GT Flexa was super fun to work with. The numerals on Altar I are, as you can imagine, the widest and thinnest that Flexa would go! I also added a custom Egyptian "I", rather than the default "I" since it reads less like a lowercase "L".
As @yeutterg says below it is possible to self certify CE.
For prototyping the body, I initially 3d printed it, then moved to 1 off cnc milling. For this I mostly used Geomiq (geomiq.com), which farms it out to various countries (mostly china from what I can tell), then they make it and send it to you. I plan to have the case manufactured in the UK — I found contacts for this because I happen to work in the automotive industry in the UK currently. The most difficult part of the case will be anodising which will require a lot of trial and error.
For the plastics, they are all 3d printed for prototyping, and will be injection moulded in the UK for production.
PCBs are printed in China for prototyping. Not sure where the production PCBs will come from yet.
That's great! Thanks for the info, Geomiq looks brilliant.
If you could go into more detail on the CE self certification that would be awesome. How did you figure out what testing you need to perform on the product to complete the self certification? The biggest source of confusion for me is this aspect of it. Sure I can self certify that all is good, but how can I be certain that I am not missing something that will get me into legal trouble?
For my own project the biggest source of compliance is related to the ESP-32 that I am using (because of the WiFi/Bluetooth radio). Of course the boards I get from Amazon and Alibaba all have CE written on them, but how can I trust that? I read that the seller has to give CE certificates but they always seem to have a serial number that appears fake (there was some database that you can look them up in and they always fail to show up). I also read that putting together components that are all CE does not mean that the full product can be considered compliant. So in general it seems like a massive undertaking.
Some wifi/ble modules come pre-certified. The holyiot 18010 (nRF52840) on the prototype comes with FCC/RoHS certs from the factory, so at least the Bluetooth part is "guaranteed" to be conform, and everything else is so simple, it won't cause any relevant EMI either way (esp. not inside a metal shell).
In theory the board works with Linux, but it has not actually been tested. If it is tested with Linux and is confirmed working, I will specify that in the specs.
Thanks, I'm so happy you — and lots of others — like what I've been working on. It means a lot, it's very fulfilling.
I don't find the criticism demoralising. Quite the opposite, it means people are engaged, which I love. I tried to create a product with a strong design and as a result it's quite divisive. That's okay. Good, even.
I put this thing up on the internet and asked for peoples opinions... and that's what I got. Lots of opinions! Many of which are valid, and I will take back and work on.
At the end of the day the site got a lot of traffic, lots of people expressed interest in the product and I got lots of feedback. It's a win-win and I am very happy.
I love it, from what I see. I will definitely be an early buyer (US version...).
I wish we could all have a real conversation about key layouts, though. The layout with the less reachable left shift and right enter/return is just dumb. It's like putting the door lock control on the outside of your car door so you have to roll the window down to reach out and unlock the door. In place of where the door lock belongs, they put the hood release lever. Obviously that would be a really stupid design since we need to unlock the door much more than we need to open the hood. And that's how I feel about the tradeoffs between the US and US International layouts.
The tilda and backtick key is much less used than the shift key, so robbing reachable space from shift to put that less needed key is absurd. So is pushing squeezing the return key out of reach of the right pinky. Someone who was not a touch typist designed this, and they should be made to pay for the guaranteed loss in productivity that comes from using it.
Sorry for the rant. But really, I wish this could be resolved. It sucks that I cannot walk into an Apple store in Europe and get one with "good" US keyboard. (You can still order US layout in Europe.)
Like you I have issues with the iso layout, my dislike comes from the enter key. It’s a fundamental layout issue that trips me every time. Especially on Apple products, where the right side of the keyboard is brought in by .25/.5U, so that the descending portion of the enter key is stupidly narrow
> I tried to create a product with a strong design and as a result it's quite divisive
Respect you attitude! Keyboards specifically are a place where there's no one-size-fits-all product (especially among enthusiasts) and making bold choices is how we get drastic change
