Ron, as awesome as this sounds, are you taking too much on yourself? You haven't finished the G36 and G122 and you are already designing a new PCB?
Never question Ron. He's a machine. Haha!
I think the experience he gained from designing another small form factor keyboard PCB (JD45) allows him to whip up new designs quickly, and get them quoted and ordered immediately after the PCB is finished.
So actually it is both simpler and more complex at the same time.
The complex part is that I wanted to ramp up in scale and cost, so first it was the LED strips, then the GH36, then the JD45, and now this 60%. For those who don't recall, there was also the 75% board that never got beyond hard-wiring. Each of these PCBs has taught me how to make things simpler, more consistent, and easier to assemble. And all of that is aiming at the GH-122. Frankly, with the exception of the ISO Enter position, this board
is the main block of the GH-122. And the GH-36 is suffering from a serious lack of completions by the prototypers.
The simple part is that I like 60% keyboards, but they need to be programmable. And every time I think about the 60% cases I have waiting, I want to make a 60% PCB myself.
So this board is part of a progression towards the GH-122/154
and a way for me to get my own hands on some 60% programmable keyboard PCBs.
Also, some of you may know that my actual background is in manufacturing. You know, that thing we don't do in America any longer? This is a way for me to do some of that. And along those lines, I am starting to manage these PCBs in what the custom knife world calls "sprint runs", where a design is produced in a short run of limited numbers. Because I am not doing SMT or cases or kits, or designing by committee, I can pretty quickly design and turnaround PCBs. So I do.
Anyhow, both the GH-36 v2 and the JD45 v2 designs are fundamentally complete. I am waiting for those prototyping rounds to complete and I can make more of both. But in the meantime, I am going to blast out a sprint run of 60% keyboard PCBs. And maybe another different board before I finally do the GH-122/154.
TL;DR I am making these PCBs to learn and to actually get some 60% boards into the cases I already have. - Ron | samwisekoi