Pneuma Mk.1 60%
By Stef Wolters
The Pneuma Mk.1 is my latest keyboard design and my take on the 60% form factor that I have worked on for the past year. The name "Pneuma" or "πνεῦμα" translates and is interpreted from ancient Greek to the word "Breath" or "Spirit". This refers to the huge drive I felt during the design of this board. This drive showed me that designing my own products is what I want to keep doing and also what I need to keep doing to further develop as a product designer. This manifested itself in the form of the Pneuma Mk.1.
The PhilosophyThe board was developed around the design philosophy that there are three acts of interaction with a product; noticing it from a distance, coming within its regular usage distance and getting upclose with the product.
1. The exterior of the Pneuma uses fundamental shapes and soft lines without many distracting features. This creates an appealing shape that can be seen from a far and lures the viewer in.
2. Once the viewer gets closer he/she can notice the symmetry of the board and design cues like the screwless exterior and the fact that the slope of the board actually differs from the typing angle.
3. The final act is the close-up view with the product. Here the tiny little details like the tight fitment of the parts, the attention to detail of the internal design and the quality of the surface finishes from the different materials that are used.
All this makes for a refined / minimal aesthetic that that lures the viewer at first glance but becomes more and more interesting the closer you get and the longer you look at it. In short, a board that I'm very proud to present here!
Main featuresScrewless and seamless exteriorMore
There are no visible screws on the Pneuma due to the faceplate at the bottom of the case. This faceplate covers the screws that hold the base and top piece together and is secured from the top side by a set of hidden screws.
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The Pneuma makes use of slow rebounding gaskets. Not only do these gaskets absorb vibrations between the plate and case but it also acts like a shock dampener for the plate to remove the harsh rebound you experience with other gasket materials.
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The typing angle differs 1 degree from the case angle. This covers a small portion of the upper keycaps to create a more visually even look from the side.
The defined options, pricing and offering will be up for revision. For more info see Edit 4.
Specs: • Produced by Salvun
• 5.5° typing angle and 6.5° case slope
• Screwless and seamless exterior design
• Slow rebounding gasket mount
• Custom pcb by NecromanX with support for QMK/VIA and the following KLE layout
• HHKB and WKL case layout
• Available colors are: Black, Red or Silver (Samples in options album below)
• Available as an Aluminium edition (approx 1,05kg unbuild) and Stainless edition (approx 2,45kg unbuild). Please check out the options album below for more info about the differences between the two editions
Plates (will become open source after GB) • ANSI: Polycarbonate or Carbon fiber
• ISO: Polycarbonate
Vendors • MyKeyboard
[EU] • Deskhero
[CA] • Dailyclack
[AU] • Ilumkb
[ASIA] • Space (Space Cables)
[US]Timeline • Unlimited GB running from 25th of July to 25th of August
• Estimated shipping window to vendors in the end of Q1 - beginning of Q2 2022
DISCLAIMER: The estimated shipping date to the vendors has been made around the start of the groupbuy. This date might be subject to change due to fluctuations of raw material lead times. This currently an ongoing global issue and it is unsure how long this remains the situation. Therefore the estimated might be subject to change!
PricingMore
Yes the prices for the cases are on the higher end of the spectrum. But this is the lowest I can get them while still paying the manufacturers and vendors a fair price. The cost price is already fairly hight due to the machining complexity of the design. Lemme try and explain things a bit:
• The faceplate is just a few mm thick and requires a special vacuum fixture (this looks super cool btw) to machine since it cannot be clamped with a more conventional fixture.
• The large mid base need to be made out of pretty large chunk with much material loss due to some deep pockets and these pockets need to be machined at a lower speed to avoid them bending upwards and not fitting the top. Speaking of the top,
• The top needs to be made out of an even larger chunk of material (since it completely covers the edges) and also requires longer tooling to reach the top gasket pockets and screw holes since the spindle otherwise interferes with the already thing and delicate side walls.
• Then double the machining time and triple the tooling cost for the parts that have to be made out of stainless steel due to stainless being much harder than aluminium. So it all seems relatively easy from a theoretical standpoint but the reality is a bit more challenging due to fixture/tooling/settings limitations.
So in short, a lot of machining time and material/tooling cost. What I can assure though is that the quality that Salvun will deliver for the money will be absolutely outstanding and spot on. I'll make sure to make some more pictures once the private groupbuy units come in to validate that claim!
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VisualsAvailable options and prices:
https://imgur.com/a/8CCrnnkRender album:
https://imgur.com/a/Use4sz5Prototype photographs:
http://imgur.com/a/f1F9mzhTyping test by Koen Romers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycMTcMampFATyping test by myself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzqqDP-Ex8s
Thank you for checking out the thread! If you have any questions feel free to comment below, or join my discord channel to join the discussion
https://discord.gg/U4xXuGuFrc- Stef
Edit 1: More
Added image from pricing album to main thread
Edit 2: More
In accordance with the Vendors and Content creators we decided to push back the GB by a month to 25th of May till 25h of June,this also moves the shipping window to vendors from end of Q4 2021 to the beginning of Q1 2022. This is in order to make sure content creators will have enough time to create video material of the board and that there will be enough information available for those considering to join the GB
More
I've received word from Salvuns assistant that the boards meant from streamers and private gb joiner have seen some difficulties with fixing the old anodizers mistakes (they completely messed up the coating after keeping the boards hostage for almost 6 whole months). This means that I won't have these units at hand before the groupbuy was planned to start...
I definitely want these units to be finished before the groupbuy in order to conclude the private groupbuy first (as it should) and to give streamers the time they need to create proper soundtests and imagery. Because of this I decided to delay the public groupbuy of the Pneuma to the 25th of July.
My apologies for these delays, I know a lot of you are eager to join this groupbuy... There was still a slim change that the boards would be here last week (hence the late update) but it wasn't meant to be. Salvun and I have taken as much measures as we can to prevent these kinds of delays happening during the public groupbuy by using new machines and a different anodizer and I hope that this delay is more that sufficient to assure that we can start with all the knowledge and boards in the hands they belong!
Thanks everyone for your patience, and please let me know if there is anything I can do to keep your interest peaked!
Edit 4: More
I have some unfortunate news to share. The last couple of months have been pretty stressful for me with things regarding the Pneuma GB... Lots of things have been going less then "optimal" with regards to things like the material supply, anodizing horrors and DHL damaging nearly every board that was supposed to be sent towards streamers last week...
Ofcourse, a certain amount of stress is necessary to properly run a business, but it has come to the point that it is starting to affect my physical and mental health lately... And while I take running groupbuys very seriously it is still a hobby for me, so once it starts to affect me or the people around me on a personal level it is time to take a step back.
All these things have made me realize that I don't/can't have enough control over the situation atm and that it would be irresponsible to run a groupbuy of potentially hundreds of boards when there are still quite some uncertainties (stressing my manufacturers, customers and myself in the process). That is not a way I wish to present myself toward my customers during a project.... So because of this, even though I hate to do it, I have decided to not run the Pneuma public groupbuy at this point in time until further notice.
Does that mean the Pneuma will never run? Absolutely not, but it probably won't run in the regular groupbuy format. I am looking towards in-stock options which will greatly relieve pressure from me and my suppliers since there is no hard deadline to follow. But that is all in an infantile phase so I'm still working on that. For now I'll be taking a step back to try and build up this project from the group up.
I expect this comes as a huge surprise this close before the start of the groupbuy and I want to appologize to everyone who was excited about joining in a few days. But I hope that everyone understands the reasoning behind my decision. I want to thank everyone for their help and support up and until now and im looking forward to propose a new plan once the time is right!
- Stef
