Voice65% - GB finished

Build Guide
PCB/LED Guide

replacement requests - fulfilling
Chinese New Year holiday - resumed working
shipping out - finished
packaging orders - finished
sale - finished, total 500+ units sold





Full-Album

Colors & Units:
Total 500+ units in 7 colors
Anodized: Black, Gray, Blue, LNY Red and LNY Green
Electrophoresis: E-White and LNY E-Yellow
All alu plate and mid-cases(including the right edge and knob) are black



We will not disclose the exact numbers or the quantities of each colors because we don't want flippers hoarding the "rare" ones.


When:
6PM EST, 22nd of January, 2021
Conversion to other time zones
Countdown timer


Price:
USD$329 + shipping – including one PCB of your choice and two plates and no extra charge for electrophoresis
USD$35 + shipping ($10 extra shipping if purchased with the case) for each extra solder or hotswappable PCB
Shipping estimate is $30-50 to most destinations and details are in our shipping policy.


Where:
Popkeyboard.com (Register an account now, we will release the product page at the time of the sale)


Background:
Hey guys, this TT from Owlab (OWL-LAB). Please allow me to elaborate a bit about Voice65%. This keyboard is our first project outside of China and it originated from my good old days in my band - OWL. For an introverted guy like me, music was and still is an important way to express my feelings and attitude. Keyboard as a hobby, is quite similar. It is also an essential tool for us to express ourselves and make your voice heard, especially during such a hard time. Hence, we decided to create a combination of both.
After countless all-nighters, me and my designer friend Nomi eventually concretized the idea with a knob mimicking the mixer (as well as the design on the weight) and a LED strip resembles the neon lights in those clubhouses our band used to perform at.
With those features and a package of various optional/interchangeable parts, we hope this project can help you getting into this hobby and more importantly, find your preference and your own voice.


Highlights:

• An in-stock sale with one-month ETA
• A gasket-mounted 65% with spring-leaf plates
• A programmable scroll and LED strips thru VIA configurator or QMK (to abide the GPL license, the source code will be released after the sale). [Here's a PCB guide if you are new to VIA]
• An all-in-one package with lots of extras aiming to help our community experience different typing/acoustic profiles with control variates method. Standoffs*, two different plate materials, PORON PCB foam/silicone PCB pad are all optional or interchangeable in builds. There are multiple ways to build Voice65% with different combinations such as:
  • Firm - Alu plate with standoffs* and silicone PCB pad
  • Thocky – PC plate without standoffs* but with PORON® case foam
  • Muted – PC plate with silicone PCB pad and PORON® case foam
  • W/E you want - do some A/B test and find your own Voice
  * Please note that standoffs are only provided with the hotswappable version
  [Don’t worry, we prepared an extensive build guide for you]
• Per key LEDs on both hot swappable and solder PCBs – the one under Capslock is an indicator, as some of you wished
• Our silicone PCB pads surround the edges of the plate so they will not be directly contacting the cases thus making sure all the vibrations will be absorbed by the rubber
• USB-C daughter boards, the RGB light strip daughter boards and knob are all pre-assembled on the middle case and you only need to connect them with JST cables

Specifications*:
PCB: supports QMK + VIA and equipped with ESD Protection

Materials: 6063 Aluminum (Case & Scroll), Polycarbonate (PC plate) and Brass (Weight), PORON® (Gaskets, PORON® PCB foam and PORON® case foam), Silicone (Mute Pad, Spacebar dampener and light strip diffuser)

Structure:

• Gasket-mounted with leaf spring plate
• The top case is the upper half of the sandwich that also hosts a silicone diffuser
• The BLACK middle case is the lower half that comes with pre-assembled scroll and daughterboards of USB-C header, scroll and LED strip
• The bottom case with a matching color of the top 1/3 accommodates the brass weight

Typing Angle: 6 degrees

Size: 339 x 118.65 mm, front height 17mm, back height 27.8mm

Total Weight: 1.4 kg (built w/ alu plate, 1.3kg built w/ PC plate)

Plate: thickness is 1.5mm for all materials; one anodized alu plate and one PC plate

Layouts:
Hot swappable PCB: ANSI
Solder PCB: Supports Split B/S, ISO (ISO Enter and split left Shift), Stepped Cap, Tsangan, 6.25u and Split (2.25u+1.25u+2.75u) spacebars

Weight: An external brass weight with PVD (Sand-blasted, not mirror finish) clear coating and anti-fingerprint coating for non-LNY colors and an external brass weight with PVD (Sand-blasted, not mirror finish) black coating for LNY colors.
everything is included in the package except that additional PCB would cost extra*


Media:

Note:
PC does have a softer feedback to the fingertips according to our preliminary test but our team preferred PE and was taking an adventure with it.
Since PE doesn't share the same amount of popularity among our clientele and reviews, we utilized the wait time due to an unexpected delay to replaced it with PC as well as adding in the Poron PCB/case foam, right before the sale.
Sorry for lack of tests/typing sound with PC plates and PORON foams but its acoustic performance/profile does not deviate far from that of PE plate with foam added in the case, as demonstrated by Alex and Andy. Feel free to use those videos as a reference.

Build streams/reviews (Please check video description for text reviews):

• Build stream by Andy V Nguyen
• Review stream cut by Andy - a concise verdict
  
• Build stream by tinymakesthings - comparions between blurple and other blue colors
  
• Review video by theDregenProject - a quick guide for assembly
  
• Mandarin - a review video by KUBSCKY - LNY E-yellow variant
  
• Mandarin - a review video by AKS - LNY Green variant