BTY-80 - A Through-hole Orthogonal TKL Keyboard with a Thumb Cluster

Do you love unique looking keyboards? Maybe you thought of getting an orthogonal keyboard, or maybe one with a through-hole design like the Discipline? Maybe you've used seen one of those fancy ergo-split keyboards with cool looking thumb clusters?

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce you to the BTY-80, an all new, one of a kind, fully custom design!

Features

• Condensed TKL layout
• Through-hole PCB design
• Chrome-plated Stainless Steel Plate
• Clear stacked acrylic case
• USB-C Connector
• RGB glow support, if you want that RGB look
• Completed prototype, not just renders!

IC Form

If you're interested, please take the time to fill in the IC form.

Prototype Pictures









And a render of the finished product with DSA keycaps



Supported Layouts
The plan is to support both a double-wide space button, like on the Plank keyboard and 2x1U wide buttons in place of a space bar. Please note that the current PCB prototype doesn't yet support the 2x1U layout yet.

Option 1


Option 2


Pricing and MOQ
Pricing is to be ~180 USD without shipping. The increased price is due to having a unique plate design requiring custom tooling.

Design
I use an ErgoDox EZ as my daily driver keyboard and really enjoy using an orthogonal keyboard and the added usefulness of having a thumb cluster. I also really love the design of through-hole keyboards like the Discipline, but find myself really missing having dedicated navigation buttons whenever I use a 60% keyboard. With this in mind, I came up with the BTY-80, a keyboard with a truly unique design. I was really aiming for a unique keyboard that was as much form as it was function, and I think the final design I came up with has achieved that. The keyboard will be shipped unassembled with all required components (minus switches and keycaps) in the box. RGB contacts are available on the back of the PCB if you want to add an RGB glow.

Firmware
The keyboard is designed to work with QMK. It is still TBD whether or not the firmware will be pre-flashed onto the microcontroller or a binary and keymap will be provided for you to flash it yourself.

Vendors, Dates, Shipping
Vendors are still TBD. If the IC goes well, the GB will start March 1 and run until March 31. Shipping will start around early-mid June 2021.

To do

• Source acrylic supplier
• Source plate supplier
• Source PCB supplier
• Finalize design
• Finalize vendors
• Source component supplier
• Finalize plate tooling