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Few important things:
I: China gb is about to launch (with in August). Full details/specs on options etc will be disclosed on next update.
II: changed and expanded specs based on feedback and suggestions gathered across platforms.
confirmed changes are as follows (spec page will be edited accordingly) :
A. default configuration for pcb and plate now is solder and 1.5 mm in aluminum
B. added 1.5mm aluminum plate option for hotswap, 4mm become optional.
C. switched nearly all orings needed in mounting to full sheet of rubber for easy assembly.
D. Color scheme confirmed so far are (primary colors only, full spec in next update):
Black, Milk white, sand.
E. our collaborated sphinx themed artisan arrow keys (shown below) made by TDY Keys will be among the add-on option.
It is estimated to be priced around $160 per set of four. (made in brass, red, white copper and silver)
There might be more changes to be decided.
and a google forum survey coming up for wkl in next few days. cancelled that and added wkl directly.
2020/9/13 Update3: China gb is live through taobao. (Ended on OCT-18th-2020) International gb is expected to launch in mid-to-late October
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Important news:
1. prices are kept around $420. standard choices are:1 anodized black/ sand/ dark gold/ dark green. Coated: White/Pink.
There's a schrodinger wildcard option in the first 10 days of cn gb, and will be for international gb.
2. there's a delay on testing samples to be shipped out around the world, due to confusions caused in productions because of too many updates and variations in short period of time.
3. wkl version is supported. no addition to gb price.
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/734857745802723439/750390179734225018/20200902001953.png)
4. we added another 4 hrs of cnc to the hieroglyphs making it fhd, no addition to gb price, more of that on discord #update channel.
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/734857745802723439/753722626094137394/gw34eg.png)
5. made a plush for our official mascot linkolin-kun, aka 零口零君 the plush is about $10ish.
(https://i.imgur.com/Wn7xCSE.jpg)
6. official collab wrist rest is out and is about $200.
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/734857748608712751/753738620006957086/20200911060724.jpg?width=848&height=1131)
7. concept render for aaru pad, still at early stage.
(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/734857748608712751/754445519316844744/image0.png)
8. collaborated switch with ttc is out (tactile clicky)
wall of text detailed update log can be found on our #update channel -> here (https://discordapp.com/channels/710249627324121098/734857745802723439/736201503785746493)
Thank you to those who kept bumping this thread and following us on discord. I means a lot to me and us, thank you! :D[/size][/font]
2020/10/23 Update 4: I'm sorry to say that there will be a short delay on our international launch due to various difficulties we didn't anticipate.
We should be back on track soon, more info on discord.
Thank you for your patience. (https://i.imgur.com/GxbIrzo.jpg)
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(https://i.imgur.com/fPToVve.jpg) Img above is one of the earliest aaru proto, saved here for reference to show improvement and progression.
(https://i.imgur.com/aEDp2Cr.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/WMYUIF9.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/iRlasjT.jpg)
Hello all, I am R (aka 佛屠) of Helix Lab.
I was registered here in 2012, and after eight long years of dormancy, I'm doing my third post on gh (evidently welcoming new users doesn't count).
This IC would be my very first thead on this Mecca of a site for keyboard enthusiasts, and please excuse the length going on and on, it'll get better as my post count grows.
Aaru is the first keyboard we designed. Inspiration of this design comes from an amalgamation of many traits, among which the most direct one being the game Assassin's Creed Origin (ACO) I played recently. I was thoroughly amazed by the views and abundance of details of ancient Egypt that ACO has recreated, and thought to myself wouldn't it be nice to have a keyboard that's embossed with hieroglyphs like on walls or steles or papyri.
(as it turns out, it would!)
Behind the Scenes
---tl;dr-starts---
Equipped with this idea, we decided on the Rosetta Stone, a trilingual stele whose decree holds significant importance for the deciphering and understanding of hieroglyphs as a language.
The stone itself, or what's left of it, resides in the British Museum(Room 4).
The decree is said to be issued in 196 BC according to wikipedia (or 4 Xandikos in Macedonian calender or 18 Mekhir in Egyptian calendar =March 27 196BC)
by a group of priests at Memphis for the then young pharaoh Ptolemy V Epiphanes,
the decree spends a good part establishing the young pharaoh's political legitimacy, how he rocks as a pharaoh and how he was approved by the gods;
the script went on about governance stuff like taxation, property rights etc, and lastly commanded that a copy of this decree should be placed in every temple.
This granodiorite stone is named after the city it was first discovered, a port city in the Nile Delta called Rosetta or Rashid.
Below is a picture of what the stele would possibly look like reconstructed.
by A.Parrot on wikipedia CC-BYy-SA 4.0 International
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/RosettaStoneAsPartOfOriginalStele_revised.svg/471px-RosettaStoneAsPartOfOriginalStele_revised.svg.png)
As aforementioned the stone is inscribed in three languages, hieroglyphs, regarded as the language of the gods; demotic, language of documents and common tongue; and greek.
Since hieroglyphs and demotic had both been out of commission around the 4th century AD, the rosetta stone became a key source of reference for scholars who wish to decipher hieroglyph and demotic scripts.
Given these significance, it's especially meaningful for us to incorporate its scripture as our team's debut, as well as the first product of our planned "civilization" serie.
We chose the famous eye of Horus (wadjet) for the weight design and the moon phase around it to convey the message"protection always".
The name "Aaru" means the field of reeds,a heaven-like place in Egyptian mythology for those who led a righteous life. and of course, if you played ACO dlc, you know where it is, it's just divine.
The entirety of the hieroglyphic embossment (and the entire keyboard)on the keyboard are realized by hand tracing every character by 二期工程 of Helix Lab.
In the effort to be more relatively accurate, we consulted the following sources for tracing material, character accuracy and alignment:
[However, please note that although we strive to be accurate, we more so wanted it to be aesthetically pleasing,
hence there are characters swapped for cosmatic considerations. Things we do for beauty : ( ]
Unicode list of hieroglyphs compiled by Alan Gardiner (Gardiner's Sign Lists)
'The Rosetta Stone in Hieroglyphics and Greek with translations,’ 1871, Samuel Sharpe
'Amarigna & Tigrigna Qal Rosetta Stone', 2014 ,Legesse Allyn
Interactive Rosetta Stone Explorer by Precision Computing (https://www.leeholmes.com/blog/2017/01/04/interactive-rosetta-stone-explorer/)
hieroglyphic transcription of the stone by Jim Loy (http://jimloy.com/egypt/rosetta.htm)
The Digital Rosetta Stone Project's visual alignment, Dr. Monica Berti, Dr.Franziska Naether, Josephine Hensel, Miriam Amin. University of Leipzig.
---tl;dr-ends---
Let's Intoxicate Ourselves with some new photos More
(https://i.imgur.com/oqdsvPy.jpg)
Image below is the campaign poster with CN contact info, you are welcome to join us on discord (http://discord.link/Helix)
or qq group on the poster if you know what that is.
(https://i.imgur.com/lInIrDD.jpg)
Image below is a render of matte black finish (powder coating) key sets: hypothetical
(https://i.imgur.com/SZCzobB.jpg)
Image below is a render of titanium grey finish (anodized) key sets credit: GMK Matrix-01 by Matrix Lab
(https://i.imgur.com/Y0FbqvS.jpg)
Image below is a render of glossy black finish (anodized) key sets credit: GMK red samurai by Massdrop + RedSuns
(https://i.imgur.com/KPr5UpX.jpg)
Image below is a render of matte red finish (unknown until further testing) key sets: hypothetical.
(https://i.imgur.com/X8QjrIl.jpg)
Image below is a render of matte pink finish (unknown until further testing) key sets credit: GMK Olivia++ by Olivia
(https://i.imgur.com/2GkCKoh.jpg)
Image below is a photo for proof of concept, the embossment prototyping right after milling and prior to sandblasting, post processing
(https://i.imgur.com/sIaQrRI.jpg)
Below are more renders of exotic color schemes that was done for testing purposes
(https://i.imgur.com/WNvIbRU.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/1q9dpDi.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/xieFinf.jpg)
Image below is the render of our hotswap pcb designed by 環珊 of Helix Lab.
(https://i.imgur.com/DUBttgy.jpg)
Image below is a close up render of the polycarbonate bar for underglow and back plate with "Aaru" logo
Sidenote: We wanted it to convey the "first civilization" vibe in the back with the rather futuristic logo and RGB lighting.
(First Civilization aka Isu: an ancient high-tech super human race in Assassin's Creed Universe)
(https://i.imgur.com/k8pqyWY.jpg)
Credits: All renders posted are made by saligia and 二期工程 of Helix Lab
Note: Please feel free to contact me if you wish not to have your work(s) appear in our renders.
(https://i.imgur.com/puLyOpp.jpg)
Image above are proto of limited full brass edition and rainbow proto as one of the schrodinger (random) options
(https://i.imgur.com/AFFVmDY.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/eiE7pLE.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Pt1j1Wq.jpg)
Image above is chrome coating out of schrodinger options.
Specifications
IMPORTANT1: Please note that although we are at the final testing phase, all things are still subject to change however unlikely, the final description and options will be given in the GB topic.
Designs:All related designs shown have been finalized and prototyping done,
unlikely to change changed and laughing at myself. but now it's
really finalized.
Parts Included: Top & bottom frame, plate, PCB, back bar, type-C plate, underglow bar,
weight. [added some filling options]
Primary Material: Aluminum alloy (6063-T5)
Secondary Material: Polycarbonate for the underglow bar, (optional brass bar sold as add-on)
Brass for weight.
Titanium alloy(TC4) for type-C plate (the tiny red one in the first image) [may subject to change]
type-c bar switched to aluminum for it looks better and more uniform.
Color options: E-white, Black, Sand, Dark gold, Pink, Dark green, plus wildcard options (costs extra).
Firmware: QMK, VIA compatible.
Mounting: Top mount (possibly gummy compatible)
PCB Option: 1: Hotswap PCB with Kaih 1511 socket per-key-rgb lighting (reverse mount, north facing)
2: Solder PCB, single color per key led compatible. (south facing)
Plate Option: 1: 1.5mm aluminum plate for hotswap or solder version pcb.
2: 4.0mm aluminum plate for hotswap only.
3: two version(flex and very flex) of 1.5mm Carbon fiber plate for both pcb versions
(optional brass for add-on too, tbd)
Date: Estimated to be around
October Dec, 2020.
Quantity: Limited 1999 units, about 1400 left after China gb.
Price: Should start around $460~470 (including payment platforms fees etc.)
Lead time: 3.5 months after order placed,
but should figure in extra time needed international shipping.
(China gb orders should be fulfilled by batches starting soon)
WhereToBuy: www.helix.site; few additional fail-safe ways like taobao
Shipping: will be shipped from ShenZhen, China. Estimated shipping about $50.
Package spec : Estimated 410 mm x 180 mm x 70 mm(h)
~2 kg packaged per unit. (~2.1kg assembled)
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Sidenote on shipping & pricing:I'm based in the same city with Fox Lab, who is also a good friend of mine for many years. (I'll ask him for help if I can't figure out shipping myself XD)
As the final configuration is not set yet, the various finishing, packaging, fees charged by payment platforms, currency fluctuation all might affect the final price, We'are working to keep it around $420 for the base price within CN (before shipping & tax), there will be discrepancy for the said reasons, and we'll do best to keep the discrepancy as small as possible.
If you're familiar with cnc you'd know this design takes much more time and much higher riskes for manufactoring defects, keeping the cost down while maintaining high production quality in a relatively fast speed is an understated challenge as is.
For those requesting specific means that would save additional charges imposed upon them by their specific regions, we would also do our best to accomodate.
Contact info: Discord: discord.link/Helix (http://discord.link/Helix)
QQ Group: 942327559
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I personally check discord & QQ group (and now this topic) at least once everyday* while other members of the team are online constantly.
[*this footnote is added on update 2 of 8/25/2020: my words on checking this thread everyday is kept very poorly, I apologize for that, but I've maintained high availability on discord]
Please feel free to leave your comment and question below, or @ for a Helix Lab staff or admin on discord (http://discord.link/Helix)/qq group.
We are a group of enthusiasts whose passion are to make products people would love.
We hope our work moves you, if not we hope our next one will. : )
Thank you for your time and interest.
Credits and Gratitudes
I'd like to extend my deep gratitude to:
Mike Wu and his team at Kaihua Electronics(Kailh) (http://www.kailh.com/en/) for thier hospitality, support and taking Helix Lab as their official client.
Fox and Ramiel of Fox Lab for his continuing help.
zh_phi (https://twitter.com/zk_phi) for his great help and knowledge on rgb lighting.
TTC (http://www.ttc9.com/portal.php) for our switch collaboration.
Kev NeonKid and Ogre for their voluntary help of setting up and taking care of our discord sever.
ai03 for his tutorial (https://wiki.ai03.com/books/pcb-design) taught me how to make a keyboard pcb and ai03's unified daughterboard for the various protection mechanism.
community members who helped reviewing my draft pcb schema at pcb-design channel in ai03 Design Studio (https://discord.com/invite/qA5JD9y): L0laapk3#2010, NeuralSpaz#9236, plut0nium#0838, 4pplet#4574, Maarten#3065
and for all who supported me and Helix Lab.
THANK YOU!
不尽感恩!
Helix Lab
(https://i.imgur.com/fSBzGL0.jpg)