Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

Was ok, nothing really special.

Good to see this set back. Will it be ABS doubleshot or PBT dyesub? AFAIK PBTFans is good at both.

says dyesub on the KBD interest check

Satisfaction75 v2 - An Update to a Classic Design





Interest Check Form HERE
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Some Historical Background on this Keyboard:

Ever since Satisfaction75 Round 2, whenever I post an IC for any new board, there’s invariably a comment asking me to run Satisfaction75 with an aluminum case again. This was only exacerbated by running Sat75x - which is an amazing, affordable version of the Satisfaction75.

For those of you who asked - I have good news! This is the next version of the aluminum Satisfaction75.

Since receiving my final prototype from Dadesin way back before the original group buy, the Satisfaction75 has actually been my most common daily driver. I’ll swap it out every once in a while to test new designs, but the Sat75 always comes back. I’m still rocking a v1, with v1 soldered PCB. It’s built with lubed OG Gat Yellows and a brass plate, and while the keycap set usually varies, right now it’s rocking CXA Iara.

Having used my Sat75 exhaustively for the past 6 years - I’m acutely aware of some of its shortcomings. For this new version, I wanted to address these.

First, despite the burger mount, the mounting is still a little stiffer than what people expect nowadays. Back in 2018 when it was designed and 2019 when it first went on sale, stiff brass plates were all the rage. But even by those standards, with 12 top mount points (including 4 side top mount points) - it is quite stiff. I’m still personally ok with my Sat75 v1 - but when I swap out one of my newer designs, the difference in stiffness is noticeable.

Second, there is burn-in on the OLED screen. While there is a timeout to turn the OLED off at idle, if you’re typing all day, unless you manually turn the OLED off, it’s going to stay on. We use commodity parts for the OLED, so it’s possible to swap the OLEDs, but it also requires desoldering.

Finally - this really isn’t an issue to me - but I’ve heard mixed feelings about the Cannon Logo next to the screen. I figured for this new round, I could do something different with the Cannon Logo.

Now, despite all this, I still love using my Satisfaction75. But for a new version of the Satisfaction75 I wanted to make something I would love using even more.

What’s Different, What’s the Same?

To me, so much of what makes the Satisfaction75 the Satisfaction75 is the shape, screen, and knob. These are all carried over from the original Satisfaction75.

We still have relatively sleek, thin bezels all around, the case neither hides nor highlights the seam between the top and bottom pieces, and the curve in the back and weight construction is exactly the same as in the original Sat75.

This was something I really didn’t want to compromise on - I wanted the v2 to still look like a Satisfaction75. But I still made some key changes.

The Mounting

The Satisfaction75 v2 uses an asymmetric or single-sided gasket sandwich mount to provide a more modern typing sound and feel, versus the classic burger/top mount of the original. There are a total of 5 large plate tabs and 2 small plate tabs for gaskets.



The gaskets are asymmetric to provide a bit more of a bouncy feel to the board, with thinner gaskets above the plate and thicker gaskets under the plate. The mounting style is still a sandwich gasket, so it’s still quite stiff compared to some alternative mounting styles out there, but by having thicker gaskets under the plate, in the direction that typing force is applied, we do get some bounce.

The size and softness of the gaskets is also tuned to optimize acoustics and feel. I tried a bunch of different variants of gasket thicknesses and hardnesses and landed on the current final configuration. Some gasket combinations didn’t provide enough compression, and the plate/PCB assembly would shake in the case. I varied the size, thickness, and hardness of the gaskets before finally landing on the final configuration.

To ensure even compression on the gaskets across the board, keep the bezels slim, and maintain the curve across the back of the board, I did have to rely on 3 “internal” screws that go in between switches to secure the top case to the bottom case. To keep them hidden as much as possible, they will be black colored in production. The 8 other case screws still screw in from the bottom of the board, and have been upsized from M2 to M2.5. The increased screw size will help with longevity in assembly/disassembly, and are honestly just a little easier to work with.

There is a spot for a gasket underneath the spacebar - but the “spacebar meme cut” from the original Sat75 makes an appearance again to mitigate the potential negative impact of this gasket mounting point. In testing, adding and removing the gasket in that spot does change the sound of the spacebar a bit. I would encourage anyone who buys a Sat75 v2 to try it both ways, and pick their favorite.



I opted to forego alignment pins so that the isolation remains perfect from top to plate to bottom. There also wasn’t bezel space to implement a solution similar to what I used in the CK980C. This does mean that you’ll have to take some care when building to ensure your plate alignment.

The end result of this mounting style is a tunable, modern type feel and sound - that is still true to the original Sat75, but with a tad more bounce.

Personal Mounting Preferences

This board has 11 case screws, so I acknowledge that it might take a bit of work to find your specific favorite gasket configuration. With that in mind - while searching for the final configuration of gaskets, I’ve done a lot of testing, and I want to share my favorite combinations of gaskets with you. These serve and drop-in configurations you can use which sound and feel great. For each combination, I’ve also provided a sound test.

The final full gasket kit has 5 x 3mm long gaskets, 5 x 1.5mm long gaskets, 2 x 3mm short gaskets, and 2 x 1.5mm short gaskets.

The first combination which I like is single-sided 3mm gaskets, applied to the bottom case. This provides a little bit of the bounce I intended in the design, while still providing a nice sound. I left off the two shorter gaskets, but there was still enough compression to hold everything together. I did apply the long gasket underneath the spacebar in this configuration.

The second combination which I also really enjoy is using the 3mm gaskets on the bottom case, and the 1.5mm gaskets on the top case. In this configuration, I left off the gaskets near the spacebar on both the top and bottom case. While there’s hardly any bounce in this configuration, I actually enjoy the sound a bit more than in the prior configuration.

My personal recommendation is to go with the single-sided 3mm gaskets, including the spacebar gasket, and leave off the two shorter ones. This seems to match what people are looking for a bit more nowadays - given the little bounce.

Between the two gasket configurations, the plate does sit a little lower when the top gaskets are used (0.75mm lower) - but the side bezels are sized to cover your GMK keycap gaps regardless of which configuration you choose.


USB Port

With a gasket mounted board and some expectation of bounce (however small), I had to either enlarge the USB port, or swap to a daughterboard. I didn’t want to enlarge the USB port - in the very original Sat75 round, the USB port hole was too large, and that made it difficult to easily find where to insert your cable. I fixed that in round 2, and didn’t want to move backwards. I also wanted to keep the USB position the same as in the original, as I felt like that also contributed to the aesthetic.

So the only viable alternative was to use a daughterboard. With the thin bezels and the back curve of the case, it was a little difficult to fit in a daughterboard, but I was able to make the Fly Daughterboard fit.



While the Fly Daughterboard uses a Molex connector, I opted to use a JST connector on the PCB side, since I’ve heard a lot of feedback that JST is preferred. (Note - Molex still has positives, and I’ll choose to use it when appropriate. I just think JST works better for this board). Each board will come with a molex to JST cable to hook up the PCB to the Fly DB.

And with a daughterboard, the PCB is now grounded to the case, and we no longer need to mess with conductive foam to ground the PCB. This should make the build process a bit more convenient.

The USB port shroud has also been changed. The intent of the USB port on the original Sat75 was to look like a cannon port on a ship. Now, I think I’ve finally nailed that aesthetic on the Sat75 v2 - and it makes the whole USB port area much sleeker now. The Cannon Logo makes an appearance over the USB port - labeling it as a “Cannon port” on the ship, but also representing CannonKeys. Moving the Cannon logo to this location meant I could remove it from the top face of the keyboard - so it’s no longer there. Instead, we’ve made space for the next major change.

OLED Screen



In 6 years, some new commodity OLED screens have become more available, so for this version of Sat75, we’re enlarging the screen to a 1.3” 128x64 SH1107 based OLED screen (it’s 43% larger than R1). Additionally, we’re taking a cue from the Sat75x PCBs, and we’re making the OLED hotswappable as well. If your OLED suffers from burn-in, simply remove the old one and put a new one in.

Since the Cannon logo was removed from the top face, I had more space to integrate this larger screen. The knob has also been pushed down about .9mm, to improve spacing in the top right corner.  In testing, this hasn’t really impacted the functionality or feel of using the knob in any way, and the board still feels great to use, but also looks better now.

Screen Features

For Sat75 v2, we’re also updating the screen features to take advantage of the larger screen. Bongo Cat has been enlarged, we’re considering adding a Pomodoro Timer, and we’re bringing back all the same features.



If you have any other ideas that don’t require extra software running on a PC please let us know!

Interest Check Form HERE

Layouts

Another feature of the original Sat75 was a fixed plate. The mostly fixed plate comes back again this time around for my preferred layout - a 6.25U ANSI bottom row. This time around, stepped caps lock is also supported by the hotswap PCB.

We’ll also have a universal plate that supports ISO and 7U bottom row.

Two PCBs will be available - a hotswap PCB featuring all support except ISO, and a solderable one that adds support to ISO and is Mill-Maxable.





Colors

We’re not sure what colors we’ll run for Sat75 v2, but so far we have the following planned:

Pirate Black
Cloud White
Deep Ocean Blue

Stormy Grey, Mermaid Purple, and Seaweed Green are all under consideration, but we want your input to determine the last two colors!

They’ll all be paired with sandblasted, coated brass weight with a new revised Sat75 v2 design which is also still under design.

We’re also planning on offering a “Demonic” edition of the keyboard - a Pirate Black case with a PVD Black weight. Note that the engraved parts aren’t going to look glossy and shiny on the PVD Black weight - but ever since we ran the Demonic Chimera, the color combination has been a team favorite.

Other Specs



Typing Angle - 6 degrees (unchanged from R1)
Unbuilt Weight (no plate, no gaskets, no PCB, no daughterboard):
Built weight (including alu plate, switches, and GMK keycaps):

Knobs

The compass knobs will make a comeback here again - if you missed them during the previous Sat75 R2 and Sat75x drops, you’ll have another chance here. Each board will come with a gold, silver, or black aluminum knob by default, and PVD brass knobs will be available as an addon.

We’re also trying to design a new PVD Brass knob - keep your eyes open for that!

Pricing

For Sat75 R2, we were able to hit a price of $480, including a brass plate, using Dadesin to make the cases. That was back in 2020, when Trump’s initial tariffs were still in effect, without any exemptions.

Now, in 2026, the Trump tariffs are back, again! But this time around, despite inflation and tariffs, we’re hoping for a price of $430 or less. We’re planning on having this manufactured by Hongtu, which will help with pricing compared to Dadesin while not sacrificing quality. We plan on kitting this with an aluminum plate by default as well - which should also help us bring the price down.

MOQ and Value

If you’re looking for a keyboard that checks all the “feature boxes” for the lowest price - this board probably isn’t for you. There are tons of options out there now that weren’t there in 2019 and 2020 when the original Sat75 was sold - many of which are selling thousands of units and benefit from economies of scale and vertical integration.

We’re pricing this board at a 100 MOQ to match what we expect demand to be, given where the hobby is now. If IC results show that there is way more demand than we expect, we’ll likely implement price drops, and provide for refunds for customers if we meet higher MOQs, similar to how Massdrop used to do it way back when.

Vendors

CannonKeys will be the only global vendor for the Sat75 V2.

Our normal storefront and warehouse ships internationally - so we’re able to serve all geographies through cannonkeys.com for this keyboard group buy.

Starting with Soleil, we’ve set up an international storefront for some products that allows us to ship directly from China to customers. This can help bring down shipping costs for those who live outside the US.

Both options will be available to international customers!

Timing

We’re waiting on a final Hongtu produced prototype before sending out the new Sat to content creators. (The current one was produced by JLCPCB, and we used a brass weight from Sat75 R2). Once we receive and validate the final prototype, we can move on to scheduling the group buy.

I would expect the GB to run in Q2 or Q3 of 2026, and the keyboards to ship sometime in Q2 2027, if not before then.

Interest Check Form HERE
CannonKeys Discord
CannonKeys Page

after having to go through the original GB debacle for Rubber and ultimately not receiving the set, i'm happy to see another chance to (partially) recover it.

i'll gladly take GMK too. GLWGB!

I try to keep the pronunciation as close to the native language's as possible if I am familiar with it.

I try to say "root" for "route" and "foy-ey" for "foyer". Pronouncing "croissant" with the French pronunciation is awkward though, so I usually say it sarcastically. The "e" is "Porsche" always pronounced; even by English pronunciation rules, a vowel preceded by three consosants is pronounced and not silent! Likewise with "Schadenfreude".

I care more about pronunciation and clarity than accent (they are related, but distinct).

I notice things about my own native accent that I don't like, but it sounds a bit weird when I try to change things. For example, I find it ambiguous that I and most Americans use flaps for t's. Latter and ladder, hearty and hardy, leader and liter, let on and led on, metal and medal. By using hard t's in those cases, I end up sounding British or Irish for that one word unintentionally. I also recently learned that New Yorkers distinguish between "cot" and "caught" and between "merry", "marry", and "Mary", which is pretty cool, but I don't think I'm ready to adopt a New York accent.

"hot" may not be exactly the right phoneme (or it's different in your accent), but Brits tend to change the vowel sound between "can" and "can't" and use a hard "t" sound; whereas, American pronounce "can" and "can't" almost exactly the same (with maybe a very short glottal stop at the end for the "t") but just put stress on the negative form (which makes it very hard to tell the difference between the positive and negative sometimes even as a native AE speaker). I personally just try to add a hard "t" at the end to make it clear I'm using the negative form.

I was not planning to enter this conversation, but this post contains many interesting thoughts and points. I grew up in a house with a foyer (with an "r") and never heard any other pronunciation or knew that it was a French word, probably until I went off to college. To me, when a foreign word has been assimilated into (American) English it can, and probably should, take on the (American) English pronunciation. 

Root-route, medal-metal, latter-ladder, etc, this is an area where I always differentiate and make sure to clearly say the operative letter.

Can-can't is one place where I place significant emphasis on the "t" to ensure that it is heard. Kind of like the principle in conversation that demands that any "absolute" word such as "always", "never", "only", etc, makes that word the most important word in the sentence.

Merry-Mary-marry is a funny one, I strive to differentiate these but "Mary" ends up slightly closer to "merry" than "marry" when it comes out of my mouth.

Tangential to that topic is the notion of the partial syllable. Perhaps it is something like a sub-dialect but some words contain little glitches that do not rise to the level of being syllables. Like being hinted at but not said. The most common example is the word "often" where I strive to put a tiny hint of a "t" in the middle of it.

There is a city near me, Maryville, that locals say with a very slight central sound that is far less than a syllable but still exists, as mar-(u)-vil, but some people simply cannot hear that central beat (which would be less than a sixteenth note in music). Even after you say it slowly and clearly to them, all they say back to you is mar-vil.

And, of course, there is the capital of Ukraine. Most of us probably grew up with KEY-ev, but when the war started we learned that is the Russian pronunciation. I read numerous articles stating that the word has more than one syllable but less than 2 syllables - so that there is one of those tiny beats before the "v". But somehow many (most?) Americans simply cannot hear the subtlety and say one syllable KEEEV with a hard accent on the long "E" in the middle.

Just in case you are wondering, I grew up in East Tennessee and my mother always told me "There is nothing wrong with being from East Tennessee as long as you don't talk like it."