Hello girls and boys, particularly
Exent owners!
I am in the process of making an ortholinear PCB that will be a drop-in replacement for Exent keyboard.
Layout is inspired by excellent Boardwalk PCB, but extended with an extra column to accommodate the 65% Exent form factor.
Why this IC?
I have an Exent and I also wanted an ortholinear layout. Since I already decided to go through all the trouble I might as well check if there are more interested people who'd like to have one. IC will help me find out:
- how much interest there is (rough number of PCBs that should be manufactured)
- if certain features should be included (mostly backlight and underglow LEDs)
- any obvious improvements I may have missed or something that completely ruins it for you
A couple of important notes:
- plug will be Mini USB just like on the original PCB
- Due to the location of the USB plug the Esc (top central) switch had to be rotated 180 degrees. There is no room to add backlight LED on this switch so keep this in mind if you absolutely want to have backlight as an option - this key will not have it.
- Layout is pretty much fixed. Spent a lot of time pondering over it and finally came up with this. Ergodox keycap set plus a few extra 1.5 and 2U keycaps should cover the layout. If you do have a suggestion that will not take a lot of effort to implement you are welcome to share it.
- price will be determined based on the results of IC, but it won't be a bargain due to (expected) low volume and production that will be done in Europe.
- QMK powered
- no hotswap
- plate as an option
- entire design will be released as open source so if you want to improve on it, have a go!
Best thing for you:
- there will not be a GB in a traditional sense. I will do something revolutionary and will not take money from anyone before the PCBs are done. I will rather invest my own money and have a peace of mind and possibly and up with a box of extra PCBs than dealing with the stress of gambling with someone else's money. If you fill in the IC I will assume that you are interested and a PCB will be made for you. You can pay for it once it is ready to be shipped (or bail out if you wish so). Zero risk for you, stupid for me but ultimately worth it...unless I get 700 interested people and 650 will be fakes.
It also allows me the luxury to say that it will be ready 'when it is done'. It should be sooner than later since design and production is done locally. I will share progress here of course.
IC will not run for long as I want to get started ASAP, but I expect I will have some extras for people who might have missed it.
IC Form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScDQBB8M4Q7pPCZ5U6JVWZW36Pdx8HUn5zIgnXBUUEQv_LpZg/viewform
