Elmo AEK II USB aek2_usb PCB for AEKII - now in GREEN! (Blue almost sold out.)

[linuxleah]

As a continuation of my previous work from https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=113053.0:

I have been funding new production runs of Elmo's QMK-compatible modern drop-in replacement PCB for the AEK II / AEKII (https://github.com/kb-elmo/aek2_usb). I now have a limited production run of 25 GREEN PCBs in-hand, plus a few leftover BLUE PCBs from last time.

Both runs (run 1/blue and run 2/green) PCBs are lead-free RoHS compliant, HASL finish.

Boards have been manufactured by JLCPCB, the same company Elmo used for the original production run. Boards are being sold at-cost, plus actual shipping. If you want a full kit, the pricing for those is based on actual cost of the components, plus $10 for my time counting all the components, flashing the microcontroller, etc.

The boards are IN HOUSE AND READY TO SHIP!

Please express your interest in this form and I will respond via email as availability permits:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfrhzJLEtznme6juhk7rMONYsGKTUgOGnAiQWTBAa8QA2OrUA/viewform

[_rubik]

Hell yeah! Submitted

[Alejo1707]

Would love to have one with MX support. I am not into the Alps subworld just yet.

Sent from my GM1917 using Tapatalk

[linuxleah]

An MX-compatible AEKII? That would be very interesting! (Also, you'd need some rare widths of keys, like a 6.5u spacebar)

[Alejo1707]

An MX-compatible AEKII? That would be very interesting! (Also, you'd need some rare widths of keys, like a 6.5u spacebar)

The same would be applicable to Alps, with the caveat that the sets available for such keebs already have the required support, nevertheless, the MX market is so vast, I am pretty sure I would be able to patch something up. Maybe in a uniform profile.

[_rubik]

An AEK + MX compat board popped up on my feed this morning. Still looks early days, but maybe worth keeping an eye on.

I don't want to detract from this production run, but thought it was worth cross pollinating for posterity.

[Alejo1707]

An AEK + MX compat board popped up on my feed this morning. Still looks early days, but maybe worth keeping an eye on.

I don't want to detract from this production run, but thought it was worth cross pollinating for posterity.

If this were Instagram I would have given a heart to your reply!

Will wait for that project to be improved to get into it, although I would like to see a pure MX variant instead of the Swiss cheese it currently is.

Sent from my GM1917 using Tapatalk

[linuxleah]

Minor note for posterity: Right now, 7 of the boards have been claimed. After *TEN* boards have been paid for, I am raising the price of the hardware kits (not the bare boards) by $10; counting out diodes 105 (actually, 110, since I include 5 spares with each kit) at a time is getting very time-consuming and my spouse is (justifiably) grumbling at the time expense of bundling all the parts together.

[Chalkboard]

Are these AEKII only? Or will they also work with the AEK?

[linuxleah]

I... honestly do not know. I will ask Elmo.

[linuxleah]

Minor note for posterity: Right now, 7 of the boards have been claimed. After *TEN* boards have been paid for, I am raising the price of the hardware kits (not the bare boards) by $10; counting out diodes 105 (actually, 110, since I include 5 spares with each kit) at a time is getting very time-consuming and my spouse is (justifiably) grumbling at the time expense of bundling all the parts together.

...well, that was fast. The at-cost kits are all spoken for now.

Bare boards will remain at-cost. Kits from now on will include a $10 packing fee (sorry!)

[linuxleah]

Update: Shipped 9 kits today, whew!

Blue boards are now sold out. There are still a decent number of green boards left. One person is waiting in the wings to buy out ALL (!) the remaining PCBs, but I'm going to give people a few weeks to put in orders first, to ensure everyone gets a chance.

I have had to order additional components for the kits; a few outstanding orders will have to wait a few days to ship. If you are affected by this minor delay, I am emailing you directly.

[linuxleah]

Are these AEKII only? Or will they also work with the AEK?

Per Elmo: No, these will not fit the AEK, just the AEK II.

[Chalkboard]

Are these AEKII only? Or will they also work with the AEK?

Per Elmo: No, these will not fit the AEK, just the AEK II.

Thank you for the update

[_rubik]

Thanks for putting all of this together! I’m sure counting out the components alone took hours.

Looks like I have a hot date with my soldering iron this weekend! Get it? Hot… because it’s a soldering iron….

I’ll see myself out



Edit: and of course shout out to Elmo for designing this thing. The board looks great!

[linuxleah]

Having a BAD day with USPS today.

Customs returned two boxes containing 7 keyboard kits.

Apparently, labeling the little $16 bags of electronic components (see above post) "Electronics Kit" in the customs declaration is not enough any more.

This is the reward I get for me and my spouse counting out all these hundreds of parts and selling all this kit at-cost (we only recently started adding $10 for assembling the component kits).

I'm pretty cheesed off at the moment. The component list is several dozen items long; apparently they want me to enumerate it ON THE PACKAGE.

(Edit: BTW, I flipped through the chapter of the mailing manual in question. It didn't provide any useful info.)

[linuxleah]

This is the parts list that these bozos want me to enumerate on the shipping package, BTW.

Sorry, I'm just venting. This is... just ludicrous.

[_rubik]

Ugg. I sorry they're putting you through this. I'm guessing they just want to make sure you're not shipping batteries, but I feel like that could be a single check box.

[linuxleah]

Ugg. I sorry they're putting you through this. I'm guessing they just want to make sure you're not shipping batteries, but I feel like that could be a single check box.

Thanks, _rubik. I wish the buyers were as understanding as you are. One of them demanded a full refund, including shipping, so now I'm out $51 of my own money (on top of all the money I'm out from pre-paying for all the other boards which I am selling at-cost to attempt to RECOUP said money.)

This is the last time I do a group buy.

I've posted a final notice about sales of this run at https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=114869.0 and posted the whole sordid tale (with names censored) in Off Topic at https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=114868.0

Really wish this hadn't ended this way, but I'm not going to put hours and hours and hours of my time into doing something for the love of the community if the first time USPS craps on me, my fellow keyboard enthusiasts will demand that I take the loss because I'm """the seller""" (who, again, is selling stuff AT-COST).

Really cheesed and sad. :-(

[DirtyGingy]

were these compatible with the original AEK?