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[IC] LvL Type-01/80 by Artifact Industries

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FindYourZero:
Artifact Industries
www.artifact-industries.com

LvL Type-01/80 Founding Edition

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The Artifact Industries Story
Artifact Industries is a collaborative brainchild incepted by a serendipitous chain of events that brought together a team of passionate and multi-talented designers, engineers and entrepreneurs from Hurbon International Ltd. (@Taiwan) & Noto GmbH (@Germany).

We set out to capture the imagination and way of life in our exciting era. To observe, encapsulate and materialize “artifacts” by applying cutting edge manufacturing technologies, as well as distilling the values and virtues we hold close to our hearts within the design.

We believe a great design should represent the power of reciprocation. Every “artifact” should be gifted the power to induce inspiration for greater things, to affect the world a little nicer than previously. Like bouncing and polishing ideas from one another, like propagating positivity with one another, just as passing of the torch to the next.


A Word from the Founder
It is my absolute honor and pleasure to be able to work alongside Noto.Design, a world renowned and extremely accomplished industrial design firm from Germany. Together, we are partners in building our high-end boutique brand, Artifact Industries (Designed in Germany, Engineered & Manufactured in Taiwan). It is also a privilege to collaborate with Sloky, a Taiwan Excellence Boutique award winning tool maker, so that our clients may enjoy the building experience with the exquisite hand tools. It is close to our heart that we never forget where we are from, and what better way than to share what Taiwan has to offer.


“It starts at the keyboard, and it ends at the far corners of the universe.”
– Vincent Lowry

Yours Sincerely,
Phil

The Artifact Industries Team:
Phil Chen (Co-founder) @ Hurbon – aka. FindYourZero
Renner Wu (Mechanical Engineer) @ Hurbon
James Chan (Supply Chain Guru) @ Hurbon
Andre Poulheim (Co-founder) @ Noto
Julian Sommer (Industrial Design) @ Noto
Stefan Hohn (Industrial Design) @ Noto
Ira Mauve (Industrial Design) @ Noto
Yiangos Yiangou (PCB Designer) @ Yiancar Design
Demi Cui (PCB Designer) @ Yiancar Design

Please reference the second post for updates
Please reference the third post for additional renders/photographs


Design Renders - Exterior








Design Renders - Internals







Design Features

* 4 or 8 Degrees quick-release cylinder stands for tool-less angle adjustment
* Suspended Isolated Grommet Mount
* Screw-less exterior
* Slim bezel design
* Low-profile front height (19.8mm)
* PCB compatible with QMK and VIA
* Universal USB-C Daughterboard
* Adjustable color LED and brightness (65535 colors), and modes (breathing, static etc.) with light guide
* Satin finished 6061 Aluminum housing
* Radial diamond cut finishing for the USB-C faceplate & cylinder stand faceplates
* Injection molded silicone dampening pad between PCB & Switch-Plate

Layout Options

Tsangan WK


Tsangan WKL


Technical Specifications
Weight & Dimensions

* Estimated ~1.8kg (Full Kit)
* 154.5 x 357 x 18mm Depth x Width x Height (w/o stands)
172.5 x 357 x 31.6mm (w/ 4° Stand)
172.5 x 357 x 42.8mm (w/ 8° Stand)
** Front-side height are 19.8mm for all configurations **
General

Case:Aluminum, Monochromatic Celestial Silver Sandblasted & micro-groove treated

Weight:Approx. 2kg

Plate Options:Aluminum, Frozen Black (Included - MSRP TBD); or Carbon Fiber, Frozen Black 3K 2/2 Twill (Optional - MSRP TBD)
**Finite Element Analysis (FEA) optimized for flex consistency**

Form Factor:Slim bezel 80%

Architecture:Suspended Isolated Grommet Mount (screw-less exterior)

Dampening:Custom molded silicone mid-layer with reinforced Poron base-layer

Typing Angle: 4 (Included - MSRP TBD) and 8 Degrees (Included - MSRP TBD)

Layouts: Tsangan WK
or
WKL (symmetrical 1U blockers, supports PCB-mount stabs)

PCBA:Black-core Hotswap, Arm MCU, QMK & VIA supported, customized unified USB-C D/B designed in collaboration with Yiancar Designs.
(1 x PCBA included – MSRP TBD)

Lighting:Single side-firing programmable status LED, adjustable 65535 colors, adjustable brightness, breathing effect.

Accessories:a. 1 x 3-piece medical-grade 0.5Nm torque limiting T6 screwdriver (Included - MSRP TBD) in collaboration with Sloky (A Taiwan Excellence Award winning tool manufacturer)
b. 2 x pairs of quick release cylinder stands (4 & 8 Degrees)
c. 8 x custom T6 CNCed, black electroplated steel Switch Plate to Housing Grommet Mount screws
d. 16 x black electroplated T6 steel screws for PCB to Switch-Plate
e. 5 x custom CNCed black electroplated T6 steel screws for Housing to Bottom Cover
f. 2 x 2 sets black electroplated T6 steel screws for Cylinder Stand
*Extra screw sets provided for redundancy
**Founding Edition is fully kitted (All accessories included).

Lineage:Designed in Germany & Engineered & Manufactured in Taiwan


Pre-Order Information

Unit Quantity:Founding Edition Limited run, QTYs TBD

Price:MSRP TBD

Point of Sale:artifact-industries.com

Launch date:TBD


Disclaimers

* The images are renders and are for illustration purposes only. The final product may differ slightly
* Keycaps, switches, stabilizers are shown for demonstrative purposes only and are not included with LvL Type-01/80 Founding Edition
* Keep in mind this is an interest check. Nothing, including options, pricing, etc, is final until the GB starts. This IC represents the most correct, up-to-date information we have regarding LvL Type-01/80 at this time. Based on prototyping and manufacturing samples, some things may change.We will be announcing any changes, if any, here first, and on Discord as well.

FindYourZero:
UPDATES
16-Oct-2021.........LVL Type1/80 IC Launch with Exterior Renders
20-Oct-2021.........Pricing estimates removed. Will be updated again when QTY of run is determined
26-Oct-2021.........Updated Internal Renders (Internal parts and components)
26-Oct-2021.........Created FAQ
16-Nov-2021........Proto V3.0 photo shared in reply post
05-Dec-2021........Proto V3.0 typing sound shared in reply post


FAQ


What is Suspended Grommet Mount?

Our suspended grommet-mount is actually a variation of top-mount, and has several design implications (note that when I mention “module”, it means PCB+Silicone Pad+Switch Plate):

* Firstly, opens the door to thin-bezel design. As you can imagine, moving the mounting points inside the housing means we can do away without shelves/positioning cut-outs which requires thicker sides around the outter perimeters of the housing.
* Secondly, reducing contact surface/physical connection between the module and the rest of the housing, which in turn, inhibits vibration from traveling to undesirable parts and cause unwanted acoustic characteristics. This also means we only need to apply very small parts for isolation in strategic locations.
* Lastly, the grommets (all 8 of them, with high elasticity), which are quite small, can plasticly deform in both the vertical direction as well as in the direction of the horizontal-plane (i.e. as the screw tightens, the grommet will deform and hold onto the adjacent parts to provide good isolation). This provides a firm typing feel without harshness, and exhibits a solid acoustics without pinging.
One of the solution we imagined was with springs. We envisioned a suspension system with different spring types and spring-forces that is user serviceable would be a great customization point.

But it was apparent that we needed to customize step-screws to constrain the spring in place. Then it was apparent that the spring inevitably will need to be constrained while undergoing compression (i.e. as spring compresses, it may slant and deflect. Similar to how our shock absorbers on cars usually requires sleeves). If not controlled, spring touching adjacent parts will give off scratchy noise.

After many ideation and prototyping runs, we settled on the suspended grommet mount, as it seems to be much more efficient, simple and functional.

FindYourZero:
Reserved

Lil:
It looks good from an industrial design and rendering perspective, but looks bad from a keyboard enthusiast perspective. It's not building from the progress that the designers have made within the hobby and doesn't fit within the context of that timeline. That being said, in alot of ways it looks like it's starting from scratch or coming at things like an oem design without thought of where it fits within the current market. The pricing especially is a bit tragic for what amounts to a stylish oem cone-feet board. The excessive space underneath the keyboard is going to sound bad, the way the cone feet are going to bounce is going to make the typing experience wildly inconsistent between rows, as there is no room for R4 to move down, with increasing movement available to r3->f-row.

Edit: I could be misunderstanding what the spring is used for here, if it's just a part of the typing angle adjustment then my comments about the typing experience don't apply

Quadrum:
From an aesthetics point of view, this board is awesome. I personally like the look of the board quite a bit, and I think that the design work that has gone into this is great. However, I do believe that from a sound point of view the amount of space underneath the keyboard will be detrimental. Given that the only angle options are 4 and 8 degrees, there will be significant space underneath the board. Offering a 0 degree or a 2 degree angle foot might mitigate some of that. I do think that it is a limitation of the design, after all it is not often that adjustable angle keyboards show up on geekhack, but given that this is a result of both the quite nice aesthetic of the board and the adjustability, my personal opinion is that this is still a pretty neat board, even if it doesn't sound the best. Unfortunately I think that the price is prohibitively expensive for most people, but I am excited to see where this project goes.

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