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I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

electronicmaterialsoffice.com

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Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#381

Post by linsomniac »

deebosong wrote: post #78

This looks so, so good. I'm weak to all things minimal + chic. This looks like a mini mech keyboard done by Teenage Engineering, in the best kinda way. I'm not saying it looks derivative, but I wouldn't be surprised if they saw this and wish they made it themselves. They don't hold a monopoly on this look, need, and aesthetic penchant to go in this direction. I'm more of a "full-size keyboard with numeric pad" typa p…

I also thought "Teenage Engineering", it looks beautiful! I'm firmly in the "ergo split with thumb clusters" camp, but the design looks beautiful.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#382

Post by AbraKdabra »

waaveshine wrote: post #313
AbraKdabra wrote: post #283

Keyboard looks great but no insert-delete-home-end cluster means an instant no from me in any keyboard, how do you people move without those keys? I've cringed enough in my life seeing people pressing the arrow keys and waiting 5-20 seconds while the cursor traverse an entire phrase/paragraph.

Emacs shortcuts are universal in macOS and much more convenient than home/end/delete/etc in my opinion.

That's oddly specific and doesn't solve the real problem. Also there is a world outside Emacs and macOS, like a ton of other applications and OS.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#383

Post by muhammadusman »

Great job! This along with the WorkLouder boards really excites me in pushing forward in the mech keyboard scene. We have a ton of makers who are replicating stuff to make it cheaper but these projects are what will push the envelope on what is possible for keyboards.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#384

Post by AbraKdabra »

rewgs wrote: post #298
AbraKdabra wrote: post #283

Keyboard looks great but no insert-delete-home-end cluster means an instant no from me in any keyboard, how do you people move without those keys? I've cringed enough in my life seeing people pressing the arrow keys and waiting 5-20 seconds while the cursor traverse an entire phrase/paragraph.

Mac users don’t need them. Not sure about Insert, but Cmd+backspace, Cmd+up or left arrow, Cmd+down or right arrow give you delete/home/end respectively. Alt+up/down arrow gives you page up/down.

The fact that you don't need them doesn't mean everyone else doesn't use them, also, how do you know what every Mac user thinks? Also you know there are other OSs around don't you?

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#385

Post by UncleEntity »

varispeed wrote: post #216
leohonexus wrote: post #68

Beautiful, but it’ll be a pain to find contract manufacturers willing to do that keycap design. From the render I can already count 8 different injection molds required, which doesn’t sound feasible for a low-volume production run. You'd either have to price it very aggressively or be advised by your manufacturers during DFM to use standard low-profile keycaps instead. For folks curious about keyboard manufacturing,…

Is it known why the molds have not gone down in price? Or is it another chicken and egg problem? (customers don't order molds because it is expensive and look for off the shelf components, companies don't invest in making molding more affordable, because there is not enough customers...)

I watch some of the machinist YouTubes so can venture a guess…

Molds need super high precision CNC machines because any flaws will show up in the parts. So think expensive. And they aren’t going to be giving away machine time any time soon.

On guy I saw who was being interviewed had such a machine he bought second hand from (I believe) UC Berkeley and it was something like one out of three that were ever imported to the US. I guess it was a popular machine to make cell phone cases back in the day and Berkeley ended up with one for some reason.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#386

Post by alecfreudenberg »

paledot wrote: post #338

I want to hear more about what you expect the rotary encoder to be used for. You clearly put a lot of thought into making it happen, so - why? I feel like there must be some interesting use cases, but I'm drawing a blank.

Volume, Zoom, Digital Audio Production knobs, Video/Photoshop timeline or level controls, Gaming, Productivity macro (context switching, app switching, Brightness

Anything that benefits from fine tuned 'back and forth' adjustments that settle on a value in a range.

It's often more satisfying to have 'one motion' control of these functions rather than repeated 'up down' clicks to achieve a desired range.

With a rotary, you can choose the velocity of the adjustment which you cannot do with discrete 'up and down' clicks other than through a 'hold' algorithm or rapid clicking.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#387

Post by aemerson_ »

seanbarry wrote: post #229

There's a lot of criticism in the comments here, some of it feels very negative. I can imagine reading it as the OP is quite demoralising. Personally I think what the OP has achieved is very impressive. The design looks beautiful, and there's a very "Apple-esque" feel to the website. I love that sustainability has been made a requirement as part of the design. I think some of the other comments give good feedback abo…

Thanks, I'm so happy you — and lots of others — like what I've been working on. It means a lot, it's very fulfilling.

I don't find the criticism demoralising. Quite the opposite, it means people are engaged, which I love. I tried to create a product with a strong design and as a result it's quite divisive. That's okay. Good, even.

I put this thing up on the internet and asked for peoples opinions... and that's what I got. Lots of opinions! Many of which are valid, and I will take back and work on.

At the end of the day the site got a lot of traffic, lots of people expressed interest in the product and I got lots of feedback. It's a win-win and I am very happy.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#388

Post by InitialBP »

dayvid wrote: post #309
ajross wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that these things are deeply personal. And this one is really, really close to what I'd want myself. Yet... I still wouldn't buy it. Here's what I'm using right now (actually I have the wireless version which they recently stopped producing): https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/accessories-and-software/keyb... But I couldn't deal without the trackpoint, which I use regularly for simple mouse actions even wh…

This company makes trackpoint mechanical keyboards, but they're main schtick is reviving the Model M: https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/category/UKBD I'm working on a modification for a different product with a trackball, but learned about the trackpoint as well. The patent recently expired and besides that, it's ~$10-20 to buy a trackpoint component and you could hack it into a keyboard if you had the time and willing…

Tex also makes keyboards with a trackpoint. I haven't personally used them but have seen some great looking custom builds.

https://tex.com.tw/collections/keyboard

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#389

Post by reckter »

ivanjermakov wrote: post #378

Low profile ergonomic mechanical keyboard is a pretty deep hole to dive into. You can design your own PCB, order it from manufacturer and build the exact keyboard you want (split, wireless, with knobs, any form and key count). It is not for everyone and might require soldering, but possibilities are endless. Additional resources: - r/ErgoMechBoards: https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/ - Low Profile Discord: h…

Do you have a new invite link for the Discord, this one is "invalid" according to Discord! Thx! :D

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#390

Post by ponyous »

inciampati wrote: post #80

All that effort, the modern components, the slim design, the monobody, the Bluetooth, the rotary encoder. Beautiful. And it isn't ortholinear. The layout is designed to 1880s specifications. Will you share plans for self fab with an alternative key organization?

Just wondering, but is ortholinear actually better? It's not like my fingers are 4 parallel lines. And I don't have hands perfectly straight on the keyboard either - hands come in at an angle.
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