Behind the scenes #168

Keyboard Builders' Digest / Editorial

Behind the scenes #168

Keyboard projects, quick news, in the mailbox, meetups, new vendors and discount codes!

dovenyi
Published July 1, 2024

Creators! Feel free to tip me off about your keyboard related projects to bring them to 140K readers.

Hey, what's up everyone!

Welcome back for a really quick weekly recap and behind-the-scenes write-up. I've been pretty busy these days, haven't had time to build Joe's ScottoWing kit or Wind Studio's WIND X80 either, and now I'm heading for a trip so don't expect too many posts in the upcoming days.

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.

Some posts worth sharing

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Moon60, the split by Przemysław Paciorek and Damian Pryszcz teased last time is open source now.
Shared by fooker, mnhTTn is a 36-key column-staggered split keyboard using Cherry MX ULP switches.

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A new unibody split created by dohn-joh: Alias – with lever keycaps.
Tien Pham's Form Zero is a gasket mounted hotswap ortholinear keyboard.

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Lexicon is a 65% "writing keyboard" designed by Ewen Cluney – with a layer full of whole words.
Dane Lipscombe shared his Harite, a split input device with 5-way switches and trackpads.

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Jerome Olivier released a nice unibody split: Jack32 – with splay and only one thumb key.
The Re-gret is a 34-key remix of the Egret keyboard – both unibody splits designed by Ryan Schenk.

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There's National Keyboard Meetup Day again, this year on July 27th. With lots of meetups and live streams.
Joe's ScottoModules is a series of Kicad templates that hopes to make designing integrated MCU boards a bit simpler. The first release is based upon the STM32F072CBT6.

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Lucca 58HE by Maka8295 is a Hall effect split keyboard.
Gareth aka Outrageous-Half shared two drop-in converters. The Xiao-Pro maps the Xiao footprint to the Pro Micro one, and the RP2040-Zero-Micro maps the Waweshare RP2040 Zero to the Pro Micro footprint (source). Solder jumpers make them reversible. Also, don't look for holes, these use SMD pin headers.
Hammerhead42. Final prototype by Bauns. Looks handwired but looks cool anyway.

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TAP4 by DanL4. I really like the look of this monoblock split. The splay makes it even more classy. More photos.
Splitkb's Thomas Baart writes about the rise and fall of group buys.
A split desk clamp tray idea by Caleb Richter. With tenting. And files.

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Alpha Rockhopper keyboard by Appropriate_Hippo502 is made from paper. I mean, I'm a big fan of cardboard prototyping, but don't really get the role of Amoeba PCBs in this case.

Keyboard art

Spray green zan 40.

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A gorgeous Temper build by Plastic_Depth – with some twists.

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The QwertyKey80 Astro keycaps have some rizz. Posted by RaduW07.

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Donations

A new donation by Typeware! Thank you!
As always, many thanks to my awesome regular supporters and everyone who helped this project thus far.

For all the donation options check out the donation page!

In the mailbox

I received a WIND X80 barebone kit from Wind Studio. It was a real surprise, I haven't expected this at all.

It's a spray-coated green one and comes in the most professional hard-shell case I've ever seen. The GB is slated for around end of July, so the review will come a bit later too.

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Meetup database

Sorry, haven't updated the database even though I've bookmarked some post-event posts and galleries, plus there's the national meetup day with some missing ones too. Although I had some difficulties extracting usable info from discord.

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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

Feel free to use the KBDNEWS discount code at 153 keyboard shops! And do not hesitate to report any issues.

New shops and updates to the database of keyboard vendors this past two weeks:

In July, Modern Coup Design Studio offers you a 10% discount off all the nice keyboard sleeves. Use the KBDNEWS coupon code. (Thanks Chris!)

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The MoeeTech discount is now 20% (from the previous 30%). (This wiggle-room will allow the team to upgrade shipping from sea to air transport.)

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That's all for today. Thanks for checking by. As always: Keep learning and building!

Until next time,
Tamás

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Published on Mon 1st Jul 2024. Featured in KBD #168.

Keyboard Builders' Digest / Editorial