Quark PCB - Drop-in replacement PCB for Planck or Preonic w/ alt. bottom row

[nasp]

TLDR:

• One PCB for either Planck or Preonic - bottom row can be snapped off
• 4 bottom row layouts for Planck and 2 for Preonic
• In-Stock and Shipping Now!

GB Form



Pricing:


If it hasn't been made clear, these are in-stock and shipping now:

Here are the prices:

• PCB: $40
• CF Planck or Preonic Plate: $25
• Additional Hardware: $5

Until January 4th, take $10 off the price of the PCB, and $5 off a plate - that's $50 for a PCB and CF plate with no additional shipping charge if shipped to a US address.


Reasons:

I've been using ortho for a few years now but I never have found the bottom row to be useable. The homerow keys and the rows directly above and below the homerow are easy to finger, but the very bottom row 1u keys seem quite out of reach for me. For that reason, After I made a custom PCB for the Panc40 and the Neuron with greater than 1u keys on the bottom row, I decided to try a Planck with a similar layout. Another benefit of using greater than 1u keys on the bottom is that more novelties fit down there. For example, as an ortho user have you ever wanted to use an enter novelty? Now you can and if you are using SA, the row profile most likely won't be mismatched.



PCB Design:
bottom:



top:



artwork credit to Dasherby


Specs:

• QMK Compatible
• ESD protection
• through holes for adding RGB Underglow strips
• Alps can be used with an Alps plate
• One PCB for either Planck or Preonic
• No modifications need to be done if using with either Planck or Preonic
• VIA compat. - still a WIP

Photos:















Layouts:

Planck:


Preonic:




Plates:

Here are the carbon fiber plates that will be offered:




Standoffs and Mounting:


8 standoffs for the bottom of the PCB will be included. Planck uses 6 and the Preonic uses 5. If the order quantity is low, I'll be installing the standoffs myself based on the plate you choose. The screws fasten from the underside of the case, into the bottom of the standoffs and out through the top of the PCB and plate. Hex nuts then can be used to clamp the screws onto the plate. Please note that these hex nuts are optional if you are using standoffs soldered into the PCB. Inversely, you don't the standoffs if you are adhering the screws by the hex nuts on the plate. I recommend using the standoffs because in either 2.25u spacebar for the Planck, or 2.25u and 3u spacebar layouts for the Preonic, the switches interfere with the installation of the bottom row of hex nuts. However, since the PCB and plate are already secured with the screws into the standoffs, the absence of these two hex nuts has no impact on the usability or performance of the board.

Before installing in the case, please make sure the standoffs lay completely flat against the PCB.



GB Form

[nasp]

Reserved If Needed

[Fabi]

Am I the only one having problems with the group buy link?

[nasp]

Am I the only one having problems with the group buy link?

What issues are you having?



Also, mods, why is this on "Artisan Services"?

[HoffmanMyster]

Also, mods, why is this on "Artisan Services"?

If it hasn't been made clear, these are in-stock and shipping now:

This looks like a pretty straight-up product sale to me, rather than leveraging collective buying power to place an order with a fabricator. Maybe I'm missing something? Why would it be a GB rather than artisan sale? Not trying to be short or rude by this response at all, so apologies if it comes across that way.

[nasp]

Also, mods, why is this on "Artisan Services"?

If it hasn't been made clear, these are in-stock and shipping now:

This looks like a pretty straight-up product sale to me, rather than leveraging collective buying power to place an order with a fabricator. Maybe I'm missing something? Why would it be a GB rather than artisan sale? Not trying to be short or rude by this response at all, so apologies if it comes across that way.

It's a straight-up sale, yes, but I did it this way so that people wouldn't have to wait ages to receive a product. I didn't want to hold people's money for months with no product to show. Instead I took on all the costs of the buy upfront - also Paypal's terms don't allow for the use of funds for products that fit the GB model. After hearing of Paypal freezing the funds of a lot of GB runners, I wanted to avoid that.

The flip side to this is how is my product a service or artisan? Since I'm not a vendor, I'm relying purely on Reddit, Discord, and GH to get the word out about the availability of these PCBs. I don't believe this sub-forum is a good representation of the kinds of people that are likely to buy this. As of right now, this post only has 150 views, whereas a thread just started today is up to almost 800 views (Pizza65 plates). I tried to take on a lot of the GB risk upon myself, instead of passing it to the consumer, and now I feel like I'm actively being punished for it. To put it quite bluntly, if I knew my post would have been moved to this sub-forum, I wouldn't have sat down to write it. This is absolutely not the audience for my product. Please move it back to the sub-forum it was originally posted in - my bank account and wife would greatly appreciate it!

[suicidal_orange]

Sympathy bump - this is too good to be a GB

[nasp]

Small Update:



Sale on these runs out after Jan. 4th.


Also, I've submitted a merge request to enable VIA for this board: https://github.com/the-via/keyboards/pull/479

Hopefully it will be merged soon!


Cheers and Happy New Year!

[piit79]

Such a shame neither the PCB nor the plate supports a standard MIT layout... I understand the main reason for this is the special bottom row, but still

[nasp]

Such a shame neither the PCB nor the plate supports a standard MIT layout... I understand the main reason for this is the special bottom row, but still

You mean the Preonic, right? Because the Planck supports MIT and full grid.

[HoffmanMyster]

It's a straight-up sale, yes, but I did it this way so that people wouldn't have to wait ages to receive a product. I didn't want to hold people's money for months with no product to show. Instead I took on all the costs of the buy upfront - also Paypal's terms don't allow for the use of funds for products that fit the GB model. After hearing of Paypal freezing the funds of a lot of GB runners, I wanted to avoid that.

The flip side to this is how is my product a service or artisan? Since I'm not a vendor, I'm relying purely on Reddit, Discord, and GH to get the word out about the availability of these PCBs. I don't believe this sub-forum is a good representation of the kinds of people that are likely to buy this. As of right now, this post only has 150 views, whereas a thread just started today is up to almost 800 views (Pizza65 plates). I tried to take on a lot of the GB risk upon myself, instead of passing it to the consumer, and now I feel like I'm actively being punished for it. To put it quite bluntly, if I knew my post would have been moved to this sub-forum, I wouldn't have sat down to write it. This is absolutely not the audience for my product. Please move it back to the sub-forum it was originally posted in - my bank account and wife would greatly appreciate it!

Thank you for clarifying, nasp. You have really done things the right way here, by eliminating the typical uncertainty and hassle of a traditional group buy. Unfortunately, given the community's tendency to glom onto "Group Buys" as the only section of the forum worth checking, anything that doesn't fit the standard group buy model does tend to suffer, as we're seeing here.

Since you are selling already-manufactured parts that you hold in your possession (again, a GOOD THING), this really is not a Group Buy. Technically, it's more of a Vendor venture than Artisan, but I chose to move it to Artisan thinking that would give a wider audience. It's very possible that I was wrong about that. Would you prefer to have the thread moved to the Vendor subforum? I'm more than happy to do so. (no need to wait for Vendor verification at this time)

As you've alluded to, yes, this absolutely does disincentivise you to ever conduct another sale or project in this manner (again, the "better way"). I really hate to type this response to you, because I would much prefer to simply move the thread back to GB and let it play out there. However, the precedent that is set in doing so is really not conducive to maintaining a clear distinction between Group Buys and Vendor sales. I hope you can understand the difficult position the mod team is in here, and that we really do want this sale to succeed. I'm very truly sorry to deliver this response that you certainly don't want to hear. 

[Escabrera]

It's a straight-up sale, yes, but I did it this way so that people wouldn't have to wait ages to receive a product. I didn't want to hold people's money for months with no product to show. Instead I took on all the costs of the buy upfront - also Paypal's terms don't allow for the use of funds for products that fit the GB model. After hearing of Paypal freezing the funds of a lot of GB runners, I wanted to avoid that.

The flip side to this is how is my product a service or artisan? Since I'm not a vendor, I'm relying purely on Reddit, Discord, and GH to get the word out about the availability of these PCBs. I don't believe this sub-forum is a good representation of the kinds of people that are likely to buy this. As of right now, this post only has 150 views, whereas a thread just started today is up to almost 800 views (Pizza65 plates). I tried to take on a lot of the GB risk upon myself, instead of passing it to the consumer, and now I feel like I'm actively being punished for it. To put it quite bluntly, if I knew my post would have been moved to this sub-forum, I wouldn't have sat down to write it. This is absolutely not the audience for my product. Please move it back to the sub-forum it was originally posted in - my bank account and wife would greatly appreciate it!

Thank you for clarifying, nasp. You have really done things the right way here, by eliminating the typical uncertainty and hassle of a traditional group buy. Unfortunately, given the community's tendency to glom onto "Group Buys" as the only section of the forum worth checking, anything that doesn't fit the standard group buy model does tend to suffer, as we're seeing here.

Since you are selling already-manufactured parts that you hold in your possession (again, a GOOD THING), this really is not a Group Buy. Technically, it's more of a Vendor venture than Artisan, but I chose to move it to Artisan thinking that would give a wider audience. It's very possible that I was wrong about that. Would you prefer to have the thread moved to the Vendor subforum? I'm more than happy to do so. (no need to wait for Vendor verification at this time)

As you've alluded to, yes, this absolutely does disincentivise you to ever conduct another sale or project in this manner (again, the "better way"). I really hate to type this response to you, because I would much prefer to simply move the thread back to GB and let it play out there. However, the precedent that is set in doing so is really not conducive to maintaining a clear distinction between Group Buys and Vendor sales. I hope you can understand the difficult position the mod team is in here, and that we really do want this sale to succeed. I'm very truly sorry to deliver this response that you certainly don't want to hear.

just leave it in gb page, thats where people looking to buy pcbs are going to be looking. Artisans page cares about pieces of resin that they will keep in an acrylic case and trade like pokemon cards. Vendors page I wont ever check and I feel many people have the same sentiment because who does check a vendor post. Moving it away from the gb post because of a technicallity is only going to want himt to game the system by making the order as soon as the gb period starts or just straight up not stating that he has the boards in hand and giving a really good fulfilment time period

[factoryofidols]

It's a straight-up sale, yes, but I did it this way so that people wouldn't have to wait ages to receive a product. I didn't want to hold people's money for months with no product to show. Instead I took on all the costs of the buy upfront - also Paypal's terms don't allow for the use of funds for products that fit the GB model. After hearing of Paypal freezing the funds of a lot of GB runners, I wanted to avoid that.

The flip side to this is how is my product a service or artisan? Since I'm not a vendor, I'm relying purely on Reddit, Discord, and GH to get the word out about the availability of these PCBs. I don't believe this sub-forum is a good representation of the kinds of people that are likely to buy this. As of right now, this post only has 150 views, whereas a thread just started today is up to almost 800 views (Pizza65 plates). I tried to take on a lot of the GB risk upon myself, instead of passing it to the consumer, and now I feel like I'm actively being punished for it. To put it quite bluntly, if I knew my post would have been moved to this sub-forum, I wouldn't have sat down to write it. This is absolutely not the audience for my product. Please move it back to the sub-forum it was originally posted in - my bank account and wife would greatly appreciate it!

Thank you for clarifying, nasp. You have really done things the right way here, by eliminating the typical uncertainty and hassle of a traditional group buy. Unfortunately, given the community's tendency to glom onto "Group Buys" as the only section of the forum worth checking, anything that doesn't fit the standard group buy model does tend to suffer, as we're seeing here.

Since you are selling already-manufactured parts that you hold in your possession (again, a GOOD THING), this really is not a Group Buy. Technically, it's more of a Vendor venture than Artisan, but I chose to move it to Artisan thinking that would give a wider audience. It's very possible that I was wrong about that. Would you prefer to have the thread moved to the Vendor subforum? I'm more than happy to do so. (no need to wait for Vendor verification at this time)

As you've alluded to, yes, this absolutely does disincentivise you to ever conduct another sale or project in this manner (again, the "better way"). I really hate to type this response to you, because I would much prefer to simply move the thread back to GB and let it play out there. However, the precedent that is set in doing so is really not conducive to maintaining a clear distinction between Group Buys and Vendor sales. I hope you can understand the difficult position the mod team is in here, and that we really do want this sale to succeed. I'm very truly sorry to deliver this response that you certainly don't want to hear.

I would say that letting things like the Olivia non IC “IC post” stay up were much worse of a precedent than allowing a post in the GB section that’s technically an in stock product.

Are pre-order posts allowed in the GB section? If I offer a limited pre-order for something that isn’t in stock but I have already ordered would that be allowed? If so I don’t see what the issue is and if not then how is that any different than the current model of GBs? They are just pre-orders at this point.

[nasp]

Hi Everyone,


These are now available on my store, www.checkerboards.xyz


Free shipping to the USA for overs $40 and above. I also do ship internationally.