any possibility of adding lighting support of some kind? At the least just through hole led? I'm a real sucker for using led window keycaps for things like caps, esc, and function.
If there's enough interest I may consider some indicator LEDs on caps lock/esc.
Interesting project going on.
I'm curious as to how much room you are leaving between the bottom of the PCB and the top of the bottoms tray. Having a 1.2mm PCB with a flex cut is going to result in a fair amount of movement, for sure.
Considering you have functional proto and haven't run into any issues of pins hitting the tray; I'm assuming that there is ample room?
Also, It'd be a real shame if this got even close to 400usd if it were to go to GB.
Best of luck with your IC!
Thanks for the concern. there's 3-4.7mm of space between the bottom of the PCB and the inside of the case depending on which row you look at, there is a decent amount of movement but with the PCB installed and soldered there's no contact under normal typing pressure. As expected, it is relatively easy to cause a short by pressing with a bit more pressure but i've been told this can be mitigated with some paper under the PCB to insulate.
I have been considering increasing the internal clearance but there isn't much room towards the bottom rows due to the low front height, I will be doing further testing with proto 2 and with some other people to ensure it won't be an issue with the final boards.
Regarding pricing, I hate ICs that give an unrealistic price estimate and while I'm faily confident I can be comfortably under 400usd, I've given the very upper pricing limit based on a low quantitiy run.
That sounds good to me man, as long as under relatively normal typing pressure everything is a-ok then there's no cause for change imo. The low front height(to R4) just gave me a slight bit of concern.
Do update us on the progress of future protos though!
Regarding the price; I absolutely agree with you on unrealistic prices. I'd suggest shying away from stating a price in a fresh IC waiting it out until you have scaled quotes from your manu/vendor involvement, all to avoid some unsavory comments that have already been posted.
May I suggest some more colour options? Avail options like silver and grey will go a long way for me at least.
Colour options are unlikely, as I mentioned in the OP, I wanted to make a board that fit my own very specific wants and black was part of that.
To address your comment and all the others on pricing, I do have multiple quotes from my manu and as I mentioned earlier the price estimate given is a very high estimate, this is based on an extremely low MOQ because I'm undecided on how I'll end up running this board.
Given that, I think it's a bit unfair to compare the price estimate to boards like the Polaris or GSKT that were priced at and sold at 10x the quantity I'm planning.