Monthly progress and choosing a switch brand

László Monda
2016-09-15

Welcome to this installment of our monthly progress update! This series is composed of two parts: 1) the major happenings of the month, and 2) choosing a switch brand. Let’s get started!

Monthly progress

A lot has happened since our last update. Let’s see the nitty-gritty!

The first plastic case and metal plate samples

Our Serbian contractor has manufactured the first samples of the bottom parts of the case, the case buttons, and the metal plates.

This is the case freshly injection molded:

And then it’s ejected from the mold:

It’s easy to see the protruding pole-like plastic part where the case has been shot. This gets manually removed after molding.

Some more samples with the protruding part removed:

Don’t worry about the aesthetics. These are just test shots.

The first sample of the case buttons:

The first sample of the metal plates:

Let’s put the plate into the case:

The plastic parts look pretty good for the first try, but they have some minor inaccuracies that will need to be corrected. This is nothing unexpected, and corrections like this are usual in the world of manufacturing.

Palm rest

András and I visited a nearby company who cuts foam of various types. We asked for a couple of samples:

Pretty quickly, the 3D printed base plates also arrived (which will be ultimately crafted of aluminium):

And then the time has come to cover the foams with drape and put everything together:

This is how the palm rest looks like when fixed to the UHK:

We’re not ready yet. The type of the foam, the technology, and the drape to be used are not final. This continues to be an active area of development, and in our true style we’ll be keeping you in the loop.

LED display

Our LED display manufacturer has finished the mold of the display and created a couple of samples. This is the front side:

UHK LED display plastic part - front side

And the back side:

UHK LED display plastic part - back side

Next step, the PCB of the display will be put into the plastic shell, then it will be filled with epoxy, and a sticker featuring the graphics will be put onto the front side. We should get a ready-made sample pretty soon.

Finding our PCBA manufacturer

We’ve already picked about a dozen of suppliers who will provide all the different parts of the UHK, but a major manufacturer had yet to be found for assembling the PCBs.

So I started to request quotes from foreign companies, but when I received them, I stopped for a moment. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could find a nearby company?” - I thought. And then I emailed all 20 of the PCBA companies of Hungary and waited for quotes.

Then the impossible happened. It turned out that one of them is located in Kalocsa, the same small city where we’ll assemble the UHK. Not only are they next to us but they’re very responsive and interested in the project. We toured their facility and concluded that they’re the kind of guys we want to work with.

We’ve exchanged many emails and made a number of phone calls since then. These conversations are supremely useful, as we can heavily optimize the design of the PCB for manufacturing. As an added bonus, it seems like they can assemble not only surface mount components, but all the through-hole parts, so we won’t have to take care of those separately. We couldn’t wish for more.

And this is how we managed to insource PCBA by finding a company who is not 8,000 but 2 km away from us.

All hail our awesome contributors

Agent has been developed at a rapid pace lately, which leads me to introduce our latest and greatest contributor - Give it up for Mr. Mikko Lakomaa!

I'm Mikko Lakomaa, a web developer from Finland. I've worked as a full stack developer for about a decade now but have shifted my emphasis towards front-end JavaScript development in the last few years. I got interested in the UHK when I was looking for a more ergonomic keyboard and it just happens that their software uses technologies I wanted to learn so I decided to help them out.

Over the last few weeks, Mikko has managed to push the Macro UI of Agent to the next level, so mad props go to him along with a UHK with all the bells and whistles. Thank you so much for your contribution, Mikko!

Jozsef and Nejc are also pushing hard and have been making solid progress. Nejc has implemented the add keymap UI of Agent and now working on the data layer which manages the internal state of Agent. Jozsef has been implementing his fair share of refactorings and reviewing a fair number of pull request as the lead developer of Agent.

And now to the second part...

Choosing a switch brand

We have just decided which switch brand will be used for the UHK. Our campaign page mentions Gateron or Greetech as possible candidates, but in order to make the best choice we ended up considering other brands, too.

It’s important for us to share our thought process with you, so we’ll go over all the brands one by one and highlight some major points.

Cherry

Cherry is hardly stranger to anyone, given that they’re the original designer and manufacturer of Cherry MX switches. Then their patents eventually expired, and other brands entered to the market and replicated their switches.

Cherry is the most trusted brand because they started the show, and they’re still in business after all these years, so it’d make logical sense to pick them over the others except for one thing: availability.

The supply chain issues of Cherry MX switches have been prevalent over the years. Cherry is known for striking exclusive deals with the top keyboard manufacturers of the world, much to the dismay of smaller manufacturers who weren’t able to source Cherry switches in a consistent-enough manner to manufacture their products.

Some manufacturers switched from Cherries to alternative brands, and were accused of cheaping out. We doubt that these guys were actually cheaping out. Some of them might have, but others simply wanted to get their products manufactured. We don’t want to be ever put into this situation.

Availability issues have been well known for long time, so back in the day I ended up phoning Cherry’s German sales office only to be informed that there’s nothing they can do about supply chain issues.

Given the above, we’ll only use clear and green Cherry switches because no other manufacturers create switches of such types, but for everything else we’ll use another brand.

Gateron

Gateron switches are well known and loved by the keyboard enthusiast community. Gateron manufactures quality switches and trusted by many, so it’d make sense to pick them. We have two issues, though.

The first issue is the lack of direct contact with Gateron. Call us old school, but we like to get involved with manufacturers to be able to discuss any potential issues. We weren’t, however, able to reach Gateron neither across the Internet, nor via phone. We even asked a friend of ours in Hong Kong to try to get in touch with them, but he wasn’t able to.

We would much rather do business directly with a manufacturer than using a buying agent. Again, it’s not because of the slight added cost, but the ability to directly communicate with them.

The second issue is that Gaterons use milky white plastic for their housing. This shouldn’t be a problem for most keyboards because the switches underneath the keycaps are hardly visible, but it’s a different story for the UHK. When the halves are split the milky white color becomes visible, and it doesn’t gel well with the rest of the keyboard which is usually black.

Because of this, we don’t consider Gateron an ideal choice for us, and would rather pick an alternative brand.

Greetech

Greetech switches resemble the look of Cherry switches the most closely. It’s very easy to miss the difference because the shape of the two seems identical. Only the text featured on the housing of the switch tells whether it’s a Cherry or a Greetech.

The Greetech switches we tested felt great. Being very similar to Cherries makes them a great choice for us, not only functionally but visually. They offer 4 MX switch types (each with or without stabilizer pins) and 2 low profile switch types.

Greetech is a great candidate, but our story doesn’t end here. We wanted to go all the way and consider every switch type.

Outemu

Photo is courtesy of Massdrop

Truth to be told, we don’t know a whole lot about these switches. We can see them being used in various, mostly Chinese keyboards, but we couldn’t even find their website, and have no way of reaching them directly, so our main concern is the same as for Gateron switches.

Kailh

Initially, Kailh wasn’t on our radar because we assumed that they only strike deals with large companies and don’t serve small startups like us.

Eventually, our keycap and keyswitch supplier recommended Kail switches. He’s a guy who is also a keyboard designer, deeply passionate about keyboards, and very concerned about quality. In his opinion, Kailh switches are better than other MX compatible switch brands.

Today, I tested about 500 Kailh switches by hand and although I’m not a perfect switch testing machine, every one of them felt great and consistent. András has made a couple of blind tests and he put Cherry and Kailh into the same group 3 times in a row and put Gateron and Greetech into another group. This doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but it might mean that the feeling of Kailh switches resemble Cherry more than other brands.

There are a couple of points to be noted about Kailh. They’re a major MX switch manufacturer with more than 2,000 employees. Their manufacturing process is highly automated which should translate to great and consistent quality across their products. Their supply chain is robust and they have plenty of stock, so they can serve their customers without significant delays. Their sales channel is responsive. Kailh also manufactures automotive parts which is encouraging, because automotive manufacturers have to comply very strict quality guidelines.

Kailh’s MX switch offering is unusually rich. They offer switches of different case colors (black and transparent), optimized for regular LEDs, RGB LEDS, and SMD LEDs, and are available with or without pins.

From the innovator’s point of view, an even more interesting fact is that Kailh is not just a copycat. They recycle a significant portion of their capital into R&D, resulting in new products like the following:

Most of these keyswitches are not MX compatible but they offer various advantages over standard MX switches, like lower form factor, improved backlighting, and such, allowing developers to create new keyboards that stand out in various areas. We consider this a good thing.

Making the decision

When googling for keyswitch comparisons, one can find tons of opinions and very few facts. Some people or communities pick a brand to glorify or berate for little or no reason. We always try to be as objective as possible, and make the best choice that will result in an exceptional keyboard.

Considering all the factors, we have decided to use Kailh switches for blue, brown, red, and black, and Cherries for clear and green.

It’s important to mention that our decisions are not primarily governed by the price. There’s little difference between the price of Cherry MX compatible switches, and if we really wanted to cheap out, the first thing we’d do is to replace the super high quality Omron SS-01D microswitches of the case buttons with a cheaper part. One SS-01D switch costs about as much as 10 MX switches but the alternatives of the SS-01D have inferior durability, so we’re not willing to use those.

2018-04-28: As it turns out, Omron microswitches are reasonably priced when purchased in bulk, but they're hard to purchase in large quantities. Our PCBA contractor suggested an alternative part, the Diptronics MS2-5PN-1D(Ag) microswitch. After examining this part, we found that it represents the same high quality as the Omron SS-01D. I wanted to clarify this before being accused of cheaping out. As a general rule of thumb, we never use alternative components unless we're sure that they're of the same high quality as the parts in our BOM.

As you can see, there are a lot of factors, such as quality, availability, and aesthetics that come into play when picking a part. We think that, given the above, Kailh is an excellent choice and we’re excited to use their keyswitches in the UHK.

Should you have any opinions, you’re always welcome to let us know.

It’s been a pleasure to talk to y’all! Let’s touch base on 2016-10-13.

Updated delivery schedule and a bonus

László Monda
2016-08-18

Another month has passed, and so it’s time for our monthly status update! This one will contain a bad bit of news, a good bit of news, and lots of news bites on our progress.

Updated delivery schedule

Over the last few months, a lot of you have been giving positive feedback on our progress and appreciated the detailed updates. According to our Crowd Supply campaign page, the goods are expected to ship at the end of September.

We’re trying our best to deliver on time, busting our ass day by day, usually even on weekends, and still, it’s quite apparent that we can’t meet this deadline even if we bend over backwards. So the delivery schedule needs to be revised:

The keyboard and palm rest are expected to deliver by the end of December
The modules are expected to deliver in April 2017

Please let us explain the reasons.

Our April delay that was caused by our previous bank (which we abandoned forever) has definitely contributed to this one, as it caused a lot of overhead, and we could only pay to our mold making contractor in a delayed manner.

Another reason is design delays. We have just finished the design of the feet and the palm rest. Getting the design right has definitely taken longer than expected and now the molds of the feet are about to be made. As a rule of thumb, we rather take the time to get the design right than to rush things and end up with a mediocre product.

We have to focus on the core keyboard first and implement the modules afterwards. So the mold of the modules will be created right after the mold of the keyboard. We will pay the extra shipping fees because of the separate shipment of the modules. That’s the least we can do.

We’re running things in parallel as aggressively as we can to hit our updated schedule. For example, a mold of our special keycaps just got ready in Taiwan, the mold of the case and the cutting tool is being created in Serbia, and our contractor for the LED display has just started to work on their mold.

We’re very sorry for this delay. We understand that you can’t wait to put the UHK under your hands and waiting sucks. We’re asking for your patience and to remedy the situation a bit we’d like to offer something, which is an...

Anodized aluminium palm rest

There are plenty of ways to make a palm rest and we have considered various designs over time. One of the candidates involved a beautiful anodized base plate milled from solid aluminium.

Of course they come in pairs. This is the left one.

It was clear from the get go that it won’t be cheap and we were thinking about making it available as a premium product later. But now, it’s our golden opportunity to make up for the delay of the project schedule. So I’m here to announce that we will provide this anodized aluminium palm rest to those who purchase the palm rest pledge before keyboard shipment! The price for the aluminum palm rest will go up afterwards.

Now that we wrapped up the bad and the good news let’s move on to the rest.

Tented UHK prototyped

Since our latest update we got the feet 3D printed, screwed it onto the back of a prototype and shoot a picture of it.

Everything feels right about the feet and we’re satisfied with the overall design. The palm rest is yet to be fabricated. We’ll make sure to show it to you as soon as it gets ready.

The state of the mold

The molds of the bottom cases are complete. This is the left one.

The remaining molds are also in the works, and in our true style, we’ll be posting more pictures as they get made.

Injection molded UHK keycaps

The UHK features two keycap types that are non-standard. One is a concave-shaped, 1.75U, row 4 keycap used by the Mod and Space keys, and the other is convex-shaped, 1.5U, row 1 keycap used by the backspace key.

I’m happy to let you know that recently, our keycap supplier got the molds ready for these keycaps and sent us a couple of samples:

These custom keycaps are impeccable and totally consistent with the rest, just as expected. They put a smile on our faces because custom parts like these are major milestones for the project.

The state of the modules

Not much has been said about the modules recently, so it’s time to share some information on them. We’ve actually made a couple of videos of them in action, so that you can get an idea how the modules feel and behave.

Please note that the plastic case and electronics of the modules are not ready yet. So far, the key components have been chosen so we show you the guts of the modules directly connected to the PC.

If you are curious about the exact ICs that we use inside of the UHK, or in the modules then you’re welcome to delve into our datasheets repository.

As for the number of buttons of the right-handed modules we’re not exactly sure yet but we’re aiming for two buttons per module.

Let’s see what we have!

Trackball module

The trackball module features an ADNS-3530 optical sensor which is remarkably tiny and communicates over SPI. This demo board translates SPI to USB but we’ll use a KL03P24M48SF0 microcontroller to translate SPI to I2C which is spoken by the UHK.

Trackpoint module

The trackpoint module features a sensor of an unknown part number (our supplier signed an NDA with the manufacturer so we don’t know) but it’s remarkably similar to the now defunct SK8702 trackpoint module which features the SK7102 controller. Our supplier only provided an incomplete datasheet to us, which is not a major problem because the module speaks PS/2.

We’ll use the FlexIO capability of the KL03P24M48SF0 microcontroller to implement a protocol translator which will translate from PS/2 to the I2C protocol of the UHK.

Touchpad module

This is an Azoteq ProxSense TPS43 touchpad driven by the Azoteq IQS572 capacitive controller. The touchpad is connected via the Azoteq CT 210 configuration tool to the PC.

Being an I2C device, the controller will directly connect to the UHK. We’ll have to design a custom-sized touchpad, however, featuring the IQS572. Luckily, Azoteq provided a design guide for that.

It’s not a coincidence that I mentioned the name of Azoteq a fair number of times above. Back in the day I blogged that we’re looking for a suitable part, then they contacted to us and provided the most awesome support ever!

Key cluster module

The key cluster module features a couple of keys and buttons which are simple to scan by the microcontroller. The tiny trackball is a Blackberry trackball which uses hall effect sensor along the 4 axis. We haven’t yet hooked up the Blackberry trackball to control the mouse pointer but you can find plenty of videos on YouTube of its various applications. I recommend watching Sparkfun’s video of their trackballer breakout board which explains it in detail.

Introducing our firmware developer

A while ago, we reached out to you looking for a firmware developer. We’ve gotten quite a few excellent applications and please let me take the opportunity to thank every one of the applicants for contacting us.

Without further ado, let me introduce you our firmware developer, Santiago González Fabián from the sunny city of Madrid.

My name is Santiago González and I've been playing with electronics and computers since I can remember, but I discovered the amazing world of embedded systems in the Electronics Engineering Bachelor where I felt in love with 8051 and ASM code.
I've programmed 8 bit and 32 bit MCUs in C and Assembly mainly, and my focus the last 4 years has been the Cortex M world, working at Freescale and NXP as Field Application Engineer trying to solve all kind of issues with Embedded Systems all over Spain, from Automotive to Industrial equipments, from 8 Kb Flash devices toggling LEDs to 2 MB Cortex M7 doing Ethernet, Motor Control and RTOS scheduling at the same time.

Embedded systems are my job and my hobby (Although I also climb mountains in the weekend) so in my free time I look for new challenges in several places (Stack Exchange, HackADay, Electronic Forums...) and that's how I met László and UHK, in my weekly check of NXP Community. After having a look into the project and the open source philosophy behind it, I decided I would love to help if possible. Now the UHK PCBs have arrived to Spain, so I can begin the Bootloaders development :). I cannot wait to start coding!

The new prototype sitting on Santiago’s desk

Since first getting in touch with Santiago, I’ve exchanged almost a hundred emails with him about deep technical stuff. It’s apparent to me that he’s highly knowledgeable, a truly excellent communicator, and his enthusiasm clearly shows. We couldn’t ever wish for more than that.

The bootloaders of the UHK are a lot more complex than those of regular keyboards (not that most keyboards have a single bootloader to begin with). This is because our design is highly modular, composed of separate keyboard halves and modules, each running separate firmware images. So naturally, we want to enable you to upgrade the firmware of every module over USB with a click of a button.

The idea is that the right keyboard half will run the master bootloader that will directly upgrade the application firmware from the PC. The left keyboard half and the modules will run the slave bootloader which will connect over I2C to the master bootloader, which will in turn relay the firmware image from the host computer over USB.

KBOOT 2 already supports the above scenario, but a fair amount of customization has to be done by somebody who really knows what he’s doing.

Apart from implementing the bootloaders, Santiago will be working on parts of the firmware that require deep knowledge of the Kinetis platform, like the FlexIO based PS2 to I2C protocol translator of the trackball, and such.

Still reading? Then pat yourself on the back because you deserve it! Talk to you on 2016-09-15.

The feet and palm rest design is nearly complete

László Monda
2016-07-14

Howdy all! It’s time for our regular monthly progress report. Let’s get right to it!

Feet and palm rest design

András has been busy designing the feet and palm rest of the UHK. The current design is close to final, so we’re excited to show it off.

But first, please fasten your seatbelts. The UHK is highly modular and configurable in nature and the feet and palm rest are no exceptions. There are a lot of combinations of feet configuration so let’s dive in!

The design

There are 4 feet mounting positions per keyboard half located in the corners of the halves:

When using the palm rest, the number of feet mounting positions (4) is unchanged, but their location spreads across a larger area because the bottom 2 feet per keyboard half are mounted to the palm rest:

A foot can be mounted with 3 screws and can be rotated in 90 degree increments:

In any of the 8 positions, a feet can be unmounted (no elevation), mounted and closed (slight elevation), or mounted and opened (large elevation):

The bottom of the feet are rubberized, even sideways, and the UHK has its own small rubber feet so the keyboard won’t slide in any configuration:

The palm rest is fixed to the keyboard with 2 screws per keyboard half, screwed into the stainless steel inserts of the UHK:

Given the number of combinations, we can’t go over every possibility, but we’d like to highlight the most popular ones.

Positive tilting

4 closed feet are used in the top positions of this configuration. The palm rest is not featured on these pictures but you can use it if you want to.

Side view

Isometric view

Bottom view

Negative tilting

In this configuration, 4 closed feet are used in the top positions and another 4 opened at the bottom positions mounted to the palm rest.

Side view

Isometric view

Bottom view

Tenting

4 opened feet are used in the inner positions and oriented towards the center of the keyboard.

Side view

Isometric view

Botttom view

There are so many possibilities that we’ll surely end up writing a manual just on this topic. Stay tuned!

Mold and cutting tool progress

It is apparent that our Serbian contractor is hard at work. This is the sheet metal contour cutting and bending tool. It’s already functional, but we have to wait for the assembly of the rest of the tooling so that the holes of the MX switches will be cut, too.

And this is the injection molding tool of the case buttons which is also functional:

We’re happy about the progress of our Serbian contractor and can’t wait to see even more hunks of steel.

The 6th generation PCBs are being fabricated

Lately, I’ve been working on redesigning the schematic and PCBs of our latest prototype. These are the fruits of my labor:

The back side of the right PCB

The back side of the left PCB

The improvements are plentiful, featuring:

the super powerful MK22FN512VLH12 and MKL03Z8VFK4 MCUs
IS31FL3731-SALS2 LED driver ICs per keyboard half allowing for per LED backlighting (we can’t provide LEDs and translucent keycaps yet but the ICs will be on board)
2x5 0.05” ARM programming header + Tag-Connect TC2030-NL header + TC2030 header per board for extra developer goodness
optionally solderable reed switch per board to reset the MCU without disassembling the case to make it easy to hack the firmware even if jump to bootloader feature gets screwed
optionally solderable I2C breakout header for developing modules in a breadboard friendly fashion
optionally solderable test LED per board for debugging purposes
pogo pins and I2C (versus the previous UART protocol) between the keyboard halves enabling the use of modules mechanically and electronically

A small batch of these boards are being fabricated right now at Eurocircuits and can arrive in any moment. I’m also about to order loads of components real soon which will be soldered onto the boards. These PCBs are supposed to resemble the final production boards very closely, so we’ll make sure to give them a fair amount of testing.

If you are one of those people who grok electronics please don’t hesitate to check out our electronics GitHub repo and give us feedback about the schematic and boards. We consider every single suggestion as we really want to get the design right.

Progress on Agent

Agent has been heavily refactored lately as we port the legacy jQuery codebase to Angular 2 step by step. This is one of those things that’s hard to notice by looking the application but it’s very significant regarding the long-term development of Agent.

This brings me to the star of the month. Give it up for Mr Nejc Zdovc from the beautiful town of Celje, Slovenia!

My name is Nejc Zdovc and I have been programming for the last seven years. I have a Master’s degree in Computer Science and Information Technologies. I was drawn to Angular 2 community last year and ever since, I’ve enjoyed pushing its boundaries. At the beginning of this year, I was having wrist problems and that’s why I was looking for a new ergonomic keyboard. I stumbled on the UHK and, with a little research, I found out that this is an awesome project, so I decided to start contributing. For the last few months I have been helping József with Agent.

Nejc has been helping out a ton with the Angular 2 port. Previously, only keymaps were managed by Angular 2, but he made the whole application governed by Angular 2 by componentizing it. He ported the side menu to Angular 2 and wrapped select2 into a component. This is serious progress and requires a lot of dedication. The work is not over yet but his help has been a quantum leap forward.

You know what’s crazy? Nejc and Sam don’t have a UHK at their hands yet and still, their contribution has been above and beyond expectations. I wouldn’t have expected developers contributing substantially before we deliver the hardware, but apparently it’s already happening. This is Free and Open Source at its best, folks! I can’t even imagine what will happen after delivery. I’d love to see our GitHub repos blown away by contributors!

As a token of our appreciation, Nejc and Sam will get a well-deserved developer unit soon, then eventually a final UHK with all the bells and whistles. It’s really the least we can do for them.

We’ve just arrived to the end of this update. I hope you enjoyed it, and talk to you on 2016-08-18.

Tooling is progressing

László Monda
2016-06-16

Yet another month has passed by, and so it’s time for our regular monthly update. Let’s see what’s been going on!

The tools are in the works

On the 21st of May, we made a trip to Serbia to visit our contractor who is responsible for designing and machining the cutting tools for the steel plates and the molds for the plastic case.

As soon as they welcomed us to their facility, we were having a thorough conversation about the tools to be made. At this point, the cutting tools were already being manufactured and we had discussed all the small details about the molds so that they can start to manufacture them, too.

The participants of the conversation included the owner of the factory, his son, their chief mechanical engineer, our two consultants who have a vast amount of experience regarding plastic molds, András, and myself. Admittedly, I was the most clueless of the team given that I’m not a mechanical engineer. Still, what was said made sense to me even if I didn’t catch some details.

Then we hit their workshop to see the progress on the cutting tools for the metal plates in which the MX switches sit. I’m happy to report that they did not disappoint.

The parts of the cutting tools, take 1

The parts of the cutting tools, take 2

A part of the a cutting tool is being machined on an electrical discharge machine (EDM)

Our Serbian contractors have been making great progress. At this pace, they should finish with the cutting tools soon.

After touring their workshop and discussing everything there is to discuss, we hit the nearby pub and had a great conversation with the whole team. We discovered that they’re not only master craftsmen but great people. We are very pleased that everything’s on track, and it was very nice to get to know them personally.

Since our visit, they’ve also been making crazy progress with the molds. Check out the following picture. This was a block of steel when we visited them and now it’s rapidly taking shape.

The mold of a case button

Testing the mechanical prototype

We’ve assembled the 6th generation mechanical prototype with both MX switches and Matias switches. Here’s the Matias version.

Just to avoid any misunderstanding, we won’t be able to provide a Matias version anytime soon because we can’t source Matias keycaps yet, and additional tooling will have to be made. But we plan to provide Matias switches in the future so we want to future-proof the design.

Assembling the mechanical prototype was necessary to ensure that there is no mechanical interference at all. We’re happy to report that everything fits together very nicely, even despite the inaccuracies of 3D printing. This test ensures that the molds will have no issues when they’ll be made.

Kinetis PCB redesign

The PCBs are getting redesigned as we move from AVR microcontrollers to the insanely powerful NXP Kinetis platform. But as you may imagine it all starts with the schematic and here’s how the schematic of the left keyboard half looks like right now:

Mad props go to the always awesome Mr. Jan Rychter for reviewing the schematic, catching a couple of issues, and providing valuable suggestions. According to Jan, schematics review is even more important in the hardware world than code review in the software world. I can certainly endorse his viewpoint, as you can always update software but you can’t magically rearrange the atoms of hardware once it’s made.

This is the semi-routed left PCB:

This redesign is a major overhaul which is certainly quite disruptive, but the end is near, and the end result will be worth it. The schematic is almost finalized and then there’s some routing left to be done. I expect a couple of fully functional PCBs pretty soon.

Recent progress of Agent

We had a day long get together with Árpi and Józsi recently, to work on Agent. Data-binding is finally working for some key actions. If you select the factory keymap under the Keymaps-ng2 main menu item, then click on a key, and select a Layer action, a Keymap action, or a None action, and finally click on the Remap Key button, then the relevant key gets rendered accordingly.

So far so good! The UI will be a tad smoother than the current version, and every key action will be implemented soon.

Our site has been redesigned

We weren’t quite satisfied with our website, so we redesigned it. Now the UHK is presented the way it deserves. You’re welcome to head over to UltimateHackingKeyboard.com to check it out, and let us know what you think.

Thanks and congratulations for making it to the end of the post! Talk to you on 2016-07-14.

The mold design is almost finished

László Monda
2016-05-19

This is a beautiful day, as it marks our 5th post-campaign update, just as scheduled. Let's get right to it!

Our Serbian contractor is hard at work. So much so that they're almost ready with the design of the mold. We thought you'd appreciate a couple of CAD images, so here they are.

The mold for the top-left keyboard half

The mold for the bottom-left keyboard half

The mold for the case buttons

So far so good! They're pretty close to starting the actual manufacturing of the molds. We're visiting them in Serbia this weekend to discuss the last details of the molds before getting them manufactured.

Expect real life photos of hunks of steel in future updates.

Mechanically testing the 6th generation prototype

Due to the nature of mold making, it's critical to get everything from the beginning, because it's hard to go back. And what better way to test the design than to build an up-to-date prototype?

András has made some final changes to the case to make it accommodate Matias switches, not just Cherries. This 3D printed case has the same design as the mass-produced injection molded case will - apart from the vast difference in quality because 3D printing vs injection molded plastic are worlds apart in terms of quality and accuracy.

6th generation UHK case prototype, top view

6th generation UHK case prototype, close view

In the meantime, I've been busy updating our PCBs to correspondwith the new mechanical CAD files. The shape of the PCB should now be finalized, (including the positions of the mechanical components), but the electronics routing has yet to be fully redesigned. Let's see the fruits of my labor.

The panelized PCB

Once the PCBs are depanelized, and some components soldered in, it starts to resemble the UHK much closely.

The depanelized PCBs with all the mechanical components (but the switches) soldered in

I’m especially pleased with the way the pogo pin connector turned out. This connector has a crucial role in interconnecting the keyboard halves with the modules. The new solution features 2.5mm-thick PCBs perpendicularly soldered onto the main PCBs. Pogo pins are stuck through the male PCB, and flat pads are featured on its female counterpart. The new design is a lot more robust and pleasing to the eye than the previous battery spring connector.

The male and female pogo pin connectors

This mechanical PCB is useful without the electronics because it allows for mechanical testing. The schematic is being updated from AVR to the Kinetis platform, and as soon as it gets done, the PCB will be rerouted, fabricated, and tested.

We have almost finished creating a Cherry and a Matias mechanical UHK prototype, but we're waiting for the new metal plates to arrive to finish them off.

Our GitHub repos are on fire

Since our previous status update, a whopping 222 commits have landed in our GitHub repos! Now that's what I call true teamwork! This leads me to some much deserved words on our newest contributor!

Let me introduce Mr. Samuel Rang!

Hello everyone!

I'm Sam Rang, and I've been helping out with the serialization and deserialization of configuration files for Agent. I am a graduate of Duke Engineering with a degree in Computer Science and Electrical & Computer Engineering, and work for Red Hat Consulting. I am a big mech keyboard nut (much to my fiance's chagrin) and was really excited when I heard about this project and that excitement is still going strong! I'm so glad that the team has let me in and I'll keep contributing as long as they let me.

Sam got in touch with us about a month ago. He asked me what could he contribute. It was quite a challenging question because Agent is in heavy flux at this point, and isolating a discrete part that can be worked on is far from trivial. But I found something: the configuration serializer.

That's why I was working so heavily on the serializer a month before: to lay down its foundation and hand it off to Sam. And boy, did he deliver! He went berserk and ended up implementing all the 37 classes to be serialized.

Sam is still working on Agent a bit, then he'll put on his firmware hacker hat, and implement the configurator deserializer of the firmware. What a journey it will be!

In the meantime, Józsi is on a mission to put the Angular 2 application logic behind Agent, making it not only beautiful, but also functional. At this pace, you'll be able to get stuff done with Agent by the next month.

Árpi is continuing to refine the frontend of Agent until perfection is attained. He's pretty close to finishing the keymap editor, and then he'll transition to other parts of Agent. He's just pushed the latest and greatest version of Agent to GitHub Pages, so be sure to take a look at it!

And that's it, Ladies and Gents! Excited to talk to you again on 2016-06-16!

Manufacturing has begun, but delivery is slightly delayed

László Monda
2016-04-14

In our true style, it’s time for our monthly update! We have a bit of good news, and one bad bit. Let’s start with the bad news to get over with it quickly.

A 2 month delay is introduced, thanks to international banking issues

One would think that orchestrating a successful crowdfunding campaign would be the hard part, and transferring money would be a walk in the park. Usually, this is the case, but apparently sometimes it’s the other way around.

We initiated the first transfer back in January, expecting it to go smoothly and quickly. Boy, nobody could foresee what was about to happen! Fast forward two months and several transfer attempts, and some finally made it through. Now our cash flow is back to normal, But we’ve all got a few more gray hairs.

We don’t want to go into details this time, and rather wouldn’t name call anybody, because it’s not totally clear yet who’s fault this incident was. But you can be sure that as soon as we figure it out, we’ll publish a writeup about all the details. Because no startup - and its backers - should be ever put into such a situation!

Admittedly, this changes the delivery date from July 2016 to September 2016. We’re very sorry, and apologize for this extra delay. We want to assure you that everything is back to normal, and the project is on track. You can always expect us to be honest, and upfront regarding project happenings, even if things don’t go exactly as planned.

Onto the good news!

Manufacturing has begun

Now that our cash flow is back to normal, we transferred the prepayment fee to the mold making company, and they put things into motion. They are starting off with the sheet metal cutting die, which will cut the steel plates for the UHK on which the key switches reside.

András is in direct contact with the mold making firm, and knows them personally. This, and the fact that everyone is so concerned about the details gives us great confidence that things will go very smoothly.

The preparation of the tooling will take some time, but eventually raw metal will take shape, and we’re looking forward to share our adventure with you as it unfolds.

The configuration serializer of Agent

As far as I know, the configuration of the UHK is the most complex of any keyboard ever created. It features hundreds to thousands of objects of various types, arranged into a deep hierarchy, serialized across various representations that suit different scenarios.

That’s why it’s important to develop a robust, and extensible configuration serializer to deal with this complexity. I’ve laid the groundwork of the serializer, and it’s already able to serialize a subtree of the configuration. But given my myriad of responsibilities I won’t be the one who will finish it, which brings us the our next point.

Our team is growing!

We’re glad to announce that a new developer has joined to our team, so let him introduce himself:

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Hello Everyone!

My name is József Farkas. I graduated from the University of Szeged last year as a Computer Scientist. Currently, I work at CAS Software Ltd. in the research/web team. I’m interested in Angular 2, ReactJS and TypeScript. But I’m also a big fan of C++.

I joined the UHK team last week and I’m working part-time on Agent, porting it to Angular 2, and implementing further features.

Józsi is a left-brain dominant person, who’s especially good at writing solid application logic. Árpi however is a right-brainer who excels at creative thinking, and designing UI and UX. I think they complement each other perfectly and I’m super excited to have them on board!

Beyond 300K

300K USD

Since our previous update, total campaign funding passed $300K. As a matter of fact, it’s at $309,640K right now. Thank you so much for your continued support!

This concludes our April update, folks. Talk to you on 2016-05-19!

3rd UHK post-campaign update: The new firmware is in great shape!

László Monda
2016-03-17

Two months ago we announced that we’ll be moving to a much more powerful ARM processor instead of the AVR - and one month ago we said that we’ll be using an even powerful one. Moving to a new processor architecture is a big deal, especially with a short amount of time - but we were able to make it happen without hurting the project schedule.

We’ve been working heavily on the new firmware lately, and we’re happy to let you know that it’s paid off big time! This is how the left side of my desk looks:

The rightmost FRDM-K22F board contains the insanely powerful MK22FN512VLH12 processor and runs the firmware of the right keyboard half. It shows up as a fully-fledged USB device, implementing a keyboard interface, a mouse interface, and a generic HID interface. This means that it can act as a keyboard, as a mouse and it’s also able to communicate with the host computer (to transfer configuration data, etc). As proof of this, a button on this board makes it send the scancode of the letter “a” to the host computer, another button scrolls with the mouse downwards, and a script that I’ve written makes the RGB LED display any color.

The middle FRDM-KL03Z board acts as the left keyboard half, and it communicates via the right half via the I2C protocol. A button on this board moves the mouse pointer leftwards, and another button moves it rightwards.

The leftmost board is an Open Bench Logic Sniffer which sniffs the communication of the aforementioned boards, so that the firmware can be debugged more easily.

Want to watch a half minute video of how it works? Pop that corn, then enjoy the view!

Working on the new firmware is a labor of love. Being an advocate and practitioner of clean code, I’ve made sure that it’s not merely working, but supremely readable. There’s a lot of code to be added, but it should be easily hackable by the UHK owner.

Progress on Agent

Arpi has been giving Agent some love. Now you can switch between keymaps in the side menu and change to the macro view interface. This is still considered to be a mockup, but more and more things are working, so you’re welcome to click around!

The UHK in the Wild

Our most beautiful master prototype is truly a word traveller. It’s been in San Francisco and New York to be seen by the media and you at getgeeked, then travelled to Moscow, only to arrive to Singapore to be featured at Hackware v1.2, then went back to Hungary, had a trip to Spain for a testing session, and recently landed in DevConf in Johannesburg!

A UHK was given away by DevConf to a speaker and an attendee, and they liked our prototype so much that they’re in the process of purchasing a 10-pack.

Our sincerest thanks go to Mark Pearl, organizer of DevConf, who got in touch with us, and helped to make this happen!

What’s Next?

The firmware has progressed so far, it’s now time to redesign the PCBs to feature the new processors instead of the old AVRs. There’s also a lot in the works on the mechanical design front, so stay tuned.

Talk to you on 2016-04-14!

2nd UHK post-campaign update: PCB design now supports LEDs and Matias switches

László Monda
2016-02-18

Time flies! We promised to touch base every month - so let’s get right into what we’ve been working on!

The mechanical design is being sent to manufacturing

András has been having his fair share of CAD-filled days lately, and as a result we’re days away from sending the design of the case off to manufacturing. He’s made a million little tweaks and a couple of more significant changes.

Foot design - adjustability and portability

The fixation mechanism of the feet is definitely a major one. We brainstormed foot design ideas for a while, and finally found the best option. To keep the UHK as compact as possible, it will feature adjustable (flip open) feet that are entirely removable in addition to the small, flat rubber feet. This way if you decide not to use the adjustable feet, they won’t occupy any extra space. And if you do want them, they can be easily installed with 3 screws per foot. Once you do, you’re able to flip them open in a moment. The current design allows for positive tiling, negative tilting, and tenting - The best of every world! András has yet to finish the design of the adjustable feet so stay tuned for more news.

8 feet in total, 3 mounting holes around individual rubber feet

Mounting bosses - 3 per foot, as seen from inside the case

PCB design - LEDs and Matias switches

We’re also stoked about having added pins for LEDs and Matias switches! We use universal switch footprints that combine the pins of Cherry switches (optionally with fixation pins), Matias switches, and LEDs. We designed the stiffening ribs of the bottom case in a future proof manner by routing them around the hybrid switch footprints to avoid mechanical interference. Please note that we won’t be able provide either an LED, or a Matias UHK version for a while, but the opportunity will be there for modders. You can see the pins on the following section view.

Physical layout - finalized

Another major change is the finalization of the physical layout. Fear not, you shouldn’t even notice the subtleties if you aren’t watching very closely. Space and Mod has been split right where the G and H keys meet. This is the best option ergonomically, as it’s right between the hands of touch typists. This gave us an opportunity to use more standard keycaps so those of you who want to replace keycaps will be in a better situation. Lo and behold, our final ANSI physical layout:

And the ISO version:

Funny thing is, poor András has been working day and night to implement this seemingly small change, as it affected the geometry of the CAD model in major ways. He definitely deserves a day off... only to work even harder as we march towards manufacturing!

Speaking of the above, I’ve created a dedicated layouts and keycaps FAQ page on our site lately, and while being there also spruced up the main FAQ quite a bit to satisfy your endless curiosity.

The state of the ARM port

In our previous update we were looking for a firmware developer to port our existing firmware to NXP’s Kinetis platform and develop it further. We’ve been getting quite a few impressive applications and suggestions.

Say hi to Mr. Jan Rychter, who has been eager to help us, and offer his very valuable advice. Since first contact we’ve been exchanging emails full of geek talk. And did I mention that he’s also a most esteemed backer of the UHK?

Jan got me up to speed in no time. As it turned out, Teensyduino is not the best foundation for a serious firmware application. It’s nice for prototyping purposes but NXP’s sophisticated Kinetis SDK is a much better platform for this purpose.

Unfortunately, the MK20DX256VLH7 processor that we originally planned to use is not a good choice because KSDK won’t ever target it. As crazy as it might seem, there’s a more powerful, fully supported, and cheaper alternative on the market: the MK22FN512VLH12.

How powerful and cheap, you ask? Let’s compare!

Processor name	ATmega32U4	MK20DX256VLH7	MK22FN512VLH12
Processor core	AVR8	ARM Cortex-M4	ARM Cortex-M4
Rated speed	16	72	120	Mhz
Flash memory	32	256	512	kbytes
RAM	2.5	64	128	kbytes
Price	3.6	4.55	4.04	US Dollars

Mind blown. Twice the power for less price? I’ll take that on any day of the week!

Right now, there are a couple FRDM development boards on my table, one of which running our Kinetis firmware port which enumerates as a keyboard + mouse USB device. This is already looking great, and you can expect further major progress shortly, so the port is definitely within reach, and I’m happy taking this direction.

Agent is coming along nicely

Árpi is on a mission to make Agent the most beautiful keyboard configurator application ever crafted. He never ceases to amaze me as he massively cleans up the UI of my original mockup while keeping the original functionality intact. This is the most up-to-date screenshot of Agent:

You’re welcome to check out Agent in the browser. Please note that there’s only a minimal UX code behind the UI, but it should give you a good idea about the final interface.

Thanks for reading, and talk to you on 2016-03-17!

Agent is coming together, looking for a firmware developer!

László Monda
2016-01-14

A month ago in our previous newsletter we promised to send you an update on the post-campaign happenings on January 14th, so here it is! There is a lot of ground to cover, so fasten your seatbelts and we’ll get right to it!

Extra keyboard cases & keycap sets are for sale

Some of you contacted us to purchase extra keycap sets and cases, and we’ve been very much willing to serve your needs, so why not offer them as extra perks? You’re welcome to purchase them on our campaign page.

Meet Agent, the configuration application for the UHK

We’re proud to show you the first screenshot of Agent, our cross-platform configuration application. It’s being developed by Árpi, a new developer of ours. Please keep reading for more.

The mechanical design is being finalized

András is hard at work finalizing the mechanical design of the keyboard case. Mold making is by far the most time consuming task of the manufacturing process, so it’s supremely important we start as quickly as possible in order to deliver on time.

We’ve already struck a deal with the manufacturing firm for the injection molding tool for the plastic case and the cutting tool for the steel plates, and we’re in the process of discussing relevant design issues with them. Sourcing of the raw material for the steel guides is also in progress - from a well-esteemed Austrian company.

From the very beginning, we’ve been mindful to design the UHK for manufacturing, but there are some details yet to be finalized. One such detail is the connection between the two halves and the modules.

Originally, we used a battery connector because it was easier to use an off-the-shelf part - but later we figured out a much better way: dedicated pogo pins. This is a more robust and better looking solution than the battery connector. The 6P4C connector was also replaced by a 4P4C connector and its wiring has been reversed. This way a standard telephone cable can be used to interconnect the two keyboard halves.

There are a couple of details like the above, and András is rapidly moving forward to address them, so that we can submit the CAD files to manufacturing as soon as possible.

Two developers have joined to our ranks

Back in August we were contacted by Árpád Csányi, who expressed interest in the UHK. Fast-forward to November, and we managed to meet in person over a couple of beers after I gave a talk on the UHK in Szeged, Hungary. It was apparent that he was interested in the project, but I wouldn’t have thought in my wildest dreams that he’d end up being the front-end developer of Agent, our configuration application! Árpi is not only a powerhouse of UI/UX ideas, but he’s very much willing and able to implement them.

After I created some mockups of Agent he quickly followed up to present his ideas and improvements. He then started to write HTML and CSS to make the mockups go alive! We’re making rapid progress and are aiming to freeze the UI/UX specification of Agent by the end of January.

Please note that these mockups are a work in progress but you’re welcome to add your suggestions to the docs. Don’t forget to uncheck the View -> Print layout option in Google Docs or else some pictures will be cropped.

Right after open-sourcing our design a, mysterious GitHub user started contributing to our electronics repo. Say hi to Mr. Spencer Owen, who is very much into devops and using his rad skills, he set up a visual diff mechanism in our electronics repo, so that now we can actually see the changes of the circuit boards that get modified by contributors. This is very much needed because unlike plaintext files, circuit boards can’t be diffed in the traditional way.

Right now Spencer is working on making the PCB compatible with Matias switches. Due to the lack of compatible keycaps, this doesn’t mean that we’ll be able to provide Matias switches from the get go, but we’re trying to future-proof the PCB so that the opportunity will be there, and eventually we can make it happen.

Moving to ARM, and looking for a firmware developer

It’s been a pleasure and privilege to work with Árpi and Spencer and I’m very much looking forward to further expand our team. It may surprise you, but we’re not actually primarily looking for an AVR developer. We’re looking for an ARM Cortex-M4 developer! Why’s that? Let’s consider the following table:

Processor name	ATmega32U4	MK20DX256VLH7	Units
Processor core	AVR8	ARM Cortex-M4
Rated speed	16	72	Mhz
Flash memory	32	256	kbytes
RAM	2.5	64	kbytes
Price	3.6	4.55	US Dollars

The above numbers are pretty telling. The ARM processor costs only a buck more than the AVR but it’s about 10 times more powerful! The plan is to replace the AVR on the right keyboard half with ARM, and keep using AVRs in the left keyboard half and in the modules - which don’t need as many resources as the right half.

We could possibly stick to the ATmega32U4 and implement the planned feature set, but the available 2.5 RAM is very tight. It’d require us to always think about how to not exceed memory and vastly optimize the firmware for memory consumption. This would slow down development and wouldn’t give us room to implement more sophisticated features later on. Bulkier AVRs are moderately more powerful and considerably more expensive, so I truly believe that ARM is the way forward.

It’s also very important to note that the MK20DX256VLH7 is not just another ARM microcontroller, but the brain of the Teensy 3.1 and 3.2 development boards. This is great news because there’s a huge amount of support available out there!

Are you familiar with the Teensy 3 platform, or do you know somebody who is? Do you enjoy the thrill of Open Source? Would you love to work on a one-of-a-kind mechanical keyboard, and help push innovation further? If so, we’d love to have you on our team!

What’s next?

We’re making rapid progress on multiple fronts, but there’s still a lot to do! We plan to finalize the UI/UX specification of Agent by the end of January. I’m sure that we’ll have a lot to talk about in our upcoming updates.

Thanks for reading, and talk to you soon - on February 18th!

123% Funded! Now the real work begins.

László Monda
2015-12-16

After 2 months of running the campaign, it came to an end on Monday with $246,510 raised - What a crazy ride it has been!

As it turns out, you’re super smart folks and gave us loads of awesome feedback. This is very valuable because it will make the UHK better. Much appreciated, everybody!

Preorders are available

Even though the campaign is over, it doesn’t mean that people won’t be able to purchase UHKs! We’ve just entered into the pre-order phase. The current deals are still very good compared to our final retail price that will come into effect after shipping the crowdfunding orders, so you’re welcome to spread the word about this opportunity while it’s available.

Choose your case color

For those of you who ordered before colored cases became available, now is the time to make your choice! If you’d like a black case, there’s no need to do anything. If you’d like a different color, you can change it via this poll.

Going forward

András and I are finally be able to put our engineer hats on. We’ll have to further refine the design to make it ready for manufacturing, then get the tooling done and actually manufacture the goods.

András will be busy with the mechanical design, dealing with manufacturers and personally overseeing the mold making process. I’ll have to focus on the electronics, firmware and host-side software. But rather than implementing everything alone, I’m more than willing to delegate - possibly to you! I’ll talk more about this in our upcoming update.

Speaking of updates, from this point on we’ll be sending out monthly updates on our progress around the middle of each month. The next update will go out on 2016-01-14.

Exciting times ahead!