Keyboard Builders' Digest / Editorial

Behind the scenes #211

Behind the scenes with the April switch top list, Epomaker HE68 Lite and KiiBOOM Phantom 98 Lite reviews, open-source and commercial projects, keyboard art, meetups, new shops and discounts, etc.

dovenyi
Published May 18, 2026

Hey, what's up everyone!

Welcome back for another recap and behind-the-scenes write-up – with some cool projects from the DIY keyboard scene, but also promising closed-source commercial projects.

I had a bit of extra time for kbd.news stuff while recovering at home after a minor surgery. Result: vendor list cleanup, donor list cleanup, and a few tiny developments here and there.

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

• Let's start with April’s top mechanical switches if you haven't seen it yet. The community’s favorites based on vendor sales data coming from all around the world.

• Review: A very affordable magnetic board punching above its weight: Epomaker HE68 Lite review.

• Another review: KiiBOOM's Phantom 98 Lite, a cute wireless keyboard with 1800-ish layout and the silly froggy keycap design familiar from the smaller Phantom 81 Lite.

• The Levels54, a dual-trackball wireless split keyboard sold by ergokeyboards.com, is now fully open source.

• DreaM117er's Vanguard Keyboard Outsider is a modular ortholinear board, supporting various trackpads and encoders.

• A wireless version of Bruce the Keyboard: Willis by Alexander Krikun. Oldie but goodie.

• Tucky Two Times is a low-pro split keyboard with funny placement of the thumb keys – by Stephan Møller.

• The handwired split Hawk by VBNC8 features latching pushbuttons and molded weights.

Closed-source, WIP, commercial, etc.

• Pineapple60-Convertible by Saoto Tsuchiya (saoto8). Closed source, patented hinge mechanism, but interesting approach: ergo layout with adjustable raised center height.

• A Badwings Pocket build by dashkeebs. Hazel's design form 2023 that I missed at the time (github).

• The wireless split MoooseFree by ataruno_key, featuring a 55 mm trackball. Repo with docs and firmware but no PCB or case files.

• And the WoooL from the same author – inspired by sheep, including a pice of yarn as well.

• A nice writerdeck from SlurpBurgers, featuring a fanned split keyboard. With STLs.

• An awesome-looking one-off 65% board: Node-65 by ShiftRegister8 (teardown video).

• ORBIT – a wireless ergo split by SoDark0002.

• Something strange from wjrii.

• And something even stranger by Obabo, shared by dashkeebs.

• A WIP split by Professional_End9823.

Commercial

• NocFree's terribly named "&" is a wireless aluminum split keyboard with an (optional) magnetic tenting/charger thing. Pre-order, but if you fell in love, use the KBDNEWS coupon code for a 5% discount.

• The Navigator Trackpad is ZSA's new trackpad extending the lineage of modules to add mouse control to your Voyager. This trackpad is not an off-the-shelf product – ZSA worked closely with Cirque to fine tune a bunch of aspects.

• Similar modularity: Phenom may be the most recent flagship model of Ergohaven – with hot-swappable modules as well.

• MID.1 by oneillseanm. A small-batch 40% board made from folded stainless steel, leaning into an industrial / architectural vibe.

Handwired

• A one-handed keyboard for gaming with some knobs. By BohriumDev.

• A handwired split by Little_Elephant.

• Keyboarddweebs's handwired hummingbird layout unibody design to test Japanese duplex matrix.

• A handwired ortho split – hwsplit by Nimit Vijayvargee (source).

Tips, Typing, Keymap, 3D

• HoldTap is a software to re-create ZMK/QMK on Mac (via r/mk).

• keytogo by unitdhda – a Rust-based macOS keyboard-only "mouse" navigation utility. Control your cursor entirely from the keyboard.

3D models

• Corne LP case by Reverend Rocknroll.

History/Discovery

• VeloType at HomeComputerMuseum in Holland. Posted by TaajManzoor1.

"Marius den Outer invented the Tachotype in 1933. Herman Schweigman and Rudolf Nitzsche created an electronic version of the Tachotype in 1982 and named it the Velotype. A stand-alone Velotype text processor was created in 2001 named the Veyboard."

• Alcatel-Lucent MMK – posted by 5X_Rhadamanthus.

• Debate over RSI from typewriter use in 1888.

Keyboard art

• Bruce the Evangelion. Posted by Meatslinger – with tips to design similar keycaps sets for manufacturing at YUZU keycaps.

• Daertwing – a custom case by calumwri, inspired by the "My First Sony" line. The blue part is acrylic, the red is powder coated aluminium, and the yellow is powder coated steel.

• SPMini x Obabo. PCB by BlindAssassin111, case by Obabo, posted by anpotsky.

Diderot effect (aka accessories)

• Artisan keycap carrier? This hobby is getting weirder and weirder.

• Floor stand idea by Whalebone.

In the mailbox

Haha. Moeetech is about to launch a new service (not yet available), and I was asked to give it a try.

(Some reflections and lighting issues in the photo, but the pigmentation is consistent.)

Anodized metal (Cherry R1) base, deeper than usual laser engraving, filled in manually by an artist. I'm going to sum up my experiences soon.

Test units on the way:

• A NocFree "&" is on the way.
• There are two new Ghost in the Shell themed IQUNIX EV63 HE variants (to be released mid-June I guess), I opted for the Cyber Blue one. The green one is kick-ass too, the case even better, I just liked the other keycap set more.
• Moeetech's Glitter L01 (not released yet either) is a low-pro HE board.

Donations

• New donations, yay! Thank you Tibo L. and Felix K.! If the motivation was the annual fee I paid for the otherwise great Buttondown newsletter service, mentioned last time, it's much appreciated! :)
• I cleaned up my donor list, and it turned out that some long-time donors have gone. (I don't receive notifications from PayPal about canceled donations, so have to check the last payment days one by one, manually, to figure out this.)
• 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!

Meetup database

The meetup database serves as 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.

Upcoming meetups

• Hello Keebs and Friends, May 24, La Jolla, CA, US

Recently added

• MKDK 2026 [placeholder], August 8, Copenhagen, Denmark

Vendor news & Discounts

First and foremost, feel free to use the KBDNEWS discount code at 171 keyboard shops worldwide!

(Yeah, it's gone down from 196 to 171 due to cleaning up the database and flagging closed shops.)

New shops and updates to the database of keyboard vendors:

• NocFree (Hong Kong) offered you a 5% discount. Check out their terribly named alu split "&" model.
• Royal Kludge (official) has been added – with a $5 discount (code: KBDNEWS). This is the Hong Kong based center. The US distributor rkgamingstore.com is also in the database – with 5% coupon.
• Ikasaya is officially closed now. It's always sad to see a shop go.

That said, there are a bunch of vanished online shops and domains (thanks for the motivation to go through the whole database, Zeberko).

• I started to clean up the vendor list, again – and got to the end this time! :D
• I'm going to display only live stores from now on, with the closed ones moving to an archive page for history's sake.

Developments

• Vendor database cleanup. Yeah, I vibe-coded a tool for this, but a lot of domains resolve to parking pages, other valid temporary sites, or simple the original store but with everything sold out – so this task required a final manual round.

• Displayed shops: from 657 -> 478 (auto) -> 443 (manual)!
• Closed shops: from 137 -> 184 (auto) -> 221 (manual)!
• Yeah, discount codes went from 196 to 171 as well.
• 2 sites resurrected? These were marked as closed but checking now, the sites are alive and kicking.
• There are some vendors with a questionmark – I'm waiting for feedback to decide about the status.

• WIP: Archive shop page – now that I've removed the closed ones from the main list.
• WIP: Checking each coupon code if they really work – test-buying to checkout, one by one.

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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 Mon 18th May 2026. Featured in KBD #211.

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