[GB]Glacier80 - Glacier themed F13 TKL

[made in China]

Glacier80

Sales Information:
- Sales Format: FCFS In-stock and GB
- Quantity: 200pcs instock and 800 GB
- Instock Breakdown:
There will be 100 WKL units and 100 WK units these will be evenly divided by the 5 colors choices. This means there will be 20 of each color per layout, but this will be split in half because of of each combo of color and layout will be divided by type of PCB either Hotswap or soldered.
ex. if you want In-stock Dark Blue Hotswap WKL there is will only be 10 Available.
- Fulfilment: instock: 2 to 4 weeks after GB closes and GB 2-3 months
- Sale Date: Jan 14 @ 7pm EST and GB will be open for 1 month
- Cost:
 1xBoard kit: $405 USD
 1xShipping(worldwide): $60 USD
- Extras cost
 Hot-swap or Soldered PCB: 45$
 Foam Kit: 15$
 POM/PC/Foam Plate (support either soldered or Hot-swap version): 40$
 For GB only Brass plate

Hello everyone, This is CreateKeebs and this is our 3rd board that we would like to share with you.

   First of all, thank you very much for your support for the thera75. As a new team, 1200 units were sold out in 7 days which was beyond our's expectation and made us deeply feel everyone's enthusiasm.

   During the design phase of Glacier80, we were thinking about what is the goal of the board. Is it a softer typing experience? Balance? or a deeper sound?
   In the end, we decided to make Glacier80 highlight the original sound of the switch while achieving a flexy typing experience. We have also made a journey into new materials, Mercedes Benz has always been synonymous with high-end brands, especially its high-end series MAYBACH. MAYBACH's beacon is the highlight of the whole series and also a symbol of nobility, because the material used in this beacon is Nickel alloy, rather than Alu or ss. The hardness of nickel is HRC28. Simply speaking, it is harder than stainless steel. It is precisely because of this hardness that we rarely see CNC machining workpiece of this material in daily life, but there is a way to achieve this, that is, through the integrated forming process of nickel electroforming. The common MAYBACH and Mercedes-benz beacon is made of this process

Basic information:

- Layout: TKL with F13
- Color: Black, Blue 2756C, Burgundy 676C
- Material: Top and Bottom case aluminum, while the weight, logo, artisan by nickel electroforming process
- Degree: 6.5 °
- Structure:plateless leaf-spring gasket with an optional plate
- PCB: Hotswap & Soldered both will support VIA/QMK
- Plate: 1.5mm PC/POM/PORON
- Weight: nickel cobalt alloy
- logo: Nickel cobalt alloy
- Artisan: nickel cobalt alloy
- Gakest: 2mm poron
- Will use USB-C daughter board to JST

Colors




PCB and layout:
The PCB is 1.6mm has flex cuts and leaf-springs. With the last GB, a lot of people abandoned the Thera75 because it was soldered only, so for the Glacier80 we also added the hot-swap PCB option, which can also be used with the PC/POM plates to achieve a soft typing. Soldered PCBs support ISO, step CAPS, left shift split, 6.25U and 7U space options; Hot-swap PCB supports only 7U space with WKL. Both PCBS support QMK/VIA

Soldered


Hotswap




Appearance:
The keyboard is TKL with F13, also support WKL. The outline of glacier is set above the direction area, which emphasizes the theme of this work -- glacier. You can also choose an iceberg themed keycap, so that the front view of the keeb is more distinctive.



The side profile of the keyboard is designed with a 270° collision color top and bottom cover. The turning lines on both sides modify the spreading part of the glacier and outline the peak of the glacier above the Type-c interface. This design creates a visual change through the bend of the hard line, eliminating the heavy look of the side, while the peak of the glacier breaks the top line, making the top line simple but not plain.



The bottom of the keyboard is a mirror weight (electroplated nickel). Here we have a full version of the iceberg, in keeping with the fact that glaciers are mostly hidden under water. Similarly, the crest of the glacier protrudes from the top of the rectangular weight, breaking up too many parallel lines to give the back a dull look. At the same time, the glacier part made a 3D visual effect, breaking the restriction of two-dimensional plane, producing a sense of 3D layers.
weight, logo and artsian are made of the same process (nickel and cobalt alloy material) as the Mercedes-benz Maybach standard, manufactured in a full vacuum environment. Compared with the traditional PVD mirror, its mirror part can achieve better gloss and flawless effect, and is not easy to scratch and more durable

Breakdown


Structural :
The plateless design can restore the original sound of the switch to the maximum extent, gaskets give typing a more soft, therefore, GLACIER80 is designed with plateless Gasket structure as the original intention. Poron is still selected as the material of gasket and bottom foam.

Plate foam is 3.5mm poron is included to fill the space under the switch when choosing plateness structure.
The keboard will provide PC/POM/Poron plates for players to choose from, and the plates will be slotted.


Renders





Thank you for your time!

update history:
2021.11.15 - added more color
2021.11.26 - updated information about sales and quantity

[Totoro]

Nice

[alper_maestro]

Goodluck with the GB!

[Mecxs]

In the sales format, you say the units will be divided between five colours. In the basic information you list three colours. In the images there are six colours.

I assume it's five, since you've explicitly mentioned ordering those boards already, but what are the five colour options, and will the sixth one be available in the GB?

[Handke]

Very fragile.

The pcb supports all the weight and pressure from typing, this is very wrong, it will break... and no replacement is available. Nice way to throw away 400 usd.

breaks after 1000 cycles of moderate pressure (half of its failure strength).

[towi1989]

I have to admit, that is also 1 of my worries, but your graph doensst say that much without knowing what kind of stress is generated by typing / the occasional stress peak. So you have a source with more background info?

I know this board is build for flex, but tbh I dont care too much about that. I'm planning on building mine with a plate and loaded with foam, so thats going to relief a lot of stress from the 'flex fingers' on the PCB.

And just to be sure I added a spare PCB just in case.

That said there were/are a couple of weird things with the GB. The first thing is the shipment cost. The announcement said 60 USD worldwide, but when ordering extras this increases tremendously (110 usd shipping in my case). I hope the team will look into this.

Also the plate availability is odd. There is different info on various places on the site. It seems now there is no POM option. Not sure if this is an error in the GB listing or it will be offered at a later stage. Or not at all.

[Grandmasternoob]

Maybe the graph is not true, but I want to remind you of the funny ikki68 board, where excessive flex breaks off the USB connector. The hobby is so littered with garbage from the foam that sometimes you want to get out of it, because there are fewer and fewer interesting projects.

[hussar_name]

I have to admit, that is also 1 of my worries, but your graph doensst say that much without knowing what kind of stress is generated by typing / the occasional stress peak. So you have a source with more background info?

I know this board is build for flex, but tbh I dont care too much about that. I'm planning on building mine with a plate and loaded with foam, so thats going to relief a lot of stress from the 'flex fingers' on the PCB.

And just to be sure I added a spare PCB just in case.

That said there were/are a couple of weird things with the GB. The first thing is the shipment cost. The announcement said 60 USD worldwide, but when ordering extras this increases tremendously (110 usd shipping in my case). I hope the team will look into this.

Also the plate availability is odd. There is different info on various places on the site. It seems now there is no POM option. Not sure if this is an error in the GB listing or it will be offered at a later stage. Or not at all.

I'm able to calculate the stress, but it takes 15 minutes at least to be quite sure of the results, since you need to take many actions into account, and since the statich scheme is hyperstati. Typing is one of the forces, the other force are accidental impacts and often they're what determine the size of things... don't make me talk, for example, about industrial shelves.

Some things are so wrong that you don't need to make any calculation, because you know that this will eventually fail.

[towi1989]

Handke is implying issues with the fatigue limit, thats a very different scenario compared to the yield strength. I'm sure you could limit the travel in the construction in such a way that this shouldnt become a practical issue (ie the foam on the PCB leaf spring also compresses). From my findings the fatigue threshold seems to be around 1.5 MPa for an FR4 based PCB at 10M oscillations. edit: the report was talking about failure of the electric circuit, not the pcb itself.

I have no idea however what kind of stress is generated from typing.

[Tyson]

Just purchased a Sky Blue WKL Glacier from a friend, I plan on running it plateless. I'm sure I'm not going to be the only one out there running it plateless but I'll try to keep yall updated every few months on how the board is doing.


Edit: While the PCB was ultra flexy running plateless, I was not a fan of the way my gat inks sounded plateless so I sold the board to a friend. The amount of flex did not seem like it was enough to cause any issues in the long run though, I doubt anyone will have issues if they were to run the board plateless for a few years.

[pabloscrosati]

Does anyone have any updates on the delayed in-stock units? None of the Discord links work so I'm looking to see what the best way to get information is. Thanks!

[Noobcaiiji1]

https://discord.gg/ts4vQYP9

[nainaigogo]

Can someone post the discord link again? None of them are working

[tex_live_utility]

Very fragile.

The pcb supports all the weight and pressure from typing, this is very wrong, it will break... and no replacement is available. Nice way to throw away 400 usd.

breaks after 1000 cycles of moderate pressure (half of its failure strength).

Show Image

I have taken many many many more than 1000 keystrokes on my IDB 60 and it's fine.

Maybe things get hairy with a TKL-sized PCB. But the basic principle is sound at least.