I was not able to find a board that does all of this:
1. Mechanical, with same layout as apple keyabords/laptops for CMD button – it's shifted 0.75u to the right, compared to standard layout, which makes it easier to hit all the shortcuts for me
2. Has plain white backlight for working at night (not necessarily shine-through caps, but would be great)
3. Has a lower profile of the case itself to not hurt my wrists without wristpad.
4. Looks good.
5. Has keycaps with mac icons on the F-row, I adjust brightness a lot, and use the play/pause/rewind controls a lot too for background youtube asmr/music.
6. Bonus if it has a rotary knob for volume.
7. Looks good and minimalistic (I really like white on white aesthetics with a bit of gray).
I work a lot in CAD, Video, Audio, Design software, shortcuts are my bread and butter. I sometimes type emails, but am not much of a typing enthusiast. I'm looking for this board for a year now but cannot find it.
Keychron q1 v2 in e-2hite looks amazing, if it had the proper CMD button placement (right edge matches right edge of C) I'd buy it in an instant.
I found a dustsilver 84 boards with almost perfect layout, but they look abysmal.
I've decided to handwire a board. I make products as my main hobby and small side hustle, they are made fro maluminum on CNC, so I have a manufacturing/finishing set up.
This is the layout I would love to have:
http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/98b637aa5357bbdaf76959e8889d5916I'm looking for feedback regarding my plan on tackling this project:
1. Start with keycaps that have mac legends. Find a set I will use that has brightness/music controls. If it has a 7u spacebar as an option proceed with current layout, if not, tweak it for 6.25u spacebar.
2. If keycaps are a set of new ones for MX switches, build a CAD of the plate for MX switches and order a laser cut of a 1.5mm plate for test fitting. If caps are vintage ALPS caps, build a plate for ALPS.
3. If precision is good and switches lock in place with no hot glue, proceed to build a CAD of a case for this plate and Teensy 2.0 with some sort of mounting (probably gasket mount) and sound dampening.
4. Order CNC case, have it e-coated in white.
5. Solder the column/row matrix for keys.
What I have no solid plan for is backlight. I found a few topics to rear about wiring, but am unsure about LED placement. This video shows placing them inside the switches, but I have no idea if this is how all mx switches work
Would appreciate thoughts/feedback.
