>keyboards
the keyboard hobby has always been a waiting game, and the months (or years) it often took to receive orders drove me to develop a system that i feel matches the craftsmanship of some of the more renowned makers in the space.
the boards are simple, minimize wasted plastic, and, like the pcbs below, incorporate extras. they're also beautiful to me, but i know everyone feels similarly about their designs.
>pcbs
i enjoy making simple pcbs that emphasize symmetry, the switch grid--the linear arrangement of footprints that constrains the design--and underlying materials of plain fr4 and copper (even if it is finished in gold).
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including hand-drawn lettering and extras in the package (like a terribly unusable ruler and keychain) are also quite fun, too.
had60 - this sixty percent keyboard pcb was not the first i'd ever designed, but it is what got me to take the hobby of hardware design more seriously. in it, i sought to incorporate trends i noticed within the community back in 2020 (namely, flex channels for typing relief as well as expanded compatibility for a large number of cases via the outline) and to counteract the rigidity i found to be problematic in some top- and gasket-mount implementations. two-channel and four-channel variants were sold on my old site, senselessclay.com, and the latter were the first commercially available pcbs to incorporate cuts on all rows, but i doubt this legacy means much in light of how popular (or trite, in some circles) they've become - interest check - rev 1.1 group buy information
had66 - this was a revision to a previous design from 2019 that i wanted to execute in order to incorporate elements from the had60 and had80 but lagged on in light of how content i was with my tenkeyless board. i never really liked the wonky '2' and misaligned space keys of the typical alice arrangement (even though i'm sure they're for a reason) and addressed them neatly in my take on the layout.
had80 - this eighty percent (or tenkeyless) keyboard pcb was developed in tandem with the had60 but was never sold in light of the increasing costs of manufacturing during the covid-19 pandemic. it was a neat design and was the first of my boards to support any lighting via underglow along with the increasingly common f13 key. after being a stalwart 60% and alice user for most of my time in the hobby, i have finally yielded to the convenience dedicated function and arrow keys provide and have been using this as my daily driver for over two years - geekhack interest check
>commissions
sometimes i develop boards for companies, too
xtal - for yvkb, the xtal is an ergonomic 60% layout that retains standard keycap compatibility. i really like how the art detail came out on this one.
ck60 and ck65 - these were a joint commission from candykeys, and i imagine they did quite well (both have since sold out). the designs feature hot-swap sockets, per-key lighting, and iso support (relatively rare for hotswap at the time of manufacture)
gos65 - this was a simple commission for ops keyboards that featured per-key rgb and a single-channel for just a bit of give in the final product
had65 - these were made for a few different clients and prototypes over the years
had75 - this is an ongoing project waiting for buy-in from some friends originally intended as a replacement pcb for the al1 keyboard from a few years ago
>old projects are old
maybe we'll bring them to into modernity someday
had80e - an ergo implementation of the had80 (but that came before the had80). i still want to make this board one of these days.
