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NEO Element G67 - A minimal gasket 65% - GB starting Friday 6.4

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Description

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Patrick, owner and designer of NEO Keys (NEO Keys Discord, NEO Keys Instagram). I am honored to present you NEO Key’s third project, Element G67.

It is a machined alloy, gasket mounted, seamless, minimalist design, compact size, slim bezel, low stack height and budget friendly custom mechanical keyboard kit.
NEO Element started from the idea of designing a board that expresses nothing but its true form, bears no identity but the geometry and texture of material, without the burden of symbolism of concept or representation of individual. It is elegant, easy to build, amazing to type on, and most important affordable.
The project has been going on for almost a year. I've built 6 engineering prototypes and a test bench to experiment different design ideas, acquire test data and test different surface finish. Most of its design has been finalized, but some decisions are better left for users. So here is the IC Form.

Featuring:
Precisely calibrated gasket hardness and compression rate for optimal typing sound and feel
Completely seamless case design for visual integrity
Light chamfer and round corners on top and bottom case for a little bit of warmth
Straight lines, slim bezels (7.6mm front and rear, 3.6mm sides), low front height (17mm), clean, simple, compact and comfy wrist angle
Case exterior has no logo, no engraving, no laser etching, no badge
Interior tool path is designed to be as simple as possible to shave off manufacturing time and cost
Case material available in aluminum, brass and stainless steel; switch plate material available in carbon fiber and brass
Custom Cerakote ceramic coating finish option available for ultimate durability

Case specs:
Dimensions:313*111*17mm front/30mm rear
Element G67 – Aluminum top and bottom case, sandblasted and anodized. $260-280
Element Plus G67 – Aluminum top, sandblasted and Cerakoted, full brass bottom, zircon-blasted* and nano-coated**. $420-450
Element Ultimate G67 – Stainless steel top and bottom case, brushed exterior, zircon-blasted interior, both nano-coated. $650-700
*If you're not familiar with zircon-blasting, it's a type of sandblasting. Instead of sand or glass bead, zircon is used. It provides ultra fine fininsh and smooth touch. It's the same type of finish as Iphone6 back plate and some Macbook Pro cases.
**Nano coating is a few nm thick and practically invisible. It retains the raw texture and color of treated metal surface and protects it from oxidation and grease. It's awesome.

Element has one of the lowest stack height and smallest bezels on the market. Here are some external dimensions.

Switch plate comes in 2 layout and 2 material options: brass and carbon fiber (so far)
ANSI:

ISO:

PCB:
Soldered and Hotswap versions will both be offered. QMK and VIA support.
Unified daughter board with 17cm JST cable.
Screw in stabs only

If you are in my discord serveral or following my Instagram, you probably already know this. But anyway, here is some background story of how the board was developed. To find out what's the best gasket material, thickness, compression ratio to use, I designed and built a test bench, which is basically an open frame gasket keyboard with adjustable compression ratio. Open frame design and thumb screws allow me to micro adjust compression distance by increments of 0.2mm. I was able to use different gasket material in different hardness and thickness, compressed by different amount of distance. After several weeks of fine tuning and testing I found my favorite combination and used it in final design.