[GB] The Smallfry Keyboard Kit (Closed for Orders, 97% shipped. SEE LAST POSTS)

[HoffmanMyster]

dark blue, titan gray, and vector purple are currently leading, with about 35% of current orders responding. have to say, good taste.

If I want a color that doesn't end up getting the required support, what's the price to buy it out and make sure it happens?  My vector purple is doing great, but I'm only interested in that top color if I can also get the bottom to be aqua.

[GSimon]

dark blue, titan gray, and vector purple are currently leading, with about 35% of current orders responding. have to say, good taste.

If I want a color that doesn't end up getting the required support, what's the price to buy it out and make sure it happens?  My vector purple is doing great, but I'm only interested in that top color if I can also get the bottom to be aqua.

Same goes for me (and 2 others possibly) and bronze!

[mkawa]

line item minimum is 35$ for colors, 90$ for titan gray. titan gray is actually a different type of anodize that hardens the titanium surface (color anodizing requires an extremely quick dip as the color changes over a period of seconds). here's an example of a type II titan gray anodize:



their type II might be a little lighter from the images, but that's the basic idea.

[mkawa]

personally, i have to say i'd go for a green/seafoam combo. man that seafoam looks good

[HoffmanMyster]

line item minimum is 35$ for colors, 90$ for titan gray. titan gray is actually a different type of anodize that hardens the titanium surface (color anodizing requires an extremely quick dip as the color changes over a period of seconds). here's an example of a type II titan gray anodize:

Show Image

their type II might be a little lighter from the images, but that's the basic idea.

****, only $35 bucks?  I'm totally in if that's all it will cost to get the color I want.   :thumb:

[GSimon]

****, only $35 bucks?  I'm totally in if that's all it will cost to get the color I want.   

Likewise, bronze all the way!

[byker]

personally, i have to say i'd go for a green/seafoam combo. man that seafoam looks good

Can I go in and redo the google doc? I am having second guesses on the colour choice I made haha

[zflamewing]

Ok I made the jump.  I'm in for 1 with bronze for both plates.  I'm really impressed with the spirit of this buy and the cause....The fairly unique keyboard is sort of an icing imho....a very sweet anodized icing.  Thanks to everyone who is helping make this possible.

[mkawa]

personally, i have to say i'd go for a green/seafoam combo. man that seafoam looks good

Can I go in and redo the google doc? I am having second guesses on the colour choice I made haha

you should be able to edit your answer

[zeroni13]

Just bought two boards, can't wait to get them. One will be with MX Green the other with MX Tactile Grey. (Green for home and Grey for work).

So that brings me to the question:
This supports LED's in all the keys right? And the two extra holes on the CAPS key is for the CAPS indicator if I'm not mistaken.
Just have to double check before I actually order the 440 LED's.

[Greeeg]

Just have to double check before I actually order the 440 LED's.

You'd have alot left over! There are only 40 keys on the PCB!!

Also sadly, The PCB only supports the capslock LED. (Going from the image of the PCB on the product page, none of the LED spots are connected.)

[zeroni13]

Just have to double check before I actually order the 440 LED's.

You'd have alot left over! There are only 40 keys on the PCB!!

Also sadly, The PCB only supports the capslock LED. (Going from the image of the PCB on the product page, none of the LED spots are connected.)

The point was that I bought two boards, 40+40=80. So the 440 Was 4x110 packs with Orange, White, Green and Red LED's. Still alot left over, but I would be able to have two board in the same color or with different colors.

I could in theory just solder all the LED's and connect them manually right?
Because it would look so bad ass wtih LED's and the MAX keyboards transculent black keycaps witch I was going to buy.

[mkawa]

I could in theory just solder all the LED's and connect them manually right?
Because it would look so bad ass wtih LED's and the MAX keyboards transculent black keycaps witch I was going to buy.

yep!

i would ask jdcarpe though to make sure that the holes aren't already connected. if they are though, it's not a huge deal to run power to each LED, and the sorbothane gasket will hide all of your hookup wire on the bottom of the board.

[jdcarpe]

Yes, the holes for LEDs are there, but with no traces to anything. So you can definitely hand wire LEDs however you want them. You'll just have to pull +5V from the USB somewhere. If I had been a little more forward thinking, I would have had regack put a couple of holes from the power and ground connections to run the LEDs.

And you are correct in that the caps lock indicator are the adjacent holes to the LED holes in that one switch position.

[Melvang]

I want to see someone hook up their small fry board with an SDL-USB cable.  Any idea if you can get those with black insulation.

[mkawa]

the smallfry board won't output SDL aka PS2, so that wouldn't really be possible

[Melvang]

the smallfry board won't output SDL aka PS2, so that wouldn't really be possible

I was thinking just hand wire it to the plug.  Or is there a built in active adapter in there somewhere that would need to be bypassed?

[jdcarpe]

Controller is a Teensy 2.0

[Zeal]

Question about anodizing Titanium:

Does the colour fade/lighten/gets fingerprints easily like brushed aluminum?

The only piece of anodized titanium I have is a small wrench I got from massdrop. The blue was really vivid upon receiving it, but after touching it a couple times, it seems to have faded into a gray-blue. Was my Ti wrench just poorly anodized?

Picture example:
Top half- Barely touched, still blue at the edge
Sides - Noticeable fading
Bottom half - Rubbed my finger on it a couple times, and started "fading".

[Yslen]

Question about anodizing Titanium:

Does the colour fade/lighten/gets fingerprints easily like brushed aluminum?

The only piece of anodized titanium I have is a small wrench I got from massdrop. The blue was really vivid upon receiving it, but after touching it a couple times, it seems to have faded into a gray-blue. Was my Ti wrench just poorly anodized?

Picture example:
Top half- Barely touched, still blue at the edge
Sides - Noticeable fading
Bottom half - Rubbed my finger on it a couple times, and started "fading".

Show Image

Yikes. I'd definitely like some more information on anodized titanium having seen that... :/

[Zeal]

Didn't mean for my picture to scare people from selecting an anodized colour. 
It may be that my wrench was just poorly anodized. Since I don't have anything else to compare it to, I just wanted to hear mkawa reply/another member's experience with anodizing Ti.

[Spopepro]

It is well known that the lower voltages show fingerprints like whoah, and that's what produces the deep purples/ blues. Get it up above 45v and it is much less likely to "tarnish" (it's not tarnished, it has to do with the interaction of photons, oil from fingers, and oxide layer).

The best thing about titanium is that you could take that part and anodize it at a higher voltage and change the color (after you clean it, of course).

[Grendel]

 DIY !

[mkawa]

as spopepro said, you're not rubbing the oxide layer off. you're just getting it dirty.

[mkawa]

titan gray is above water. vector purple is destroying the other colors with blue variants filling out the rest of the top color choices. seafoam and green are on surging though. WATCH OUT BLUE. WE'RE COMING FOR YOU

[mashby]

One of the more difficult choices I've had to make regarding a keyboard. 

I ended up going with Titan Grey since I think that will go best with the Honey 40 set that I bought for it. However, even as I type this, I'm flip-flopping on going with Dark Blue, or just flip back to raw.  :roll eyes:

Anyone else getting a Round 5 set for this board? If so, what did you choose?

[Yslen]

Light blue to go with round 5. I didn't order any round 4 keys, but I think it will go nicely with the grey and white

[jdcarpe]

I ordered I think 4 sets of the HONEY/FORTY for these. I think they would look best with Titan Grey or raw finish.

[Yslen]

I am leaning back towards raw. When's the deadline for making colour decisions?

[V1ral]

I finally went with seafoam (for now) because that's the one I keep coming back to. Also titan gray for the bottom, because I can pick two colors so wynaut.

[nuclearsandwich]

I finally went with seafoam (for now) because that's the one I keep coming back to. Also titan gray for the bottom, because I can pick two colors so wynaut.

Seafoam!

[mkawa]

the deadline isn't for a while. i won't have to have final color decisions until we're doing the cuts. the material's headed out west and needs to be ground before it gets cut

[Zeal]

as spopepro said, you're not rubbing the oxide layer off. you're just getting it dirty.

Thanks spopepro & mkawa for the info. You mentioned that titan gray actually harden the Titanium even more, and is a different process? Is it more resistant to natural body oils/fingerprints (not sure how many Volts is required for titan gray)?

[mkawa]

titan gray is a a titanium type II anodize. http://www.danco.net/PDF-DOWNLOADS/ADVANTAGES.pdf

i actually don't know how this differs from color anodizing of titanium. color anodizing is just very minor variations of TiO2 layer thicknesses. very very minor. i've talked at length before about the refractory nature of titanium surfaces. the characteristic silver-gray color of titanium is due to the sparseness of titanium crystals and a thin oxide layer that forms on the surface (titanium oxidized _extremely_ quickly). increasing the thickness causes the refractory behavior to differ with wavelength even more. hence, color!

type II anodization, if it's anything like aluminum anodization, may just be a very thick layer of TiO2. this could explain why it's very matte and non-reflective.

[mkawa]

here's another great link

http://mrtitanium.com/interference.html

[mkawa]

i'm not really sure how you guys did this, but there are < 30 units of smallfry kits left.

that's out of EIGHTY

[Yslen]

titan gray is a a titanium type II anodize. http://www.danco.net/PDF-DOWNLOADS/ADVANTAGES.pdf

i actually don't know how this differs from color anodizing of titanium. color anodizing is just very minor variations of TiO2 layer thicknesses. very very minor. i've talked at length before about the refractory nature of titanium surfaces. the characteristic silver-gray color of titanium is due to the sparseness of titanium crystals and a thin oxide layer that forms on the surface (titanium oxidized _extremely_ quickly). increasing the thickness causes the refractory behavior to differ with wavelength even more. hence, color!

type II anodization, if it's anything like aluminum anodization, may just be a very thick layer of TiO2. this could explain why it's very matte and non-reflective.

Wow, cool, so it's diffraction? I didn't know that

[mkawa]

yep. that's the huge difference between titanium anodizing and aluminum anodizing, and the incredibly unique look of anodized titanium. to color anodize aluminum, you oxidize a layer and then before the crystals form, you trap dye into the layer. dye is a boring way to color. wave cancellation. now THAT'S exciting

[mkawa]

of course, it's also why we can't get red.

[Heliosphere]

I sort of want one of these, but I really don't have much money right now. How long do you think these will last mkawa?

[kakakowie]

yep. that's the huge difference between titanium anodizing and aluminum anodizing, and the incredibly unique look of anodized titanium. to color anodize aluminum, you oxidize a layer and then before the crystals form, you trap dye into the layer. dye is a boring way to color. wave cancellation. now THAT'S exciting

That is indeed exciting. I've never heard of it before. But I don't think there is any dye trapped at all. More info here

It's a matter of interference and the colour is dependent on the thickness of the oxide layer.

[Greeeg]

yep. that's the huge difference between titanium anodizing and aluminum anodizing, and the incredibly unique look of anodized titanium. to color anodize aluminum, you oxidize a layer and then before the crystals form, you trap dye into the layer. dye is a boring way to color. wave cancellation. now THAT'S exciting

It's a matter of interference and the colour is dependent on the thickness of the oxide layer.

Yes, the physics behind it is wave cancellation.
 

wave cancellation. now THAT'S exciting

Which is indeed very exciting!


I've never had titanium anodized before, does it change the texture of the surface like Anodizing aluminum does?

[mkawa]

I sort of want one of these, but I really don't have much money right now. How long do you think these will last mkawa?

at the current rate, i would guess a couple more weeks.

[zflamewing]

yep. that's the huge difference between titanium anodizing and aluminum anodizing, and the incredibly unique look of anodized titanium. to color anodize aluminum, you oxidize a layer and then before the crystals form, you trap dye into the layer. dye is a boring way to color. wave cancellation. now THAT'S exciting

It's a matter of interference and the colour is dependent on the thickness of the oxide layer.

Yes, the physics behind it is wave cancellation.
 

wave cancellation. now THAT'S exciting

Which is indeed very exciting!


I've never had titanium anodized before, does it change the texture of the surface like Anodizing aluminum does?

It sounds like the colors other than grey go through a similar process to what TI jewelery for piercings do so no it has the same texture as polished.

[mkawa]

yep, Ti anodized jewelry uses the same chemical process. The major difference is controllability with our industrial supplier. That's why there are only a dozen indexed colors available.

[mkawa]

we're at 34-ish responses out of about 52 orders. that passes total MOQ for anodization, but the more the merrier . i would like everyone to get the colors they want, so get your friends to respond!


here's a particularly awesome example of titanium anodizing, courtesy boilermaker:

http://www.amazon.com/Kershaw-1600VIB-Rainbow-Pocket-SpeedSafe/dp/B0009VC9U4/ref=sr_1_3?s=sporting-goods&ie=UTF8&qid=1403623283&sr=1-3&keywords=kershaw+chive

[Yslen]

Just tried to edit my response to the colour options doc, I think I might have just ended up submitting it twice, sorry about that. I've decided I'll go with raw titanium rather than a colour, as it'll fit with more keycap sets.

[mkawa]

that's fine

[wharrislv]

I really want the anodized case and the gasket, but I don't want to pay for the whole thing since I already have one of jdcarpe's 40%s.  Is it possible?

[mkawa]

so the only thing you don't want is the pcb? (the fastener costs are negligible)

i can do that. please place an order an put "no pcb" in your notes. i'll refund you for the cost of the pcb