Author Topic: macintosh-like pcb?  (Read 2348 times)

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Offline simplycanada

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macintosh-like pcb?
« on: Sat, 24 December 2022, 20:17:01 »
sorry if the subject wasn't the best one I could come up with late at night here in canada but anyhow to cut to the actual point..

for a while I was looking at the keychron q6 barebone kit regarding just using the first key to right of spacebar as a "dummy second spacebar" leaving the actual apple key just somewhat almost in the same position as on an old macintosh keyboard .. but the one slightly sore issue was the big plus key on numpad instead of separate square-shaped minus and plus keys. I nevertheless kept looking a little bit on and off for a while especially through some of the sample photos from on /r/mechanicalkeyboards/ .. but then by some chance I ran into a photo of an assembled 87% kit that had only three instead of four keys to right of spacebar and I was like 'uhh hey where did that come from now?' .. sure enough I kinda got myself into a little bit of a rabbit hole with the web from that point there

but anyhow back to the actual question..
so far I've found these but just had to wonder if anyone already knew of more that I had not seen yet?
https://kprepublic.com/collections/xd87-80/products/xd87-xd87-xd80-custom-mechanical-keyboard-kit80-supports-tkg-tools-support-underglow-rgb-pcb-programmed-gh80-kle
https://www.cftkb.com/shop/mysterium-tkl-diy-keyboard-kit (I'll admit I'm not too sure I'm fond of the casing tho)
https://www.apexkeyboards.ca/products/galatea-tkl-pcb-x-apex
https://customkbd.com/en-ca/collections/other-keyboards/products/tkrielle-tkl-keyboard?variant=43447567974624

(as a small sidenote yes I've noticed the tiger 80 lite from customkbd.com but theres too many things I don't like about it cosmetically, sorry!)

on a related note to the same question;
I wasn't going to mind trying a physically separate numpad, and so far I'm thinking of this one:
https://kprepublic.com/collections/cospad-xd24/products/cospad-20-numpad-xd24-xiudi-custom-keyboard-pcb
unless I'm wrong (which may be likely) this seem to be the only one on a not-$100cad kind of budget that could actually fully emulate the layout of a macintosh numpad what with the square-shaped minus and plus keys being present unlike the one big plus-only key in same space on typical windows numpads?

as a final note I've done breadboard soldering (beside a bit of woodburning pencil works, not same hobby but similar enough physical experiences tho) on and off in the past so I'm ok with if the pcb is not a hotswap-ready one if it has to come down to that

Offline Sup

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Re: macintosh-like pcb?
« Reply #1 on: Sun, 25 December 2022, 11:11:24 »
The layout you are describing is the TSANGAN bottom row. Basically 1,5u, 1u, 1.5u 7u 1,5u, 1u, 1.5u. Almost any custom keyboard kit has the option for that layout unless it's hot swap then it's usually your normal ANSI layout.

In this case you would have to most likely solder if you want your perfect layout on your numpad/TKL. The option for nice in stock TKL keyboards are pretty rare. Maybe you can wait for the extras for the Safa TKL? https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=116273.0

For the PCB's i would look for ones that run QMK and if better are VIA compatible to make reprogramming user friendly.
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Offline simplycanada

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Re: macintosh-like pcb?
« Reply #2 on: Sun, 25 December 2022, 11:43:09 »
thanks sup, seem I learned yet one more tidbit about mechanical keyboards. had never heard of tsangan word till now

I'm ok with soldering, going keep looking a bit more before I finally decide on one or two to pick from. cheers [and merry xmas?]