The Corne-ish Zen – IC#2 UPDATED Dec 31

Hello fellow Geeks and Geekettes,
Here for your consideration is my personal Covid lockdown project that I have been working on for around 8 months.

I call it the Corne-ish Zen.



It has been (obviously) inspired by @Foostan’s awesome Corne (CRKB) keyboard, but with a bunch of twists added to make it unique.

Project goals:

The goals of this project are to provide an affordable, but premium split keyboard, and to lower the barriers-of-entry by offering a fully assembled, and fully operational (minus switches and keycaps) keyboard.
No soldering, no firmware hacking (unless you want to) and no tools. Just add your favorite choc switches and keycaps, and start typing.

Features/Details:

I have spent a lot of time designing, re-designing (and even re-re-designing) this keyboard in an attempt to create something that has all the features I wanted, in a small, low package.
Here are some of the special things about this keyboard that might be of interest:

• Works exclusively with Kailh Choc v1 (pg1350) switches.
• Choc key spacing. This is perfect for the awesome upcoming MBK Legend keycaps. (nice keyboard btw)
• Pre-installed hotswap sockets FTW!
• Fully assembled PCBs
• Ships with ZMK firmware pre-installed
• Externally available power and reset switches
• The PCBs feature snap-able pinky rows to allow 5x3 layouts for those who want that
• Tiny upward facing status LED indicators for charging status and bootloader status
• USB C port with ESD protection on data and power lines
• Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) 5.0 module with CE, FCC, and RoHS Certifications. This module uses the Nordic NRF52840 SOC which has a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M4 CPU on board running at 64MHz
• 1.05” E-paper screen on each half. The display driver and power components are built into the main PCB allowing a super thin case
• 180mAh lithium polymer batteries built in. To use the largest possible battery, while keeping the case profile low, I cut a hole through the PCB to allow the battery to be sandwiched between the top and bottom plates, rather than between the PCB and either of the plates. Early estimates for battery life are around 3 weeks for the left hand, and about 3 months for the right… depending on usage
• Speaking of charging, the keyboard has a built-in charger that that functions automatically when the USB cable is plugged in. The keyboard works over USB while the battery is charging
• SW debug/programming pads are positioned on the top of the PCB to allow flashing and debugging if needed/desired
• Dedicated battery management IC built in. This allow you to accurately monitory the status and performance of the batteries, and display that info on the e-ink screens

Please Note:

- This keyboard will NOT accept MX switches or keycaps. Low profile is a primary goal for this keyboard, and MX switches do not fit into that category.
- This case will NOT fit existing Corne/CRKBD/Heliodox keyboards. The key spacing and entire shape is different.

About Bluetooth Certifications:

The Bluetooth certifications are an important part of this package. By being fully certified, you can be assured that this keyboard will not negatively affect other devices around you, and that it stays within the Bluetooth frequencies it's designed for. It is a costly (and mandatory) process to have all Bluetooth devices certified, and by using a module that contains its own antenna, and is pre-certified from the manufacturer, we get the best of both worlds… a well designed antenna and no additional certifications required.

About ZMK:

Some may wonder why choose ZMK over other available firmwares? The fact is, ZMK has been built from the ground up as a “wireless first” firmware. It is very new, but has a lot of energy currently being put into its development. For a current list of features, and a comparison to other firmwares, please see this page: https://zmkfirmware.dev/docs/

To get involved with ZMK or to learn more, join us on their friendly ZMK Discord server

About battery life:

You may be wondering why there is a discrepancy between the battery life of the right and left halves. This is due to what each half does, functionality wise. In ZMK, the left half is referred to as the “Central” half, that is it is central between the host (your computer) and the right half of the keyboard. The Central half does all the communication to the host, and accepts all the keypresses from the right half and translates those to the host. The right half is referred to as the “peripheral” half. Its only function is to send its keypresses to the Central half. Because of these functionality differences, the Central half consumes more energy than the peripheral half, and hence uses up available battery capacity faster.

Case options:

To make the Corne-ish Zen more affordable, have decided to open source the case designs and offer the PCBs separately for purchase. This will allow folks to ether print their own cases, or have a local printer print a set for them. It will also allow people with the means, to design their own case for this PCB.

The premium case option will be in two pieces. The top will be anodized aluminum, CNC machined out of a solid billet of 6061 stock. The base will be custom injection molded smoke grey acrylic. The standard colors available for anodizing are black, red, silver, grey, gold and rose gold. The GB will likely consist of the two most popular colors from the IC, plus black. Custom colors are a possibility, for a small fee, but there would have to be enough support for the colors chosen.

Please note about 5x3 option: those who opt for 5x3 cases will not get the acrylic base. The molds are too costly to produce both styles. I will provide a 3d printed base, or you can opt to print one yourself.

Photos/Renders:

Colors are estimations, and will be determined by this IC











Pricing: (Estimated. May change slightly still)

• PCBs (pair): $125
  
  • Fully assembled with all components and hot swap sockets
  • PCB functionality tested
  • Firmware pre-loaded and tested
  • Includes battery and e-paper screen
• Complete (6x3): $320
  
  • All of the above plus CNC aluminum case and acrylic base, preassembled
• Complete (5x3): $280
  
  • Same as 6x3, but without the pinky row
  • Acrylic base will be substituted with a black PLA 3D printed base

Prices exclude shipping and any duty/taxes your respective governments decide to charge.

Current Status:

• [Nov 14] - Prototype PCBs are in hand and are currently being tested.
• [Nov 21] - IC released
• Case prototypes are ordered and will be manufactured shortly. GB will not happen until I have them in-hand and am happy with the quality/fit
• Firmware development has started

Group Buy info:

The Group Buy will be limited to 100 units for this run. I am just one guy, and want to ensure success for everyone. The only way I can see pulling that off is by having a manageable number in the first run. If everything goes well, and if demand is there, I can do a second run relatively quickly.

As I mentioned earlier the GB will not happen until I am happy with the quality of production from the suppliers.

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At any rate, please fill out my IC form here: INTEREST CHECK FORM


To get all the details, and ask me questions, join me on Discord to discuss in real time: LOW PROFILE KEYBOARDS DISCORD


Imgur photo gallery


Thanks for taking the time to read my IC, have a great day!

-Darryl




-------- UPDATE - DEC 22 --------

- Posted some photos of potential travel case options for the group buy: https://imgur.com/gallery/2tKSDhz

- The prototype aluminum cases came in and are awesome. Check out the photos: https://imgur.com/gallery/FwqacMd

- The colour choices from the IC form round out like this: #1 Black (125), #2 Grey (95), #3 Blue (55), #4 Silver (40), #5 Rose Gold (39), #6 Green (36), #7 Red (35), #8 Purple (30). There will likely be another IC form to select from this list. I have posted renders of the stock colours offered by the manufacturer here: https://imgur.com/gallery/IwyEp2K

- Another PCB prototype will be ordered this week to test a couple of small, but important fit and functionality issues.

- Roughly estimate that the GB will be held in late January.

-------- UPDATE - DEC 31 --------

NEW IC FORM is live... check it out https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc1OsIzEMngLTNz_R_sPut_5ULyly8QDLN-HRy0zSLYzjKzng/viewform