Thanks for the support everyone.
Looking forward to the alu version! Here is some input from me, in case you are interested: I would prefer the overhang of the top part to be either bigger or smaller. If it is bigger it looks more like it is floating. If it is smaller (not there) it looks like one big piece (like the 3d printed version). If it is there I would pull it down in the front so the front is only the overhang, without the lower part visible.
I tried changing the overhang to a seam and I actually liked how it looked. Definitely appreciate your suggestion! I will probably incorporate this into the final design.
This is how the metal version is looking right now - I played around with different side/bottom profiles and ended up liking this one. I'm still working on getting the design done (need to make the new plate, figure out the daughterboard mounting, slightly revise how the RGB LED indicator attaches, and make production drawings).
Unfortunately I'm no longer on Fusion 360 (I don't want to deal with a subscription), Atom3D doesn't do renders, and my Blender rendering skills are nonexistent, so no renders yet - proto photos are much more likely than renders at this point.
You are probably settled on the layout, but my small complaint about it is the white space on the right of the arrow keys. It not symmetric and looks not pleasant to me. Like a little accident. Maybe move the three keys a little to the right, add a fourth on the bottom and fill the gap this way? Not sure this would work. Or take a slice of the rect1800. They pushed the three keys to the numpad on the right. This works great as well.
I've thought a lot about this, and unfortunately - there really isn't a good way to resolve this, keep the 2u numpad 0 key, keep arrow key separation, and have a good looking bezel.
Making it wider to add a 4th key to fill the gap results in uneven bezels elsewhere, and also makes the keyboard wider:
The best solution layout-wise is actually to do something similar to the
Evolv 75% and use a 1.5u Shift key to maintain even bezels while adding a 4th key to fill in the gap. Unfortunately, very, very few keysets offer a 1.5u Shift, and most people are going to have to drop a 1.5u Ctrl or Alt key in that position, which results in inaccurate legends, which will bother many people more than current awkward gap.
You can do something similar with 2u left shift (similar to what 60%'s with arrow keys do, such as the GK64XS). More sets include 2u left shift than 1.5u Shift, but it's still not included in many sets. This also shifts the key stagger over 0.25u, and this makes ISO support awkward, so it's not a great solution either.
I've also thought about putting something else in the gap, like a badge, but I'm personally just not a fan of badges (I dislike branding on the front of things like phones and keyboards), and I wouldn't really know what symbol to put on there (I can't think of any small, Boston-related symbols that isn't a copyrighted sports team logo). I've also thought about putting the RGB layer indicator there, but it's far away from the 2nd F-row where that light is supposed to indicate, and visually I think it's more useful higher up next to the second F-row.
The Austin puts its lock lights there, but I don't want to just straight up copy that, and I also like the traditional 3 lock LEDs below the F-row.
In the end the gap doesn't bother me that much personally on the proto I've been typing on, and I'm really not a fan of the alternatives.
Re: the map on the bottom of the 3D printed version - those photos are a bit blown out as I photographed them outside. This is what it looks like in dimmer lighting:
Most PCB fabs have a file-size limit for the manufacturing files they accept (e.g. JLCPCB has a 10MB file limit), and including extremely fine lines significantly increases the file size and export times unfortunately (the current files took ~14 hours to export from KiCAD). I can take another look at this though when I have time.