[GB] Modern M0110 custom keyboard

[Starius]

I really should get in the habit of getting extra plates in the first place, I don’t know why I haven’t done so. 
If extras do run out, will files be provided the plate making services out there?

You can download the plate design here! https://github.com/deskcandy/modern-m0110

Thanks for pointing that out, eyedrop! 

[deskcandy]

I will have extra plates for sale but going to wait to list them until all or almost all orders are shipped to be on the safe(r) side. Probably mostly extra brass plates but maybe some extra acrylic too.

Yeah, John, I would ask that you wait until *all* units have shipped. It wouldn't be fair for people who received their board a year ago to already be able to get extra plates while many of us have yet to even see the keyboard, see how it sounds, etc. We have no idea if we would need a new, replacement, or second plate until we actually (finally, hopefully) receive ours.

Noted, will do that thanks!

[Starius]

Just a quick note here, someone might need to double check the DXF file on Github.  The folks at LaserBoost aren't able to open it. 

[macclack]

Here it is with Extended 2048

[Dumblescore]

I really should get in the habit of getting extra plates in the first place, I don’t know why I haven’t done so. 
If extras do run out, will files be provided the plate making services out there?

You can download the plate design here! https://github.com/deskcandy/modern-m0110

I haven’t built a keyboard yet, so apologies if this is stupid, but why do you need extra plates?  Do they break over time?  I understand buying extra PCBs, but plates don’t seem quite as consumable of a part

[lukelex]

I really should get in the habit of getting extra plates in the first place, I don’t know why I haven’t done so. 
If extras do run out, will files be provided the plate making services out there?

You can download the plate design here! https://github.com/deskcandy/modern-m0110

I haven’t built a keyboard yet, so apologies if this is stupid, but why do yuh need extra plates?  Do they break over time?  I understand buying extra PCBs, but plates don’t seem quite as consumable of a part

First reason. Plates can be off different materials, which might influence the typing feel.
Second reason. Some people like having spare parts in case they sell the board in the future.

Sent from my vivo 1805 using Tapatalk

[macclack]

I really should get in the habit of getting extra plates in the first place, I don’t know why I haven’t done so. 
If extras do run out, will files be provided the plate making services out there?

You can download the plate design here! https://github.com/deskcandy/modern-m0110

I haven’t built a keyboard yet, so apologies if this is stupid, but why do yuh need extra plates?  Do they break over time?  I understand buying extra PCBs, but plates don’t seem quite as consumable of a part

Another reason is that the plate and PCB support Alps or MX-style switches, which potentially lend themselves to very different typing sound/feel and keycap options.

[Starius]

I really should get in the habit of getting extra plates in the first place, I don’t know why I haven’t done so. 
If extras do run out, will files be provided the plate making services out there?

You can download the plate design here! https://github.com/deskcandy/modern-m0110

I haven’t built a keyboard yet, so apologies if this is stupid, but why do you need extra plates?  Do they break over time?  I understand buying extra PCBs, but plates don’t seem quite as consumable of a part

In addition to what the others have mentioned, sometimes it's nice to have multiple plate/pcb/switch combos that can be relatively easily and quickly swapped out - for different typing experiences. 

[곽도엽]

What types of reinforcement plates can be installed?

[ibabo]

Just got mine on thursday, built it with og doubleshots and filmed 70g sakura everglides. Has a few small imperfections but I'm super happy with it, sounds just like the original!

[biothermal]

Just got mine on thursday, built it with og doubleshots and filmed 70g sakura everglides. Has a few small imperfections but I'm super happy with it, sounds just like the original!

Danggggg. That's what I like to see! Such a good set up right there, nice build! 

[slxdegrees]

Those who have already gotten theirs, how's the finish on the bottom for the cerakote units? I hear there's some slight pitting on certain areas..

Sent from my LYA-L29 using Tapatalk

[deskcandy]

Those who have already gotten theirs, how's the finish on the bottom for the cerakote units? I hear there's some slight pitting on certain areas..

Sent from my LYA-L29 using Tapatalk

Maybe just chiming in here from the manufacturing angle (more details in previous posts) - the raw units have a rough diamond pattern on the bottom of the bottom piece. Unfortunately this happened before we were able to intervene in the machining process and had to figure out workarounds since it would be infeasible to redo them. For anodized units, we are polishing the bottoms in a light pass, which pretty much wipes out the diamond pattern without removing too much definition. For lighter Cerakote colors (light sand), we did two coats of paint to "fill in" some of the gaps. For darker colors generally found that a single coat worked fine.

[ramensan]

Will there be any extras after the fulfillment?

[deskcandy]

Maybe, no promises. We won't do anything with extras until 100% shipped so we're still a ways out before announcing any possible extras.

[eyedrop]

John, would you happen to have the fixed layout ANSI plate file?

The one in github is the universal one.

[deskcandy]

John, would you happen to have the fixed layout ANSI plate file?

The one in github is the universal one.

Yep! Added it here: https://github.com/deskcandy/modern-m0110/tree/master/plates/hhkb

[deskcandy]

Hey folks,

Couple of quick updates:

• I met with the anodizers yesterday. They ran into a problem on gray because the matched color sample I approved was actually using a black dye but dipped for a very short amount of time. Basically what happened is that on the first few units they ran, they got a really splotchy color result because the keyboard only had ~10-15 seconds to absorb the dye, whereas you'd usually leave the part in the anodizing solution for several minutes instead of seconds. I asked them to use a "real" gray dye and we have a new sample dye on order to do another color test end of week or early next week. This means we are out another 1-2 weeks at least from having gray done
• Similar situation on Cerakote sadly. Two weekends ago they were very confident I'd get the ~25 light sand units remaining back from them and basically get to 100% done on Cerakote by last Friday, but I checked in on Sunday and they actually didn't do any keyboards this week. Am told I should have some units to pick up Friday so I'm shooting for then.
• I discovered that if you do an HHKB layout with Alps style switches with the universal plate design, the Alps switches are a *very* tight fit in the 1.5u delete slot, so I'd recommend filing down the little tab on the right of where that switch goes before you assemble if possible, otherwise you may need to shave off some plastic from the switch housing itself.
• I forgot to send some folks who ordered Alps Throwback their replacement ABS spacebars with their Modern M0110 order, so if you need a new set of spacebars because of PBT shrinkage/warping in your set, please email me and I'll hook you up. Sorry for the trouble.

Thanks everyone.

[jmdaly]

Hi John, just wanted to say thanks for the regular updates these days. It's great for us to know how things are progressing. It's also awesome that we're starting to see some pics of completed Modern M0110 builds on the various keyboard forums! Looking forward to receiving my grey anodized unit

[USER9127]

Yes, Agreed. The regular updates change the feel of this GB entirely. Even if it is just an update of "Nothing really progressed this week, ran into XYZ issues", that is far better than dead silence. Known issues are far more comforting than unknown silence.

While it sucks the grey anodized are delayed, not much can be done about it. Glad you are being exacting on the process and striving towards perfection though!

This whole saga is making me concerned about the state of US manufacturing sector though. Deskcandy, if you get some time, can you do a short list of "lessons learned" for those who may want to do a similar GB in the US? There is much experience here that could be helpful, and pitfalls that could be avoided by those who wish to follow in your footsteps.

[rpiguy9907]

This whole saga is making me concerned about the state of US manufacturing sector though. Deskcandy, if you get some time, can you do a short list of "lessons learned" for those who may want to do a similar GB in the US? There is much experience here that could be helpful, and pitfalls that could be avoided by those who wish to follow in your footsteps.

I bet there isn't all that much to it. Basically in China manpower is plentiful and inexpensive. More importantly factories and raw materials are shared in ways that aren't done here. In China a small batch is very profitable because machinists are available to run small jobs on machines that have been paid for and amortized by the factory on raw materials that the government helps procure at rock bottom prices.

In the US and the West in general, small jobs are not very profitable. Finding a machine shop that can do this kind of job on time and at a reasonable cost is like finding a needle in a haystack. And even then it will still cost more than China. Witness the latest round of cases from Norbauer. A machine shop will charge you minimum $75/hour for machining here in the US.

Might be worth talking to the Honeyboards guys about how to find a machine shop that can do this kind of job, since they do it themselves.

[Jolly_Green_Giant]

I'm agreed with the general consensus, I'm so glad for these more frequent updates. Thank you for taking your time to update. Hope everyone stays safe.

[deskcandy]

This whole saga is making me concerned about the state of US manufacturing sector though. Deskcandy, if you get some time, can you do a short list of "lessons learned" for those who may want to do a similar GB in the US? There is much experience here that could be helpful, and pitfalls that could be avoided by those who wish to follow in your footsteps.

I bet there isn't all that much to it. Basically in China manpower is plentiful and inexpensive. More importantly factories and raw materials are shared in ways that aren't done here. In China a small batch is very profitable because machinists are available to run small jobs on machines that have been paid for and amortized by the factory on raw materials that the government helps procure at rock bottom prices.

In the US and the West in general, small jobs are not very profitable. Finding a machine shop that can do this kind of job on time and at a reasonable cost is like finding a needle in a haystack. And even then it will still cost more than China. Witness the latest round of cases from Norbauer. A machine shop will charge you minimum $75/hour for machining here in the US.

Might be worth talking to the Honeyboards guys about how to find a machine shop that can do this kind of job, since they do it themselves.

Yeah this is a lot of it. I'll do my own write up at some point once the GB is wrapped up, but yea China factories get access to government-subsidized materials and the whole ecosystem here in the states (especially in southern california) is geared towards aerospace where customers are not as price sensitive but "made in USA" and tight tolerances and adherence to certified processes is a high priority, so the only machine shops that will do a project like a small run of keyboards are sort of leftovers that either didn't make it or tried to carve out some kind of other niche. Although as a counterpoint, my Cerakote vendor is also a gun parts shop and they started machining their own products in-house and have insane margins (if you want to feel better about how much keyboards cost, Google customized/Cerakotes glock slides or sights lol) so it works. Keyboards are relatively cheap compared to gun parts even though the manufacturing process is super similar and pistol parts are way smaller.

The shop I worked with is a "prototyping" focused shop but does not have a tight working relationship with folks who run other parts of the process and would not manage that part of the process for me (labor too expensive), so I had to do a lot of things myself that "factories" in China will manage internally. I still have a full-time job and don't have a truck, warehouse, or forklift so managing vendor meetings and material movement was bit of a challenge lol.

I accepted lower margins because I thought paying more for manufacturing in the US would mean less QC issues, but I think I ended up paying more than I needed to for manufacturing AND had more QC issues than if I had gone to China. More to come in a later postmortem

[macclack]

This whole saga is making me concerned about the state of US manufacturing sector though. Deskcandy, if you get some time, can you do a short list of "lessons learned" for those who may want to do a similar GB in the US? There is much experience here that could be helpful, and pitfalls that could be avoided by those who wish to follow in your footsteps.

I bet there isn't all that much to it. Basically in China manpower is plentiful and inexpensive. More importantly factories and raw materials are shared in ways that aren't done here. In China a small batch is very profitable because machinists are available to run small jobs on machines that have been paid for and amortized by the factory on raw materials that the government helps procure at rock bottom prices.

In the US and the West in general, small jobs are not very profitable. Finding a machine shop that can do this kind of job on time and at a reasonable cost is like finding a needle in a haystack. And even then it will still cost more than China. Witness the latest round of cases from Norbauer. A machine shop will charge you minimum $75/hour for machining here in the US.

Might be worth talking to the Honeyboards guys about how to find a machine shop that can do this kind of job, since they do it themselves.

Yeah this is a lot of it. I'll do my own write up at some point once the GB is wrapped up, but yea China factories get access to government-subsidized materials and the whole ecosystem here in the states (especially in southern california) is geared towards aerospace where customers are not as price sensitive but "made in USA" and tight tolerances and adherence to certified processes is a high priority, so the only machine shops that will do a project like a small run of keyboards are sort of leftovers that either didn't make it or tried to carve out some kind of other niche. Although as a counterpoint, my Cerakote vendor is also a gun parts shop and they started machining their own products in-house and have insane margins (if you want to feel better about how much keyboards cost, Google customized/Cerakotes glock slides or sights lol) so it works. Keyboards are relatively cheap compared to gun parts even though the manufacturing process is super similar and pistol parts are way smaller.

The shop I worked with is a "prototyping" focused shop but does not have a tight working relationship with folks who run other parts of the process and would not manage that part of the process for me (labor too expensive), so I had to do a lot of things myself that "factories" in China will manage internally. I still have a full-time job and don't have a truck, warehouse, or forklift so managing vendor meetings and material movement was bit of a challenge lol.

I accepted lower margins because I thought paying more for manufacturing in the US would mean less QC issues, but I think I ended up paying more than I needed to for manufacturing AND had more QC issues than if I had gone to China. More to come in a later postmortem

This is interesting stuff. I'm looking forward to reading more when you do the postmortem writeup.

[deskcandy]

Hey folks,

I picked up a batch on Monday night from the Cerakote vendor, but it's a really bad batch. I guess they are having problems with the paint gun and everything turned out pretty poorly (especially the tops, some bottoms are fine for some reason) so this is slowing down Cerakote shipments right now. Still no update on anodization but should be doing *another* color approval on Friday (another because I already did this a few months ago but apparently it was for an impossible color lol).

Thanks for being patient and I hope to have another update Friday or early next week.

John

[deskcandy]

Hey everyone,

I'm going to be honest - it has been a pretty rough last couple of weeks for the group buy. I have had 2 complete batches of Light Sand Cerakote that 100% failed QC (one was super bumpy because of a bad paint gun and one batch was completely missing color on one edge).... It really sucks and I'm trying to push the guys to get things back on track because I basically have run out of shippable Cerakote units and am annoyed that progress has slowed down to a halt.

On the anodizing front, things are not that much better. Basically got told that the grey color I approved months ago was not possible to actually run in production (I still can't really explain why they said it isn't possible - they said it's because they used a black dye for only a few seconds versus a "true" grey dye) but I took a look at another grey production sample today that looks good. Main problem left though is that there are workholding marks and we are back to square one with workholding. We are doing ANOTHER production sample next week holding the parts with screws (which is how I wanted to do it months ago...lol) and fingers crossed will be good to finish the greys. I don't want to overpromise on timing so best case scenario is that we start running all grey production mid-week next week and finish 2-3 weeks later and ship out all grey by mid-July. Worst case is much much later or even having to scuttle the grey color if they really cannot do the production. That's the "nuclear option" and I really hope it doesn't come to that so let's see.

Here's a shot of the latest grey sample I took a look at this morning. I think the color is good but we need to get rid of the workholding marks and hopefully make the finish "shine" a bit more.

I'll keep pushing and hope that the next few weeks start going a lot better and I can get to shipping out keyboards again soon. Thanks for your patience everyone and happy Juneteenth.

John

[gex]

are you going to sell these “defected” cases as b stock or what’s your plan with them?

[deskcandy]

are you going to sell these “defected” cases as b stock or what’s your plan with them?

This one is going to get refinished, so it's not going to be B-stock (imperfection is due to finishing process, not machining process, so it's fixable).

B-stock will generally be units with more serious issues like dents and dings. I might run some of these in a special finish call "shotpeen" which has a bumpy textured finish and will look good even if there were problems with the original machining or if the original metal was damaged somehow but I'm not sure yet. I can't even really think about B-stock that much because there's still so much work left to finish shipping A-stock orders.

[gex]

I can't even really think about B-stock that much because there's still so much work left to finish shipping A-stock orders.

i didn't mean to distract you with my silly question. i missed the gb but despite these issues i really like the progress and especially the transparency you are making with these status reports. maybe one day i can buy a remaining unit. keep up the good work!

[deskcandy]

All good Thanks for the interest!

[crowKAKAWWW]

Thanks for the updates!

I know this was already discussed before, but I think it would be really beneficial for the MK community to share which vendors were used for this GB. I've been seeing more "Made in USA" GBs lately and would hate for them to go through the same experience that we currently are. 2+ years to get a production-approved ano color is wild.

[deskcandy]

OK let me think about that. I don't want to give them a bad reputation since I think it's also largely my fault and how I ran the process (and just inherent risk in doing a GB and not actually knowing how things are going to work 100% in production upfront). But I can assure you 100% that none of my vendors have ever heard of a mechanical keyboard before or have ever been contacted to do work for them before, so I think there's a very very small chance that they would get involved with future GBs.

[alphabirth]

Here's my build with Canvas: 
 
 
 

Built with lubed mint pandas and it feels amazing.  Thanks John for the excellent board!

[nulltorious]

Does anyone know if case port will support a standard USB-C PCB?

[dwarflemur]

whatever the one that you could get with it was was USB-C, it works fine

[macclack]

I tried downloading the default/universal plate file to make a custom plate on Laserboost and neither I or Laserboost could get the file to work. Has anyone else had success with it? I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong or if there's an issue with the file.

[janglad]

I tried downloading the default/universal plate file to make a custom plate on Laserboost and neither I or Laserboost could get the file to work. Has anyone else had success with it? I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong or if there's an issue with the file.

Could you describe the issues you're having? I know Fusion can be wonky with DXF export. I checked this before and it looked fine when I imported it into both Fusion360 and Illustrator (altho I do know nothing about Illustrator).

[gnho]

Does any one has a spare ALPS compatible plate for sale? If not, I'm also looking for people to cut some plates together to save the cost... Thanks!

[Helcera]

Oooo that grey color looks great! Am I wrong in thinking that it doesn't look that different from the previous grey? A bit darker perhaps but the shade itself seems really similar. I've been seeing some of the shipped cerakote units in Reddit and it made me wonder if I should've gone with one of those instead but seeing that grey makes me feel like I definitely made the right choice.

Shame about the production issues though, must suck to have to deal with them Let's hope that the new batch turns out fine. And even if there are more delays I definitely appreciate that you're keeping us posted on what's happening. I can handle waiting much better than uncertainty.

[slxdegrees]

I tried downloading the default/universal plate file to make a custom plate on Laserboost and neither I or Laserboost could get the file to work. Has anyone else had success with it? I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong or if there's an issue with the file.

Could you describe the issues you're having? I know Fusion can be wonky with DXF export. I checked this before and it looked fine when I imported it into both Fusion360 and Illustrator (altho I do know nothing about Illustrator).

I tried downloading the default/universal plate file to make a custom plate on Laserboost and neither I or Laserboost could get the file to work. Has anyone else had success with it? I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong or if there's an issue with the file.

You might be downloading from Github wrong. Made that same mistake initially too. Anyway I have uploaded the file to MEGA to simplify things, so here you go!

[gnho]

You might be downloading from Github wrong. Made that same mistake initially too. Anyway I have uploaded the file to MEGA to simplify things, so here you go!

Is this one Alps compatible? Are people interested in cutting the plates together to lower the price? I can contact LaserBoost to see if we can do a mini-GB.

[slxdegrees]

You might be downloading from Github wrong. Made that same mistake initially too. Anyway I have uploaded the file to MEGA to simplify things, so here you go!

Is this one Alps compatible? Are people interested in cutting the plates together to lower the price? I can contact LaserBoost to see if we can do a mini-GB.

Yeah it's the one uploaded by Deskcandy, so if that one supports alps then yeah. I only added the Mega mirror cos people were having trouble downloading from Github.

Sent from my LYA-L29 using Tapatalk

[macclack]

I tried downloading the default/universal plate file to make a custom plate on Laserboost and neither I or Laserboost could get the file to work. Has anyone else had success with it? I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong or if there's an issue with the file.

Could you describe the issues you're having? I know Fusion can be wonky with DXF export. I checked this before and it looked fine when I imported it into both Fusion360 and Illustrator (altho I do know nothing about Illustrator).

Hi, I sent the GitHub link to laser boost's support team to see if they could download it and use it. Here was their response:

---
We can not open the file from the github, do you have the file in another version /format?

Thanks!

---

I'm just not knowledgeable enough to be able to troubleshoot or provide more detail than that... I'll be the first to admit it's probably something I'm doing wrong.

[janglad]

I tried downloading the default/universal plate file to make a custom plate on Laserboost and neither I or Laserboost could get the file to work. Has anyone else had success with it? I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong or if there's an issue with the file.

Could you describe the issues you're having? I know Fusion can be wonky with DXF export. I checked this before and it looked fine when I imported it into both Fusion360 and Illustrator (altho I do know nothing about Illustrator).

Hi, I sent the GitHub link to laser boost's support team to see if they could download it and use it. Here was their response:

---
We can not open the file from the github, do you have the file in another version /format?

Thanks!

---

I'm just not knowledgeable enough to be able to troubleshoot or provide more detail than that... I'll be the first to admit it's probably something I'm doing wrong.

This might be stupid but did you try sending them the file directly? People sometimes find the way to download a single file from GitHub confusing.

[macclack]

I tried downloading the default/universal plate file to make a custom plate on Laserboost and neither I or Laserboost could get the file to work. Has anyone else had success with it? I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong or if there's an issue with the file.

Could you describe the issues you're having? I know Fusion can be wonky with DXF export. I checked this before and it looked fine when I imported it into both Fusion360 and Illustrator (altho I do know nothing about Illustrator).

I tried downloading the default/universal plate file to make a custom plate on Laserboost and neither I or Laserboost could get the file to work. Has anyone else had success with it? I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong or if there's an issue with the file.

You might be downloading from Github wrong. Made that same mistake initially too. Anyway I have uploaded the file to MEGA to simplify things, so here you go!

This worked! Thank you.

[macclack]

This might be stupid but did you try sending them the file directly? People sometimes find the way to download a single file from GitHub confusing.

...And I guess I'm one of those people 
I guess I should figure out how to use GitHub

[Starius]

This might be stupid but did you try sending them the file directly? People sometimes find the way to download a single file from GitHub confusing.

...And I guess I'm one of those people 
I guess I should figure out how to use GitHub

Dont feel bad, I had the exact same problem with the file and Laserboost.  Apparently I don't know how to use github either.
(In my defense, trying to get the plate file there is my only experience with it.)

[Starius]

X

[your_fish_monger]

And we now enter year three.

[eyedrop]

This might be stupid but did you try sending them the file directly? People sometimes find the way to download a single file from GitHub confusing.

...And I guess I'm one of those people 
I guess I should figure out how to use GitHub

Dont feel bad, I had the exact same problem with the file and Laserboost.  Apparently I don't know how to use github either.
(In my defense, trying to get the plate file there is my only experience with it.)

And we now enter year three.

I thought 07/01/2018 to 07/01/2020 is two years only?

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk