Hey guys and gals and all you other lovely folks, What we have here is the Group Buy for The Raine.
The Raine is a keyboard from myself and Satanarchist (parallelojam on Reddit) under our collaborative banner Alchemist Keyboards. It is our first board together and it's essentially a mashup of 40% fun and the classic 1800 layout design with the lowered arrow cluster, all packaged in a 65%ish form factor.
We have had a prototype in hand for over a month or so now and it has been shipped to a couple of people in the community including Jae(nojjers) from Top Clack and ChrisSwires, who's lovely photography provides the image below.
The Group Buy will run from tonight the 6/7th of June until the 12th of June.
Link to most recent IC Here
Link to previous IC Here
A few snaps of the prototype Here.Updated Specs:
- Limited to 25 units
- Colours available: Red, Blue, Black, Silver, Green + 3 ‘premium’ colours.
- High profile, top-mounted design
- QMK Compatible PCB
- CNC 6061 Aluminium, bead-blasted and anodised
- 1.5mm Aluminium plate - for the sake of simplicity it will be the same colour as the case
- Plate files will be released once GB has concluded
- Top case options: WK & WKL
- Typing angle: 7°
- Switch spacing: 19mm
- Front height: 20mm
- Dimensions: 331.60mm x 117.80mm x 34.50mm (rear height)
- Centre-mounted, USB-C connector
- Unbuilt weight: 1.7kg (~3.75lbs)
Custom Colours are below:
Due to the limited number of units, the GB spots will be raffled once the GB period concludes on 12/06 at 9PM BST.
Invoices will be sent out the following day and will be valid for 72 hours. If we've had no contact by then we will re-raffle the spot.
Estimated turnaround time is 10-12 weeks.
Base price for the Raine kit will be $260 + PP fees + shippingLink to the GB Form: HereShipping fees are as follows:UK: $18
Europe: $30
USA/Canada: $40
Rest of world: $80 (sorry, If anyone has any shipping companies they would suggest for rest of world shipping please let us know)
If an alternative shipping option is used then we will refund the difference to the buyers.
Q&AWill you offer plates with a fixed layout?Not in the GB itself, as we’re trying our best to keep costs down. However, for those who want to use a fixed layout instead we can send over the plate files so you can have it made in a material or configuration of your own choosing.
Will it have bluetooth?It will not have bluetooth and there are no plans to introduce it on this particular board.
Will the PCB be backlit, or RGB compatible?There will be no backlighting or RGB on this board, We’re not personally big fans of LEDs so we’re going to keep it nice and simple.
Will I be able to order an extra PCB?Yes, we will be offering extra PCBs in this group buy. Due to the unique layout I think it would be short-sighted not to.
What’s up with that 1.5u right shift?So two things were important to us when we were in the early stages of planning out the design for this keyboard. These were that we wanted to try and make an ISO-compatible, compact 1800 layout, and it needed to maintain a standard stagger.
After various revisions and input from others on Discord, we ended up with a layout that used primarily standard key sizes. The tab, caps, left shift, ctrl, alt etc are all keys that are available in standard key sets,
and because we personally only use left shift we are happy to use another key for the right shift (ie Super, Fn etc).
We also needed to make sure that the blockers around arrow cluster were even, otherwise it wouldn’t look right. We personally believe it’s a small trade off as there are plenty of 1.5u R4 keys to choose from.
Why don’t you change the layout to XYZ?I could, but it wouldn’t be the board that I (Satanarchist) wanted to build. I basically learned CAD so I could make this board myself, as I didn’t expect anyone else to do it.
It’s the layout that I want to use, and given what I’m used to it ticks all the boxes for me. With this group buy I’m offering the opportunity for others to join me in owning and enjoying one.
I will also be doing a more open re-run of this in the future, so if you miss out on the GB then fear not.
We do hope to run further group buys in the future for boards of various sizes and layouts, so watch this space if this particular layout isn’t for you.
You can also find us on our newly made discord server where you can get more information and updates as they happen and get quicker responses as one of us is usually online.
DISCORD 