Hi there,
Myself and a buddy were talking a while back and we noticed that's no real options if you want a reasonably slim, small keyboard to carry around. This was for the longest time due to MX stemmed switches being so tall. Recently, Kailh unveiled some low profile switches that are scarily small, so we decided to take a crack at the design thing.
We designed and tested the layout (on paper and by playing with a planck), designed a PCB, and are currently sourcing parts and working through the case design.
The design philosophy is thus:
- Maximal length equal to a 15" laptop - This is about as tall as an A4 page (300mm ish)
- As thin as possible - For shoving into a bag with the laptop and running
- Fully programmable - a QMK firmware driver would be written and tested by us before release
- As highly functional as possible - As a programmer by trade, I find myself having to use mods and switch layers much too often when using my preonic, so I wanted to pack as many of the buttons I like into one layer as I can
- Ortholinear - For extra comfort
The proposed layout is here:
3D Platformer noted that the number row was out of line (thanks dude
), so after a bit of playing and testing, we have a second proposal that has the number row aligned with the alphas:
For clarification, the Fn keys on the keyboard are dummies. They're to be programmed with whatever the user desires. The keycaps for them will be provided in several variants. They can be labelled with the default mapping (shown below), as Fn, or blank.
We are currently in the process of securing keycap sources for the switches (as they use a different stem from MX), and have reached out to both GMK and Signature Plastics.
The current projected thickness for the full keyboard is ~20mm or about 0.8", but we're shaving off thickness everywhere we can, and can probably shave a few more mm from this, if all goes well.
UPDATE:
The current prototype uses SMD LEDs under each key, and a USB-C connector.
If the KB is connected to a USB-A port, or cannot provide the full USB-C power for whatever reason, the LEDs will operate in "legacy" mode. Legacy mode simply limits the max brightness of the LEDs, and scales down the brightness steps. This should be plenty bright, but if you have proper USB-C, and feel like pushing the brightness to max, each key will produce some 250mcd of light.
The keys themselves will be the Kailh PG1350 Low profile switches. Images and a general review can be found here:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/11851/kailh-introduces-low-profile-mini-chocolate-keyswitchesThese switches have a total travel of 3mm, and actuate around 1.4mm. They are tiny tiny little things.
What do you think of the design? Would you like to see the case in plastic/acrylic or metal? Would you buy it?
We'd love to do a group buy if there's interest.
EDIT: Spelling