STATS
Layout: 65%
Front Height: ~18mm
Typing Angle: 8.2 Degree
Mounting: Poron Gasket
Weight: ~2.7kg Unbuilt
DESIGN
The design inspirations came from some of my favorite keyboards like Neson 810E and Glare65. While they look rather simple, they are my main use board daily because they sound so fantastic without any foams in them. But as a keyboard enthusiast, it's hard to give myself a break of not buying keyboards, however, a nice looking and nice sounding keyboard is hard to find or even too expensive to buy. Therefore, I decided to go ahead and design my own keyboard.
This brainstorm process is rather simple. I want something that's not so curvy and a beauty that can be demonstrated by straight lines and straight angles. Throughout the designing process, I worked very closely with Dashan(DY) from Unikeys who is willingly help me with all he can for us to create something that is not at the trend in the community, a non-curvy keyboard.
Of course, a great sounding keyboard definitely needs some weights, so we decided to go all the way with a thick copper/brass body between 3 pieces of aluminum. By showing off the copper/brass body through the side profile, it gives a sharp and sleek feel to the whole board.
On the back, we aimed to create something simple but has some "character" in it. So we went ahead to have this ancient Chinese character "啟" fitted in a diamond shape on the copper/brass piece surrounded by aluminum to create a clean view. The character "啟" stands for "start" in Chinese, which corresponds with the beginning of our studio and my keyboard design journey.
After the exterior design was completed, we faced some tasks of the internals.
How do we make this board sound good?
How do we do that without any prior keyboard design experiences?
I started to learn from the boards I have. From measuring dimensions, tolerances, to screw placements, everything has its own logic and further, I had to consider the possibility of manufacturing.
After many rounds of refining, we are confident to showcase this keyboard and ready to prototypes.
Going through so many challenges but getting so many nice people (special shoutout to Beni "Radkbds") to help me, I feel extremely honored and passionate about this project.
COLOR OPTION
Thanks to DDS for allowing us to custom-pick some colors that we like :)
(These are renders I color matched manually, only for references)
Sand Grey / Copper
Sand Grey / Brass
Dark Grey / Copper
Dark Grey / Brass
Ink Green / Copper
Ink Green / Brass
Light Sand / Copper
Light Sand / Brass
Red / Copper
Red / Brass
Silver / Copper
Silver / Brass
PROGRESS
Prototypes Ordered from DDS - 2/28/2025 (Expect to complete on 3/24)
UPDATE: Prototypes are delayed. More detail will be updated :)
(Prototypes will be sent out to reviewers once received and checked)
LINKs
VENDOR
Unikeys (Global)