profit projects every now and then, like the Promenade this time.
In the spirit of this, I could just barf here some Japanese projects – no way I can track down as much detail as with boards documented in English, but these are usually not open-source:
Piroridon's CygSUS has a unique column curvature, inspired by the Willow layout – built by sam1dare.
The low-pro ortho LALA50 by Cerbekos comes in a neat CNC alu case, but I like the nude PCB just as much.
Giveaway feedback
Hey, feel free to post the stuff you receive or to send me some pics about the goodies you won, like Gavin did with his custom keycap/keychain offered and made by GoblinTechkeys.
Boardwalk, DR-70F
I delved into the history of the Boardwalk keyboard on the occasion of the Promenade group buy. The article is very long, but I really enjoyed the investigation. Thanks to all the contributors: Shens, Matt, David, etc. There's even more to this saga, but I was asked to not publish some details.
If anyone is reading this from mykeyboard.eu, please check your spam folder. ;)
Other than that, I was building and reviewing the DR-70F by DaringRun. This really is a fantastic slab of aluminum. The review is pretty much ready for publication, I just don't know if I should wait until the board is available in the shop.
Donations
- New recurring donor: Alex Miller of keyboarddweebs.net. Thanks!
- And thanks to Daniel C. for his support too!
- As always, I'm grateful to everyone who helped this project thus far, especially to regular supporters.
For all the donation options check out the donation page!
In the mailbox
The Ergohaven HPD has arrived – slightly damaged. I can't imagine what forces the pure board was exposed to during shipping, but a small part of the plate broke, along with a keycap, leaving the stem on the switch. Evgeny was very professional, looked into my photos and started to think about how the packaging could be improved despite this was the first and only such unfortunate case. And he also promised me a replacement despite the fact that this was a free sample and it also works, really just a small piece of the plate and a cap are broken. I could probably fix it with some glue and by replacing a cap.
Btw, the keywell is very comfy, and the tactile switches were a pleasant surprise too.
Stats mystery
After normano's question on keebtalk I delved into Google Analytics and possibly figured out what happened in late December (the mysterious peak in visitors but not pageviews). My guess is that the higher-res photo of my vintage collection made some rounds on its own after posting it on Dec 28. Maybe somebody reposted it in a popular sub or elsewhere. This would explain the increase in unique users (CDN) without registering more pageloads (GA) – only loading a single jpg through a direct link.
Meetup database
Some upcoming and recently added events in the meetup database:
Upcoming meetups (1):
- Attraktor Keyboard Meetup Hamburg, January 13, Hamburg, Germany
Recently added (2):
- Sacramento Winter '24 MK Meetup, February 3, Sacramento, CA, US
- CCH|CON, Stuttgart, February 10, Suttgart, Baden Württemberg, Germany
As always, this meetup database is both a calendar and an archive so feel free to send me upcoming events or even ones from the recent past to make this collection as comprehensive as possible.
Vendors & Discounts
New shops and updates to the database of keyboard vendors this week:
- Mino Keys offered you a 5% discount (KBDNEWS). Thanks Roy!
- KiiBOOM added.
- Krado Industries added, and Matt offered you a 5% discount from the Krado66 PCBs.
Developments
- One step closer to automation. I really have to cut back on time spent with administration and repetitive stuff so started to try to generate more and more parts of the newsletter and editorial from the database (e.g. imminent and newly added meetups this time).
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That's all for today. Thanks for checking by. As always: Keep learning and building!
Until next time,
Tamás
Published on Fri 12th Jan 2024. Featured in KBD #150.
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