built mine with matias quiet tactile last week, sanded with 100, 220, 800, and 1500 and then used fast drying spray glossy clear enamel 4 coats on every layer both sides, 2500 sandpaper between two coats. reminds me of quality wood flooring. took very little effort because im LAZY. i did the spray in my currently mostly empty attic storage because weather not acceptable to do outside. used m2 screws with a m3 width m2 tube for a minimal screw look like i did with my ergodoxes. biggest complaint is the spray enamel paint smell of the keyboard is very strong and still there 5 days after i did it
pictures on my flickr
https://www.flickr.com/photos/panicfx, unfortunately all from phone, deserves better pictures
tmk firmware with default COLEMAK layout, considering some changes
technomancy has been GREAT to do business with, going to build a second one with the legacy cherry mx plate (fyi these ship from technomancy with Matias switches). going to super silence the mx switches, use that one for traveling. need to get a travel case for it. the matias switches were a good idea to ship with on his part, they are the far superior stock switch.
i LOVE this keyboard. i've built a phantom, gh60, infinity ergodox, and atreus in the last 30 days (been busy lol) and i like the atreus i think the best. i started learning colemak last week also and this actually works well, currently at 34 wpm average with the atreus and colemak, completely touch type. no legends. which is far behind the 100wpm i used to get with qwerty.
tried to type on my ergodox yesterday and oddly keep messing up, even though that keyboard has colemak legends. i think im going to make this atreus my primary moving forward and use the left hand of my infinity ergodox for gaming. this little simple 40% is everything i need. i could change my mind in the future given i own 20 keyboards but im going to enjoy my enjoyment. i NEVER thought i would like a 40% board.
biggest regret i have is it comes with all normal ALPS DSA caps and that i couldn't touch type without homing bumps or deep dish so i took a knife to 2 keycaps to make my own homing bump not realizing
nobody stocks DSA ALPS. SP were mean to me when i asked. so i ruined fairly rare blank keycaps. its ugly up close but you cant notice from afar. should have used stickers or something temporary. thinking about murdering some deep dish mx caps and gluing alps stems on them.
alright well gg guys, TL:DR the atreus is awesome!
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Seeing this thread bumped up, I figure'll mention my Atreus build (which I've posted in a few other places). I made it from matte black acrylic, and then 3D printed a bracket to add bluetooth to it. Complete details and code on my website and more pics on imgur. I'm still not entirely comfortable without having a paper reference of the layout, so for convenience I'm going to put together a file to have WASD print some keycaps.
A tip that may be useful to anyone else building a custom keyboard: if you use long nylon screws, you can assemble your board and then use a sharp knife to cut them flush to exactly the right size. Also, they're soft enough not to scratch whatever surface you use the keyboard on, without adding feet. They're readily available for cheap in black or white/translucent, and I think you can dye nylon easily to other colors.
i may copy this bluetooth thing if this board proves to be my endgame primary, looks great, though because its not on the pcb, i worry this wiring would look like a bomb to the tsa (i fly for work), wondering if something could be done to the pcb to simplify it