[IC] Zlant 40%

[ziptyze]

I've been working on this for a little while now, so I thought it was time to make a thread about it. As some of you have seen, I'm working on a board that I call the Zlant. The idea is a uniformly staggered 40% board using the Planck layout. Personally, I love ortho boards, but I know they're not for everyone. By making a board with a stagger, typing feels a lot more natural for people who can't adapt to ortho typing. Using all 1u keys allows the board to stay nearly as compact as a 4x12 ortho and retains the benefits of that layout. Personally I feel 4x12 makes the fewest sacrifices of any small form factor, and there are quite a few key sets out there with Planck kits already, which means you don't have to make as many, if any, concessions for using the correct keycaps for the layout.

Without further delay, here are some pictures of one of my completed prototype builds:







I've since moved to making a PCB, and I've been working on it for a few weeks. Today I hope to be submitting the files to get some prototype pcbs. Here is a quick and dirty render of the PCB:




So, any thoughts, comments, or questions would be appreciated! I'm really excited about this, and I hope I'm able to go into production within the next few weeks.

[prod]

like it

[jacobsmirror]

Sexy...

[salasource]

Looks good. But what about the case? Can we have high quality CNC case?

[ziptyze]

Looks good. But what about the case? Can we have high quality CNC case?

This is a rough mock-up of what I envision for a case. Keep in mind, I did this pretty quickly and it’s not the right geometry, but you should get an idea of what I’m going for. In this case, the green area would be the plate made of diffused 3mm acrylic. The pcb has upward facing rgb leds so the glow would extend out to the edges. Ideally I may initially sell it as a sandwich style case, but then run a buy on milled cases that would just use the existing plate and not the bottom.

[donut_sauce]

yay! finally excited to see this up. remember seeing it when you first made it back on r/mk.

is the chip gonna be atmega32u4?

[ziptyze]

yay! finally excited to see this up. remember seeing it when you first made it back on r/mk.

is the chip gonna be atmega32u4?

Yes

[NiceAndCreamy]

Don't forget that the 3mm plate has cutouts for the switch clips! Maximum rigidity

[Jae-3soteric]

Looks great - I was super tempted by your prototype on MM...

[jdcarpe]

Just slide those bottom two rows to the right by 0.25u haha

[ziptyze]

Just slide those bottom two rows to the right by 0.25u haha

I debated that... but it would kill the symmetry. Still close enough that I don’t think it feels weird.

[jimirolln]

Looks good. But what about the case? Can we have high quality CNC case?

This is a rough mock-up of what I envision for a case. Keep in mind, I did this pretty quickly and it’s not the right geometry, but you should get an idea of what I’m going for. In this case, the green area would be the plate made of diffused 3mm acrylic. The pcb has upward facing rgb leds so the glow would extend out to the edges. Ideally I may initially sell it as a sandwich style case, but then run a buy on milled cases that would just use the existing plate and not the bottom.

Show Image

this case is so lit...it looks like a coffin...do you do a 60%?

[ziptyze]

Looks good. But what about the case? Can we have high quality CNC case?

This is a rough mock-up of what I envision for a case. Keep in mind, I did this pretty quickly and it’s not the right geometry, but you should get an idea of what I’m going for. In this case, the green area would be the plate made of diffused 3mm acrylic. The pcb has upward facing rgb leds so the glow would extend out to the edges. Ideally I may initially sell it as a sandwich style case, but then run a buy on milled cases that would just use the existing plate and not the bottom.

Show Image

this case is so lit...it looks like a coffin...do you do a 60%?

I haven’t made one yet, but if people like the style I certainly could. All of the 60 cases I’ve made to this point have been pretty vanilla with the exception of my hhkb style cases

[livingspeedbump]

i actually really love this! 

[oh_chesteroni]

Looks good. But what about the case? Can we have high quality CNC case?

This is a rough mock-up of what I envision for a case. Keep in mind, I did this pretty quickly and it’s not the right geometry, but you should get an idea of what I’m going for. In this case, the green area would be the plate made of diffused 3mm acrylic. The pcb has upward facing rgb leds so the glow would extend out to the edges. Ideally I may initially sell it as a sandwich style case, but then run a buy on milled cases that would just use the existing plate and not the bottom.

Show Image

this case is so lit...it looks like a coffin...do you do a 60%?

I haven’t made one yet, but if people like the style I certainly could. All of the 60 cases I’ve made to this point have been pretty vanilla with the exception of my hhkb style cases

Show Image

Would be in on a hhkb case in a heartbeat.
Love the simplicity of your case.

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk

[tanvir175]

I remember seeing this on reddit when you first handwired it. Super sick! Also that HHKB case looks really nice

[UsualSuspectXXX]

I'd definitely be in for one of these!

Edit: any ideas on a price range?

[ziptyze]

I'd definitely be in for one of these!

Edit: any ideas on a price range?

That is going to be largely dependent on how much assembled pcbs would be, and what I end up doing for the case. I want to try to make it as reasonable as possible, and ideally not do a group buy... but that may be the best way to go ultimately to get a better idea on pricing. So... I know that’s vague, but I’d say I should have a much better idea within a week or two.

[UsualSuspectXXX]

I'd definitely be in for one of these!

Edit: any ideas on a price range?

That is going to be largely dependent on how much assembled pcbs would be, and what I end up doing for the case. I want to try to make it as reasonable as possible, and ideally not do a group buy... but that may be the best way to go ultimately to get a better idea on pricing. So... I know that’s vague, but I’d say I should have a much better idea within a week or two.

Sounds reasonable to me. Will be looking forward to an update

[nathanchere]

Love it!

[MMKB]

Mind bending but really unique! 

[ChrisSwires]

Interested. Staggered 40 I can cover with an ortho kit? Dreamy.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

[ziptyze]

So, it's been a while since I've updated this project. I thought I would share some progress. I just received the 4th revision of the PCB, and I believe this is what I am going to use for a group buy. It will be a factory assembled PCB with an onboard controller. The switch plate and bottom plate are made of tg4, same as the pcb.






And here are some assembled pictures of the prototype




If anyone has seen any of my previous prototypes you'll notice that I changed the pcb design from a slanted edge. This change was made primarily so I could sell the board first as an inexpensive kit, but that it would be able to drop in to a milled high-profile case later without the need to desolder everything and move the pcb to another plate that would go into a multi-part assembled case.

If anyone has any questions, please fire away. I will be getting some quotes for factory soldered pcbs in the next few days and hope to start the group buy by the weekend.