[Oddforge] VE.A

[zefyr]

With everyone's high interests, Massdrop GB application is finished.
Oddforge will continue support for VE.A in this thread.
Thank you geeks.
================================================================
* 2016/09/28
Added resource page on website.
http://oddforge.com/product/vea_resource
You can download Alps switch mounting plate example.

Note,
We cannot offer mounting plate layout design service. It's almost impossible.
If you are familiar with Alps, you know that already

We can offer basic layout only, which is in the example design file.
It uses one Apple Ext (M0115 or M3501) and one Standard (M0116) keysets.

So, please use it only you are familiar with Alps and CAD.







================================================================
* 2016/10/13
Quick Question About Price for B-stock.

- We will mark with small intentional dent on inside (totally invisible when assembled)
- Our MSRP is 450 USD, we will discount over 20% for B-stock. which will be around 350USD for Basic Kit + misc
---- Case, PCB, Plate
---- SATA cable, 3Lock LEDs with matching resistors (will not be pre-soldered) for your convenience.
- We will charge paypal fee to you.
- We will use EMS with tracking number. package weight is under 2.5kg (those who uses pounds, do your math by yourself)
----You can check your shipping cost at following link.
----http://ems.epost.go.kr/front.EmsDeliveryDelivery09.postal
- We will not accept any undervalue request.

How's this sounds?
Any good?









================================================================
* 2016/10/20
Announcement from oddforge

We set a mailing list for B-stock GB.
Subscribe it if you need to be notified at important events.

http://eepurl.com/ckXnGD

* We will announce here, GH, as always *






================================================================
* 2016/11/06
Announcement from team oddforge

B-class stock GB schedule & process

- We will announce exact starting time at lease 48 hours before joining form opens. (time in KST, which is UTC+9 https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/kst)
- We will send you invoice within 24 hours, in order of GB form application.
- We will wait payment for 48 hours.
- If 48 hours exceeds, application will be canceled and and invoice will be avoided.
- We will charge shipping cost to you.
- We will charge paypal fee (3.9% + 0.3USD including shipping cost) to you.
- Kit price will be 349USD, includes 4 Aluminium parts, 2 Polycarbonate frames, 2 nameplates, PCB, bumpons, bolts, Black-titanium-coated switch mounting plate.
- We will ship package via EMS service with tracking number.

Thanks for your interest guys!
GB will be open within a week.
We are all set.

B-class stock photos


Color differency



B-class marking


Dent


Scratch


Uneven surface


Dent & uneven surface




====================================================================
* 2016/11/07
Announcement from oddforge

B-stock GB will be starts at November 9, 02:00 PM KST

Korea Standard Time, KST   November 09, 2016 14:00
Pacific Standard Time, PST   November 08, 2016 21:00
Central Standard Time, CST   November 08, 2016 23:00
Eastern Standard Time, EST   November 09, 2016 00:00
Mountain Standard Time, MST   November 08, 2016 22:00
Western European Time, WET   November 09, 2016 05:00
Central European Time, CET   November 09, 2016 06:00

Time converter
http://ko.thetimenow.com/time-zone-converter.php

GB Application form URL
https://goo.gl/forms/3vMzfTmYTQvxG3zq1

[FrostyToast]

snip

I guess that's a pretty good way to organize things.
For those who require MX mount stabilizers for their ALPS keycaps how should one specify that and how would it be implemented?

[zefyr]

snip

I guess that's a pretty good way to organize things.
For those who require MX mount stabilizers for their ALPS keycaps how should one specify that and how would it be implemented?

That's a really special case I think.
That is really order-made thing isn't it?
With alps plate, almost everything (position and stabilizers) will be described very well.
So, as you said, application form? really hard and it will cause confusion, (it will)
I'm just thinking about mail or bbs thing. it might better.

[FrostyToast]

snip

I guess that's a pretty good way to organize things.
For those who require MX mount stabilizers for their ALPS keycaps how should one specify that and how would it be implemented?

That's a really special case I think.
That is really order-made thing isn't it?
With alps plate, almost everything (position and stabilizers) will be described very well.
So, as you said, application form? really hard and it will cause confusion, (it will)
I'm just thinking about mail or bbs thing. it might better.

Now the easiest visual representation is with the use of a plate generator made by swill which uses the layout editor you linked to generate files.
See? I generated a plate for an ALPS numpad with Cherry stabilizers!

Of course you would need to redraw an entirely new plate that fits in the VE.A but there is no confusion this way.

[zefyr]

snip

I guess that's a pretty good way to organize things.
For those who require MX mount stabilizers for their ALPS keycaps how should one specify that and how would it be implemented?

That's a really special case I think.
That is really order-made thing isn't it?
With alps plate, almost everything (position and stabilizers) will be described very well.
So, as you said, application form? really hard and it will cause confusion, (it will)
I'm just thinking about mail or bbs thing. it might better.

Now the easiest visual representation is with the use of a plate generator made by swill which uses the layout editor you linked to generate files.
See? I generated a plate for an ALPS numpad with Cherry stabilizers!

Show Image

Of course you would need to redraw an entirely new plate that fits in the VE.A but there is no confusion this way.

AWESOME!!!
Thank you!

[ipreferpie]

I'm in the same boat wanting alps keys with MX stabilzers too


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Data]

[xsolon]

+1 for in switch lighting with presoldered SMDs

[roostrc0gburn]

not in any rush, but still hoping to get CAD files for the plates. i would like to make an anodized aluminum set for mine

[[Lewynlight]]

Still hoping for a leftover pcb..

[Azzures]

Still hoping for a leftover pcb..

Wanted to buy a extra pcb and plate for myself, but ran out of money buying the whole kit, lol.

[xsolon]

Why no black keycaps? The review on youtube even complains about the 'grey' -more like cream- color offered in the drop.

[Vypr]

Why no black keycaps? The review on youtube even complains about the 'grey' -more like cream- color offered in the drop.

Wait, so the gray keycaps in the massdrop buy are the same ones in the youtube review? I thought those were the white keycaps when I placed my order in the beginning

[jal]

Zefyr -
I think you said somewhere in the other thread that having all LEDs installed in the switches pulled more current than an unpowered USB connection would handle. How much does it draw all lit up? Thanks!

[krisst]

Why no black keycaps? The review on youtube even complains about the 'grey' -more like cream- color offered in the drop.

The black on black keycaps you might have seen are one of those carbon sets. There are a few sites that sell those. ABS or PBT. Hope you did not order those keycaps from MD and you can get some other keycaps that suits you more.

[zefyr]

not in any rush, but still hoping to get CAD files for the plates. i would like to make an anodized aluminum set for mine

Working on it
Takes couple of weeks.

[Data]

VE.A pixel art, since krisst wouldn't share his.   

[iamtootallforthis]

Any chance of a green case in the future?

[krisst]

VE.A pixel art, since krisst wouldn't share his.   

Show Image

:O Feel free to edit mine with the keycaps set you will be using. The carbon black version now is place holder. Still thinking which set to use. The spacebar area is an issue for most keyset.

Btw, your version looks awesome.

[dubious]

VE.A pixel art, since krisst wouldn't share his.   

Show Image

mmmmm that's the stuff ^-^

[krisst]

I ordered without switches, stabilizers and keycaps. Already have Zealios 78g ready and waiting. Ordered clear cherry stabilizers and gold stabs from Taobao, will post pictures of them when I get them if anyone is interested.

About 2 months more to go before this awesome board get shipped to us. Meantime, would like to know what everyone have ordered, and reasons if any.

My order was dark grey with titanium plate. Pretty stealthy look. Already have black frame Filco and the incoming whitefox is silver. One of the reason why I did not order stabilizers on MD is because they mentioned a set of 8 stabilizers, which for VE.A, that's not enough. Even if they do ship more stabilizers, I would like to check out how the clear cherry stabilizers looks, with gold-plated stabs, should be pretty matching for Zealios. I know Zeal mentioned that he have his own clear cherry stabilizers coming soon. In any case, ordering from Taobao is cheaper than MD, even for switches. For example, 10 Gaterons switches cost about 1.5usd. Total shipping cost to ship to me is less than 6usd.

As for why I joined VE.A drop. Loved the look of it. I have always wanted a korean custom aka kustom. Most of them cost about 400+usd in total anyways. Aluminium casing and poly-carbonate are better quality materials. Acrylic cracks easily. VE.A is also a split keyboard, with RGB. Both of which are currently the trend. I read that ergonomic-wise might not be as good as those purpose build design and the good thing about VE.A is easier to get keycaps for it. Higher doubt that will change in the near future. Latest news, even Realforce are giving in to MX stem keycaps.

Feel free to post your thoughts.

[jal]

[...] Meantime, would like to know what everyone have ordered, and reasons if any.

I went with black on black with Cherry browns. I'm looking for matte black front-etched caps, but haven't found those yet. May end up going blank, but have a about 11 years couple months figure that out. I'm going to install white LEDs. Obviously, the idea here is low-profile monochrome.

Threw in a spare PCB. I'm fairly handy with an iron, so I don't see a problem, but it is a spare until I know I don't need one, and then... well, I'm learning how to run a milling machine and have an idea for an absurd case. Of course, there are a bunch of other projects pending, so it might take me quite a while to get to that.

As for reasons, I'm just finishing building a rather high-end PC. This is related to learning metalwork - my primary machine is an six year old MBP that is still perfectly fine for what I do (mostly text editing, sshing elsewhere, writing/compiling software and the usual email/browsing), but now I need to run Autodesk Inventor, which is not exactly the most pleasant experience when running under Virtualbox on an old mac. So the new machine is an Xeon 1650, 64G ECC RAM, a 4 lane PCI 512G SSD, 16T worth of WD Greens I had laying around, and an Quadro K4000. (I'm really not that in to games.)

All in, once I decide on a couple of monitors and random add ons, this is going to be a $4K machine, and somehow buying an insanely expensive keyboard didn't feel as painful as it probably would have otherwise. So one way of looking at it is that it was a dumb impulse buy. Another other way is that this is the most I've ever dropped on a computer for myself[1], and getting something special for it seems appropriate. I'm going with the second interpretation.

[1] I'm a career-systems engineer, and have spent six figures of other people's money on machines, but have been using Mac laptops for myself for about the last 15 years.

[krisst]

[...] Meantime, would like to know what everyone have ordered, and reasons if any.

I went with black on black with Cherry browns. I'm looking for matte black front-etched caps, but haven't found those yet. May end up going blank, but have a about 11 years couple months figure that out. I'm going to install white LEDs. Obviously, the idea here is low-profile monochrome.

Have you checked out Geekkeys? I have a set from them Geekkeys Dark grey Dyesub Thick PBT. Side print set is here. Quality is good. Been using the set for 4-5 months until a few weeks ago, currently on Granite set.

This dark grey set will fit VE.A, just have to reuse right shift as right spacebar, and numpad 0 as left spacebar.

[kenshinjeff]

Oh? A another fellow singaporean? I got blacks with stabs myself, zealios ready, and clear stabs from taobao as well. Can't have too many stabs. I wonder if we have to go down singpost to pay tax for this. Massdrop ten day shipping is already killing me. Also, I canceled my whitefox : x

[krisst]

Oh? A another fellow singaporean? I got blacks with stabs myself, zealios ready, and clear stabs from taobao as well. Can't have too many stabs. I wonder if we have to go down singpost to pay tax for this. Massdrop ten day shipping is already killing me. Also, I canceled my whitefox : x

Hey! I read about the history of how whitefox came about before ordered it end of last year. It took about 2 years as the community share their ideas. Not my first mech, so no hurry to get it. About the stabs, hope the quality is good. About tax for VE.A, most prob will have to pay the 7 percent GST. Hope we don't have to XD

[jal]

I went with black on black with Cherry browns. I'm looking for matte black front-etched caps, but haven't found those yet. May end up going blank, but have a about 11 years couple months figure that out. I'm going to install white LEDs. Obviously, the idea here is low-profile monochrome.

Have you checked out Geekkeys? I have a set from them Geekkeys Dark grey Dyesub Thick PBT. Side print set is here. Quality is good. Been using the set for 4-5 months until a few weeks ago, currently on Granite set.

This dark grey set will fit VE.A, just have to reuse right shift as right spacebar, and numpad 0 as left spacebar.

Thanks for the pointer. I wish I could combine them - take the dark greys, move the printing to the side. If my perfect set doesn't magically materialize, I think the dark greys may be more appealing than blank.

[ceflame]

I impulse bought in on the last day since my paycheck just came in..  Black anodized/black plate with the tenting stand.

Going to harvest some cherry mx silents from a strafe for the build since I'm getting tired of ergo clears after like 7 boards of them.

[kenmai9]

Just posting here in case anyone who wants to sell their spot sees this!

Please let me know if you would like to sell your purchase of VE.A. I would like to get in on it, but missed the deadline.

Thanks!

[krisst]

So far, seems like buyers prefer black casing more. Order so far, 3 black, 1 grey, 0 silver.

Just posting here in case anyone who wants to sell their spot sees this!

Please let me know if you would like to sell your purchase of VE.A. I would like to get in on it, but missed the deadline.

Thanks!

Just over 100 buyers for this drop. Good luck getting a seller.

[roostrc0gburn]

hoping to get a spare pcb along with my order. contacted massdrop the day it ended, but havent heard back yet... :/

[FrostyToast]

hoping to get a spare pcb along with my order. contacted massdrop the day it ended, but havent heard back yet... :/

Well the buy all has to go through Zefyr anyway who has already given his statements on such matters.
I doubt MD will be in control of that.

[zefyr]

hoping to get a spare pcb along with my order. contacted massdrop the day it ended, but havent heard back yet... :/

Well the buy all has to go through Zefyr anyway who has already given his statements on such matters.
I doubt MD will be in control of that.

MD gather orders and money for VE.A and we just produce
We don't have any control of order process.
You should check MD for that.

[alienman82]

removed.

[[Lewynlight]]

Still hoping for a leftover pcb..

Wanted to buy a extra pcb and plate for myself, but ran out of money buying the whole kit, lol.

i have to back out during the last minutes of the groupbuy because of other urgent reasons.
i wish i can buy the pcb only...

hoping to get a spare pcb along with my order. contacted massdrop the day it ended, but havent heard back yet... :/

Well the buy all has to go through Zefyr anyway who has already given his statements on such matters.
I doubt MD will be in control of that.

MD gather orders and money for VE.A and we just produce
We don't have any control of order process.
You should check MD for that.

well, you could produce another 1 or 2 and send one of them to me 
...
i really should contact massdrop instead huh?

[roostrc0gburn]

Still hoping for a leftover pcb..

Wanted to buy a extra pcb and plate for myself, but ran out of money buying the whole kit, lol.

i have to back out during the last minutes of the groupbuy because of other urgent reasons.
i wish i can buy the pcb only...

hoping to get a spare pcb along with my order. contacted massdrop the day it ended, but havent heard back yet... :/

Well the buy all has to go through Zefyr anyway who has already given his statements on such matters.
I doubt MD will be in control of that.

MD gather orders and money for VE.A and we just produce
We don't have any control of order process.
You should check MD for that.

well, you could produce another 1 or 2 and send one of them to me 
...
i really should contact massdrop instead huh?

i did contact massdrop, and got the usual "we already sent the order, sorry you're SOL" of course, it took them 4 days to return my message, and they might have been able to add it on to the order if they got back to me in time. anyway, it still doesnt seem like this would be impossible. zephyr, do you have any advice on this? are we just too late?

i am hoping to get an aluminum plate cut, and use the second set of pcbs with the aluminum plate

[zefyr]

Still hoping for a leftover pcb..

Wanted to buy a extra pcb and plate for myself, but ran out of money buying the whole kit, lol.

i have to back out during the last minutes of the groupbuy because of other urgent reasons.
i wish i can buy the pcb only...

hoping to get a spare pcb along with my order. contacted massdrop the day it ended, but havent heard back yet... :/

Well the buy all has to go through Zefyr anyway who has already given his statements on such matters.
I doubt MD will be in control of that.

MD gather orders and money for VE.A and we just produce
We don't have any control of order process.
You should check MD for that.

well, you could produce another 1 or 2 and send one of them to me 
...
i really should contact massdrop instead huh?

i did contact massdrop, and got the usual "we already sent the order, sorry you're SOL" of course, it took them 4 days to return my message, and they might have been able to add it on to the order if they got back to me in time. anyway, it still doesnt seem like this would be impossible. zephyr, do you have any advice on this? are we just too late?

i am hoping to get an aluminum plate cut, and use the second set of pcbs with the aluminum plate

Well, with massdrop, we just produce what massdrop got. So, at this point, there is nothing I can do.
Sorry about that   

[[Lewynlight]]

So, you're saying that we should contact/persuade massdrop if we want to get your pcb/sets, right?


Thanks for the answer, zefyr!

[jal]

I'm starting to collect parts in antici-  (Say it!) -pation.

For the cap LEDs, in the other thread, Zefyr said 910-ohm resistors were going to be needed. That was for red LEDs. I haven't decided if I'm going with RGB or plain white. Will these work?

https://www.westfloridacomponents.com/RES1429/910+ohm+1%26%2337%3B+1206+Surface+Mount+Resistor.html

Thanks in advance for the clue-provisioning.

[FrostyToast]

I'm starting to collect parts in antici-  (Say it!) -pation.

For the cap LEDs, in the other thread, Zefyr said 910-ohm resistors were going to be needed. That was for red LEDs. I haven't decided if I'm going with RGB or plain white. Will these work?

https://www.westfloridacomponents.com/RES1429/910+ohm+1%26%2337%3B+1206+Surface+Mount+Resistor.html

Thanks in advance for the clue-provisioning.

1k is pretty good for anything really.
The only difference is going to be the brightness of the LEDs.
I don't know if there is brightness control but if there is then you should be fine with 1k.

Though I forget if lighting higher up on the spectrum requires higher or lower impedance.

[jal]

Thanks, Frosty. Appreciate it.

[zefyr]

I'm starting to collect parts in antici-  (Say it!) -pation.

For the cap LEDs, in the other thread, Zefyr said 910-ohm resistors were going to be needed. That was for red LEDs. I haven't decided if I'm going with RGB or plain white. Will these work?

https://www.westfloridacomponents.com/RES1429/910+ohm+1%26%2337%3B+1206+Surface+Mount+Resistor.html

Thanks in advance for the clue-provisioning.

It's not "needed", I suggest 910 will works fine with most of LEDs.
We are checking several options for that.

[MajorKoos]

I'm starting to collect parts in antici-  (Say it!) -pation.

For the cap LEDs, in the other thread, Zefyr said 910-ohm resistors were going to be needed. That was for red LEDs. I haven't decided if I'm going with RGB or plain white. Will these work?

https://www.westfloridacomponents.com/RES1429/910+ohm+1%26%2337%3B+1206+Surface+Mount+Resistor.html

Thanks in advance for the clue-provisioning.

It's not "needed", I suggest 910 will works fine with most of LEDs.
We are checking several options for that.

Is it possible to put RGB LEDs under the switches?
I thought we were limited to a single color there?

[krisst]

I'm starting to collect parts in antici-  (Say it!) -pation.

For the cap LEDs, in the other thread, Zefyr said 910-ohm resistors were going to be needed. That was for red LEDs. I haven't decided if I'm going with RGB or plain white. Will these work?

https://www.westfloridacomponents.com/RES1429/910+ohm+1%26%2337%3B+1206+Surface+Mount+Resistor.html

Thanks in advance for the clue-provisioning.

It's not "needed", I suggest 910 will works fine with most of LEDs.
We are checking several options for that.

Is it possible to put RGB LEDs under the switches?
I thought we were limited to a single color there?

In-switch only support single colour LED. The board will come with RGB smd for lighting up the poly-carbonate layer. Someone must have been confused.

[jal]

Someone must have been confused.

That would be me. Nothing new there; confusion is my way of life.

Please continue carrying on.

[FrostyToast]

You could ghetto mod RGB LEDs possibly...
Just connect more RGB LEDs to the existing RGB joints in parallel and reduce the impedance.
You probably can't get that many more LEDs going on but you could get some pretty intense stuff going on like that.

[E3E]

I'm in the same boat wanting alps keys with MX stabilzers too


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

And I thought I was the only one who did this.
 
You know, you can get the proper Matias stabs for MX-stabilized keys and use that on a plate with normal Alps stabs, right (you don't need Costar or Cherry)? I mainly used Cherry stabs out of necessity since I used universal 60% plates not specifically designed for Alps with my Eagle builds and so I had to use PCB mount Cherry stabs. For my NCR build of the Leeku 3000 PCB, I used Cherry stabs more out of preference and because I had enough left to work with. Cutting those positions sucked.
 


As you can see, even some vintage boards that used cruciform stab mounts used a stab insert that was compatible with normal Alps stabilizers. So to make it easier on everyone, you could just find the Matias stabs that are of this design and use those unless it's just a matter of preference.
 


Example of the Eagle with universal plate, which is why Cherry stabs were needed.

Here are Cherry examples with the NCR build:

More

Hidden for image spam and terrible photo quality.

 

[krisst]

Someone must have been confused.

That would be me. Nothing new there; confusion is my way of life.

Please continue carrying on.

XD I would suggest that you use sip-sockets for the in-switch LEDs, so that you can change them out to other colours when you want to.

[Azzures]

Someone must have been confused.

That would be me. Nothing new there; confusion is my way of life.

Please continue carrying on.

XD I would suggest that you use sip-sockets for the in-switch LEDs, so that you can change them out to other colours when you want to.

I just tried doing that with my ergodox keyboard. I really need to improve my success rate >.>

[MandrewDavis]

This might be a really dumb question, but with a custom plate, would it be possible to mod the PCB (by jumping traces etc.) to combine the 2.75x space bar and a 1.25x modifier to accommodate a 4x SA spacebar? Same with the 2x space and 1x FN key to have a 3x spacebar.

[Data]

This might be a really dumb question, but with a custom plate, would it be possible to mod the PCB (by jumping traces etc.) to combine the 2.75x space bar and a 1.25x modifier to accommodate a 4x SA spacebar? Same with the 2x space and 1x FN key to have a 3x spacebar.

Not sure why you would mod the PCB for this.  The board is fully programmable so you would just set one of the two switches to [null] and the other to [space].  The problems would come in modding your 4u cap to fit across both switches (and stabilizers, if you choose) and then getting used to the strange feeling.  I've never used a key that spanned 2 switches but at least one person (in the other thread) has said it does work.  Without the stabilizer wire it's impossible for both switches to actuate precisely at the same time, so the key would likely feel a little wobbly depending on where and how you're hitting it.  Personally, it sounds like not a very good idea.