MOBULA80 in-stock buy : a split PCB/plate designed TKL by CUBE Studio

Hi everyone. This is LEO, the organizer for Cube Studio. I am pleased to show everyone our first custom keyboard project – mobula 80.

Our team spent a great deal of effort on both exterior design and internal structural design of mobula 80. We finalized the design of mobula 80 and completed the China GB in 2020, then shipped the keyboard in early 2021. Since then, mobula 80 has gain sizable reputation in the Chinese custom keyboard scene.



Background

The mobula 80 project was started on August of 2020. The inspiration was that we have not seen a lot of TKL custom keyboard with excellent sound and feel. We enjoy using TKL as it provides all the functions we need and it is also a great showcase of keycap sets. So we have decided to design a TKL custom keyboard with great feel and customizability as a daily driver.

Exterior design
We decided to go with a montage style exterior design. This style is to highlight the unique weight and badge design on the bottom of the keyboard. We came up with different brass weight designs to show uniqueness for each mobula 80. The huge gear shaped weight, thick bezels, and other brass strips have all reinforce the industrial style of mobuda 80.

Internal structural design
During the early stages of the project, gasket mount was still a fresh concept. Gasket mounts worked really well on smaller layouts, but it is rare to find it well implemented on larger layouts such as TKL.




We wanted mobula 80 to have excellent sound and feel throughout the whole keyboard. If we just extend the gasket mounting system from smaller layouts and blindly put it on a TKL keyboard, it would cause the keys from the center of the plate to feel very different than the keys from around the edges of the plate. To ensure a uniform gasket typing experience, we have decided to use a split PCB/plate design by splitting alpha section and function/arrow section to be mounted separately. By doing so, each session is gasket mounted by itself to emulate gasket mount on a smaller layout, offering great uniformity across the whole keyboard.

After we have sorted out other design challenges (plate sizing, wiring, spacing and split PCB design), we have an end product that offers great typing experiences similar to a small gasket mounted keyboard. From what we know, mobula 80 is the only TKL keyboard that uses such split design.



To satisfy buyers with different tastes, we will be providing both PC plate, Alu plate, silicon dampener, and poron dampener. Buyers can build with different combination to achieve different typing experience, showcasing the customizability of mobula 80.

Lastly, we have gotten some user feedback from our earlier GB and we have improved the building experience and typing experience even further for mobula 80.

The international group buy for mobula 80 will have 48 units in total：

9x gray white（PANTONE COOL GRAY 1U）

Case：Mobula80 gray white
Keycap：Rama Heavy Industry







25x blue （PANTONE 282 U）

Case：Mobula80 Blue
Keycap：GMK Razer R2






14x Wheat （PANTONE 7501 U）

Case：Mobula80 Wheat
Keycap：GMK Godspeed







This is an in-stock group buy, all keyboard units will be shipped out one week after the order has been confirmed.
Warning: The current production units has some minor alignment issues with type-c usb port, and they might not be compatible with all handmade coil USB cables. We will give a color-matched cable for each cases owner. In oder to fix this issue.

Cable in case packages




Mobula80 Case Cost ： 399 USD

Specification
Hot-swappable PCB only
WinKeyLess only
Weight: ~2.2 Kg
Typing angle: 5 degree
Sizing: 366*142mm, front height 24mm, back height 36mm
Plate thickness: 1.5mm
PCB: Type-c connector (support for c to c), support QMK&VIA, ESD protection
Lights: Onboard RGB lights, Logo light, on/off switch
Surface finishes: coated、anodic oxidation、PVD Sand-blasted、PVD mirror finish

Included in the box
Case housing (Alu)
Plates x2 (PC and Alu)
PCB x4 (Alpha PCB, fuction/arrow PCB, RGB PCB, Type-C PCB)
Silicon dampener x1 (between plate and PCB)
Poron dampener x2 (one for between plate and PCB, one for bottom housing)
Eva dampener x2 (a thin layer between dampener of your choice and PCB)
Poron gaskets xN
Silicon feets x4 (for bottom of the keyboard)
Screws xN (Steel, four of them are titanium alloy)

Weight composition
Backplate x1 (Alu)
Gear shaped weight (Brass, PVD Sand-blasted)
Random weight decoration (Brass, Sand-blasted)
X shaped bezel (Alu)
Badge (Alu)
Lettering on badge (Alu)
USB port strip (Brass, PVD Sand-blasted)
Logo weight (Brass, PVD mirror finish)

Discord: Welcome to join our discord at https://discord.gg/kGcgUEZ6QM
GB method:
1. we will release the link to a google form as the method to gather the interests of sale;
2. the time will be on 11th of July, 12AM Eastern time;
3. we will release links of 3 forms representing 3 colors at that time;
4. once the limit of a color is reached, the corresponding form will be closed;
5. the sale ends at when all the forms stop taking responses;
6. we will reach out to you via the contact methods that you will fill in the form about the payment;
7. within 24hrs, we will provide clients who successfully submitted the info with paypal accounts for payment of the cost of purchase + shipping (with possible cost of extra parts, should you choose to get them as well);
8. due to the nature of google form, human limits and network lag, we might oversell. As a result, we will only contact clients by the time of their submission. If our direct message or email is ignored in the 24hrs, we will reach the oversold clients;
9. we will do our best to make sure of the integrity of the products during transportation but we cannot honor our after-sales warranty if the cosmetic damage happened after the box opening (hence we highly recommend recording the process for your benefit);
10. may the luck be with you