***For the Brand New Beam Spring Project launch information, please see a couple posts before this one for details. As a reminder we are waiting to go through the new Model F keyboard backlog before the Brand New Beam Spring Project starts shipping, expected early next year.
***If you have a new shipping address please do email me to let me know your order numbers and the new address. Check your order email and our email communications (if applicable) to make sure the latest address I have on file for you is the correct one.
Project status summary – what has been going on lately, when is my keyboard shipping, etc.:
This section is nearly the same as other recent updates: For those who have not been following recent updates and frequent postings over on the Deskthority and geekhack project threads, I will note that there is still time to customize and order your Brand New Model F Keyboard and/or add on to your order with any accessories like the First Aid Kit for future repairs, solenoids and solenoid drivers, extra key sets, new production transparent relegendable keycaps (just introduced!), inner foam, extra flippers/springs, Model F key pullers, custom made 3 meter USB cables compatible with these keyboards, and other parts. Also I will note that the keyboards have started shipping – it does not mean that your keyboard will be shipping right away! There is still a ways to go to get everyone’s keyboard out.
To add accessories to an order that hasn’t shipped yet, you can choose (when placing a new order) the free/other shipping method, immediately before clicking Place Order. This way you can save on shipping – big savings especially for international shipping. However if in the US and if you can pay the shipping charge, please do so to help defray the significant project cost overruns.
Regarding the shipping notification emails, everyone receives one as soon as your order ships.
There are not many new updates in the past month – the main focus is on continuing to mail out the keyboards and key sets, which will continue over the coming months until everything has been mailed out. Please review the prior updates below for other recent updates.
I thank everyone for their patience as I become the final bottleneck of the project, QCing and mailing out each order. I expect to continue mailing out orders for the rest of this year into early next year, so please refrain from asking me when your keyboard or key set will ship as I cannot estimate where any one order is in the queue.
Split shipments of the keys started going out this month:
For approximately one year (2020 to early 2021) there was the split shipping option, where you could get your in stock keyboard early without the included printed keys and use existing Model F or Model M keys while waiting for the new production dye sublimated keys to be ready (the first batch started shipping earlier this year). This helped folks get their keyboards earlier to start using them, as well as helped me get keyboards out early while I had some downtime, so that there would be less of a backlog once the keys were ready. Of course many keyboards with unprinted key sets also went out at that time, when their spot in the queue came up.
After testing and mailing out a whole lot of keyboards in recent months, this month I switched gears to start mailing out the “all in stock” split shipping key sets. If you ordered a key set that is not yet in stock (example: international language sets, custom extra keys, front printed keys, Industrial SSK 12 key set, etc.) then you still have to wait for everything to be in stock before the remaining items in your orders can ship. First up in the priority is all of the “all in stock” low serial project supporters, and then the “all in stock” remaining sets after that.
Once again I will note that I am incredibly appreciative of the patient community of Model F fans who have been waiting for this last piece of the puzzle, a “key” part of the project (pun intended!), to finish and who support the project’s philosophy of high quality standards even at the expense of delays. Without such a patient community, this project could have easily gone in another direction. Brand New Model F Keyboards started shipping in December 2019 and will continue shipping throughout the rest of this year into early next year, so do not be alarmed if your keyboard has not yet shipped; I haven’t forgotten about anyone! Please do read the previous posts for more details about the challenges and scary parts (!) of the journey so you can see the reasons behind the past delays and bottlenecks that held things up.
Remaining key sets to be produced; sharing another nice customer image:
The factory is still working on the international sets and extra keys. This year Zed and I have been reviewing and approving the sets as photos of the sample sets have been sent to me by the factory. Most of the international sets have been approved as of this point in time but the factory still needs to work on the Front Printed key sets and all the various Extra Keys, which have always been the last priority, after the main sets, HHKB sets, and Mac sets are all completed.
I would like to share (with permission) another nice customer image of the Off-White/Beige and Industrial Gray F77 keyboards with the key color combinations blue/pearl and 60% Dark Gray / Blue / Black.
“Split split” shipping – a limited option:
The remaining key sets are expected to be completed in the next 1-2 months: international sets, front printed sets (including Industrial SSK 12 key set), and all the various Extra Keys. There have been some requests for “split split” shipping for those who want the new Model F key sets but whose orders are not yet “all in stock” (for example, if they ordered any of the above-mentioned sets). Previously everything had to be all in stock to ship but I am now opening up a limited window for those who prefer not to wait any longer and are fine with an additional shipping cost. Again I recommend that everyone waits if possible so that there is no additional cost. For the split split option please order 10 additional units of the store item $1 increments for US shipping addresses and 20 units for international addresses, and choose free/other shipping at checkout, right before clicking Place Order. This would be something to consider if you ordered a US key set (in pearl/pebble, blue, or dark gray), HHKB 6 key set, Mac 6 key set, DVORAK or COLEMAK 4 key set (different keys nubbed for the home row), or UK set.
Of course this option doesn’t let you jump the queue and expedite me mailing your keyboard if it has not been mailed already – this limited option is only for those who want keys and maybe some in stock accessories shipped ahead of time (first aid kits, solenoids, extra USB cables, barrels, flippers, springs, etc.). This option is subject to stock availability.
xwhatsit controller update:
Is anyone interested in helping to update the xwhatsit controller to add support for 3 LED lights and a solenoid driver at the same time?
This was brought up as a suggestion now that the Brand New Beam Spring Keyboards have 3 LEDs and some people also want a solenoid. Currently xwhatsit’s header limits you to two LED lock lights if you also want to use a solenoid. This of course won’t be for the first round of already-produced beam spring keyboards but will be available for the next round. Sorry Scroll Lock LED with solenoid!
The plan is to make the controller slightly wider, add 3 pins to the right side, and move most of the components rightward while keeping the ribbon cable positions, two ground pads, and USB connector exactly where they are now for backwards compatibility with the F77 and F62 keyboards.
That way the 6 pin xwhatsit header is unchanged and a spot for a 4 pin header is added to the left hand side of the controller. The 6 pin header would work the same as it does now, the new 4 pin header is for the LED expansion of existing boards, and the additional 3 ribbon cable positions are so that the next beam spring keyboards’ LEDs can be attached directly through the ribbon cable and traces on the large capacative PCB instead of by wires as IBM did with the PC AT keyboard. So the boards will support both the future beam board LEDs connected by extra pins on the ribbon cable (totaling 33 positions) as well as the expansion header for existing 30 position boards. There is of course some experimentation needed – will the LED traces interfere with the capacitive sensing with all those traces at the top of the board?
Keeping clearances for the F62 and F77 bottom inner assembly plates and “arms” is also important. Photos of the installed controller: https://imgur.com/a/xaPg4Z0
Also for the new controller: I’ve been chatting with pandrew who suggests removing the “103” 745C101103JP chip and using the atmega’s internal pull up resistors. This would require a firmware update as well, since the pull up resistors are higher value than 10k.
Here’s a photo of the latest board with the smaller atmel chip: https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=11046&p=486306&hilit=connector#p486306
Attached is the latest wcass diptrace file of the xwhatsit controller. As with the xwhatsit, of course all derivations of xwhatsit’s work are GPL3 open source as well. (The gerber files are published in the project manual in case someone prefers to work in kicad or another program: https://www.modelfkeyboards.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/updated_PCB_files.zip and wcass published the gerber files on another thread last year)
xwhatsit latest controller: https://deskthority.net/download/file.php?id=70675
The “103” 10k resistor pack was removed as suggested by pandrew, and 5 10k resistors were added in their place (might be removed for the next revision). The updated file is attached. For the engineers out there, are there any errors? Hopefully the schematic has not changed by mistake if a line was connected incorrectly for example.
Any other xwhatsit PCB suggestions are of course welcome.
Also please do check out a nice summary of recent firmware developments and options, provided by Deskthority forum member NathanA: https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=11046&p=494296#p494296
If interested please do contact me and I can provide the latest files, just in case there were any changes.
Brand New Model F Trackpoint Mod!
Here is a great video and instructional post on someone’s trackpoint mod for their Brand New Model F keyboard:
3D scanned Brand New Model F Keyboard!
Deskthority member snacksthecat shared an interesting project of scanning and sharing a 3D scanned Brand New Model F Keyboard, as well as sharing a behind the scenes look at the project – please check out the two links below and feel free to download the 3D model on Sketchfab, with the links shared in the below posts.
https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?p=492868#p492868
https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?p=492930#p492930
Space bar installation notes:
Here is part of a recent Deskthority post discussing the art of space bar installation:
As a note I install and test each space bar on the keyboards that go out, but sometimes they require adjustment after the keyboards are bounced around in shipping – sometimes they are bounced so much that people have found the space bar separated from its keyboard barrel!
It’s a matter of slightly bending the space bar so it performs optimally. Definitely more of an art than a science. When the space bar gets stuck in my QC process, I usually take the wire with two hands, with the long part of the wire closest to my thumbs, and use both thumbs to very slightly push up the wire – I do this about 4-5 times but not too hard that the bend becomes noticeable. That way the wire is pushed out of the way enough of the metal stabilizer tabs so that there is a little room, maybe 0.5mm to 1mm. If they’re too close to the back of the metal tabs, the space bar wire can get in the way of normal operation. This will also make the space bar stabilizer wire ever so slightly wider in the two places where it connects to the space bar itself – this also helps adjust the looseness vs. tightness of the space bar while in operation. And as mentioned in the manual, the metal space bar tabs should not be pressed down so far that they cause the space bar to get stuck, nor should they be parallel to the top inner assembly plate, where they may get stuck on the end of the space bar.
As part of the initial install process, if keys are not clicking you may have to adjust the springs as shown in the QC secrets video. Sometimes the keyboard should be tapped gently or the springs pushed down gently by hand to make sure the springs move as low as possible from the perspective of the keyboard held vertically, space bar side up.