类型: IC
作者: R L
发布时间: 2020-07-22
13:31:34
更新时间: 2020-12-19 17:44:20
原链接:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=107646.0
Aaru
Tenkeyless Keyboard by Helix Lab
2020/12/20 Update5: International GB coming
soon (finally) we hope to launch before 2021.
Our
protos have been making their way to various test builders
around the globe.
You are welcome to
join us on discord
to find more.
I’ve updated the specs, and hid old
contents of this IC thread
(we’ve packed too much info
for one thread, need a separate IC for aaru pad soon.)
Thank
you for those who read our “build-log” along the way. Hope
we didn’t disappoint.
See you guys soon hopefully :
)
2020/7/23 Update0: Design Finalized,
testing for coating
2020/7/29 Update1 : added
photos for anodized black top and one that’s fresh off cnc.
Removed watermarks.
2020/8/25 Update2:
Color/finish testing nearly completed. (folded some
image for keeping the thread short
More
Few important things:
I: China gb is about to launch
(with in August). Full details/specs on options etc
will be disclosed on next update.
II: changed and
expanded specs based on feedback and suggestions gathered
across platforms.
confirmed changes are as follows
(spec page will be edited accordingly) :
A. default
configuration for pcb and plate now is solder and 1.5 mm in
aluminum
B. added 1.5mm aluminum plate option for
hotswap, 4mm become optional.
C. switched nearly all
orings needed in mounting to full sheet of rubber for easy
assembly.
D. Color scheme confirmed so far are (primary
colors only, full spec in next update):
Black, Milk
white, sand.
E. our collaborated sphinx themed artisan
arrow keys (shown below) made by TDY Keys will be among the
add-on option.
It is estimated to be priced around $160
per set of four. (made in brass, red, white copper and
silver)
There might be more changes to be decided.
and
a google forum survey coming up for wkl in next few days.
cancelled that and added wkl directly.
2020/9/13
Update3: China gb is live through taobao. (Ended on
OCT-18th-2020) International gb is expected to launch in
mid-to-late October
More
Important news:
-
prices are kept around $420. standard choices are:1
anodized black/ sand/ dark gold/ dark
green. Coated: White/Pink.
There’s a schrodinger wildcard option in the first 10 days of cn gb, and will be for international gb. - there’s a delay on testing samples to be shipped out around the world, due to confusions caused in productions because of too many updates and variations in short period of time.
-
wkl version is supported. no addition to gb price.
-
we added another 4 hrs of cnc to the hieroglyphs making it
fhd, no addition to gb price, more of that on discord
/#update channel.
-
made a plush for our official mascot linkolin-kun, aka
零口零君 the plush is about $10ish.
-
official collab wrist rest is out and is about $200.
-
concept render for aaru pad, still at early stage.
-
collaborated switch with ttc is out (tactile clicky)
wall of text detailed update log can be found on our /#update channel -> here
Thank you to those who kept bumping this thread and following us on discord. I means a lot to me and us, thank you!
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2020/10/23 Update 4: I’m sorry to say that there will be a short delay on our international launch due to various difficulties we didn’t anticipate.
We should be back on track soon, more info on discord.
Thank you for your patience.
More
Img above is one of the earliest aaru proto, saved here for
reference to show improvement and progression.
Hello all, I am R (aka 佛屠) of Helix Lab.
I was
registered here in 2012, and after eight long years of
dormancy, I’m doing my third post on gh (evidently welcoming
new users doesn’t count).
This IC would be my very
first thead on this Mecca of a site for keyboard
enthusiasts, and please excuse the length going on and on,
it’ll get better as my post count grows.
Aaru is the
first keyboard we designed. Inspiration of this design comes
from an amalgamation of many traits, among which the most
direct one being the game Assassin’s Creed Origin (ACO) I
played recently. I was thoroughly amazed by the views and
abundance of details of ancient Egypt that ACO has
recreated, and thought to myself wouldn’t it be nice to have
a keyboard that’s embossed with hieroglyphs like on walls or
steles or papyri.
(as it turns out, it would!)
Behind the Scenes
— tl;dr-starts—
Equipped
with this idea, we decided on the Rosetta Stone, a
trilingual stele whose decree holds significant importance
for the deciphering and understanding of hieroglyphs as a
language.
The stone itself, or what’s left of it,
resides in the British Museum(Room 4).
The decree is
said to be issued in 196 BC according to wikipedia (or 4
Xandikos in Macedonian calender or 18 Mekhir in Egyptian
calendar =March 27 196BC)
by a group of priests at
Memphis for the then young pharaoh Ptolemy V Epiphanes,
the
decree spends a good part establishing the young pharaoh’s
political legitimacy, how he rocks as a pharaoh and how he
was approved by the gods;
the script went on about
governance stuff like taxation, property rights etc, and
lastly commanded that a copy of this decree should be placed
in every temple.
This granodiorite stone is named after
the city it was first discovered, a port city in the Nile
Delta called Rosetta or Rashid.
Below is a picture of
what the stele would possibly look like reconstructed.
by
A.Parrot on wikipedia CC-BYy-SA 4.0 International
As aforementioned the stone is inscribed in three
languages, hieroglyphs, regarded as the language of the
gods; demotic, language of documents and common tongue; and
greek.
Since hieroglyphs and demotic had both been out
of commission around the 4th century AD, the rosetta stone
became a key source of reference for scholars who wish to
decipher hieroglyph and demotic scripts.
Given these
significance, it’s especially meaningful for us to
incorporate its scripture as our team’s debut, as well as
the first product of our planned “civilization” serie.
We
chose the famous eye of Horus (wadjet) for the weight design
and the moon phase around it to convey the
message”protection always”.
The name “Aaru” means the
field of reeds,a heaven-like place in Egyptian mythology for
those who led a righteous life. and of course, if you played
ACO dlc, you know where it is, it’s just divine.
The
entirety of the hieroglyphic embossment (and the entire
keyboard)on the keyboard are realized by hand tracing every
character by 二期工程 of Helix Lab.
In the effort to be
more relatively accurate, we consulted the following sources
for tracing material, character accuracy and alignment:
[However,
please note that although we strive to be accurate, we more
so wanted it to be aesthetically pleasing,
hence there
are characters swapped for cosmatic considerations. Things
we do for beauty : ( ]
Unicode list of hieroglyphs
compiled by Alan Gardiner (Gardiner’s Sign Lists)
‘The
Rosetta Stone in Hieroglyphics and Greek with translations,’
1871, Samuel Sharpe
‘Amarigna & Tigrigna Qal
Rosetta Stone’, 2014 ,Legesse Allyn
Interactive Rosetta
Stone Explorer by
Precision Computing
hieroglyphic transcription of the stone by
Jim Loy
The Digital Rosetta Stone Project’s visual alignment,
Dr. Monica Berti, Dr.Franziska Naether, Josephine Hensel,
Miriam Amin. University of Leipzig.
— tl;dr-ends—
Let’s Intoxicate Ourselves with some new photos
More
Image below is the campaign poster with CN contact
info, you are welcome to
join us on discord
or qq group on the poster if you know what that
is.
Image below is a render of matte black finish (powder
coating) key sets: hypothetical
Image below is a render of titanium grey finish
(anodized) key sets credit: GMK Matrix-01 by Matrix Lab
Image below is a render of glossy black finish
(anodized) key sets credit: GMK red samurai by Massdrop +
RedSuns
Image below is a render of matte red finish (unknown
until further testing) key sets: hypothetical.
Image below is a render of matte pink finish (unknown
until further testing) key sets credit: GMK Olivia++ by
Olivia
Image below is a photo for proof of concept, the
embossment prototyping right after milling and prior to
sandblasting, post processing
Below are more renders of exotic color schemes that
was done for testing purposes
Image below is the render of our hotswap pcb designed
by 環珊 of Helix Lab.
Image below is a close up render of the polycarbonate
bar for underglow and back plate with “Aaru” logo
Sidenote:
We wanted it to convey the “first civilization” vibe in the
back with the rather futuristic logo and RGB lighting.
(First
Civilization aka Isu: an ancient high-tech super human race
in Assassin’s Creed Universe)
Credits: All renders posted are made by
saligia and 二期工程 of Helix Lab
Note: Please feel free to contact me if you wish not to have
your work(s) appear in our renders.
Image above are proto of limited full brass edition
and rainbow proto as one of the schrodinger (random)
options
Image above is chrome coating out of schrodinger
options.
Specifications
IMPORTANT1: Please note that although we are at the final testing
phase, all things are still subject to change however
unlikely, the final description and options will be given in
the GB topic.
**Designs:**All related designs shown
have been finalized and prototyping done,
unlikely to
change changed and laughing at myself. but now it’s
really finalized.
Parts Included:
Top & bottom frame, plate, PCB, back bar, type-C plate,
underglow bar,
weight. [added some filling options]
Primary Material:
Aluminum alloy (6063-T5)
Secondary Material:
Polycarbonate for the underglow bar, (optional brass bar
sold as add-on)
Brass for weight.
Titanium
alloy(TC4) for type-C plate (the tiny red one in the first
image) [may subject to change]
type-c bar switched to
aluminum for it looks better and more uniform.
Color options:
E-white, Black, Sand, Dark gold, Pink, Dark green, plus
wildcard options (costs extra).
Firmware:
QMK, VIA compatible.
Mounting: Top
mount (possibly gummy compatible)
PCB Option:
1: Hotswap PCB with Kaih 1511 socket
per-key-rgb lighting (reverse mount, north facing)
2:
Solder PCB, single color per key led compatible. (south
facing)
Plate Option:
1:
1.5mm aluminum plate for hotswap or solder version pcb.
2:
4.0mm aluminum plate for hotswap only.
3:
two version(flex and very flex) of 1.5mm Carbon fiber plate
for both pcb versions
(optional brass for add-on too,
tbd)
Date: Estimated to be around
October Dec, 2020.
**Quantity:**Limited 1999 units,
about 1400 left after China gb.
Price:
Should start around $460470 (including payment platforms fees etc.)2.1kg assembled)
Lead time:
3.5 months after order placed,
but should figure in
extra time needed international shipping.
(China gb
orders should be fulfilled by batches starting soon)
WhereToBuy:
www.helix.site;
few additional fail-safe ways like taobao
**Shipping:**will
be shipped from ShenZhen, China. Estimated shipping about
$50.
Package spec: Estimated 410 mm
x 180 mm x 70 mm(h)
~2 kg packaged per unit. (
More
**Sidenote on shipping & pricing:**I’m based in the same
city with Fox Lab, who is also a good friend of mine for
many years. (I’ll ask him for help if I can’t figure out
shipping myself XD)
As the final configuration is not
set yet, the various finishing, packaging, fees charged by
payment platforms, currency fluctuation all might affect the
final price, We’are working to keep it around $420 for the
base price within CN (before shipping & tax), there will
be discrepancy for the said reasons, and we’ll do best to
keep the discrepancy as small as possible.
If you’re
familiar with cnc you’d know this design takes much more
time and much higher riskes for manufactoring defects,
keeping the cost down while maintaining high production
quality in a relatively fast speed is an understated
challenge as is.
For those requesting specific means
that would save additional charges imposed upon them by
their specific regions, we would also do our best to
accomodate.
Contact info: Discord:
discord.link/Helix
QQ Group: 942327559
More
I personally check discord & QQ group (and now this
topic) at least once everyday/* while other members of
the team are online constantly.
[/*this footnote
is added on update 2 of 8/25/2020: my words on
checking this thread everyday is kept very poorly, I
apologize for that, but I’ve maintained high availability on
discord]
Please feel free to leave your comment and
question below, or @ for a Helix Lab staff or admin on
discord/qq group.
We are a group of enthusiasts whose
passion are to make products people would love.
We hope
our work moves you, if not we hope our next one will. : )
Thank
you for your time and interest.
Credits and Gratitudes
I’d like to extend my deep gratitude to:
Mike Wu
and his team at
Kaihua Electronics(Kailh)
for thier hospitality, support and taking Helix Lab as their
official client.
Fox and Ramiel of Fox Lab for his
continuing help.
zh_phi
for his great help and knowledge on rgb lighting.
TTC
for our switch collaboration.
Kev NeonKid and Ogre for
their voluntary help of setting up and taking care of our
discord sever.
ai03 for his
tutorial
taught me how to make a keyboard pcb and ai03’s unified
daughterboard for the various protection mechanism.
community
members who helped reviewing my draft pcb schema at
pcb-design channel in
ai03 Design Studio: L0laapk3/#2010, NeuralSpaz/#9236,
plut0nium/#0838, 4pplet/#4574,
Maarten/#3065
and for all who supported me and
Helix Lab.
THANK YOU!
不尽感恩!
Helix Lab