U#024 – “I see the light!”

May 27, 2024

TL;DR –

Figma Creator Micros are shipping now
Nomad E are in final prototype stage
Nomad E production starts in June
Nomad E assembly and fulfillment begins in July/August
KNOB1 prototyping in June

Hello everyone👋

This update is coming later than usual as we are in the final stage of product development, which takes the longest due to the number of samples you need to run. This stage involves many rounds of prototyping and each round takes about 2 weeks to run and be reviewed – we’ve done 5 rounds of sampling soo… Thank you for patiently waiting for this update! If you would like to see more frequent smaller updates please follow our Instagram broadcast channel, as we post almost daily there.

Figma Creator Micro 📦🚀

We are fulfilling orders as fast as we can, and if you haven’t received your tracking you will soon we have about 1100 orders left to ship. We should be able to finish fulfilling the orders by the end of the week. To handle the increased volume of orders we needed to make some changes to our fulfillment operations, we had some glitches with the how labels were being purchased, which essentially halted fulfillment for a week – thanks for that, Canada Post… This has since been resolved, but was the reason why fulfillment was a little slow to start with.

Thank you for sharing your love for the FCM on social, feels really good seeing everyone enjoying the hard work we are/have put into this collab!

Nomad [E] ⚙️

Finally starting to see the light here! Boy this keyboard has been quite a bit harder to develop than initially anticipated. Good news is we have added a number of upgrades to show our commitment to the quality of the products we want to put out, and as a thank you for sticking with us through the ups and downs. We are doing our best to adhere to the ETAs, but at the end of the day we promised you a great product first and that’s what we intend on shipping.

With that said, here are some of the headline upgrades we made free of charge for all backers:

Top shell clear coat (UV) finish (makes the Atomic colorways look more transparent) – 200% increase from initial cost
PC to POM custom Gateron switches (smoother sounding, and factory lubed) – 150% increase from initial cost
Foam dampeners between PCB/plate and plate/bottom shell (better overall acoustics) – Entirely new addition

We are finally in the stage where we can start placing our final orders for production. For instance our custom switches have been paid for in full and are in production. Next will be the top shells as we finally have the look and feel we’ve been working towards (see below). The PCBs will follow shortly after as the final sample has been shipped to us, but we haven’t gotten it yet. We were told they would arrive before the end of the month.

Once all the components have been purchased/produced it will be time for assembly and packaging, which will occur during the month of July. In the interest of getting you your orders asap, we will be fulfilling the first batch of preorder directly from China, as this will save us from the month and a half boat ride they would normally need to take if we wanted to fulfill them from Canada. Once fulfilled from Shenzhen, China it will take 1-2 weeks to arrive at NA backers addresses.

Ok now onto the specific things we’ve been working on these last 2 months👇

Top Shells

Below you can see the latest samples of all the colorways with the new finish. This is what we will be putting into production after all the feedback we received from you guys.

Below are some more shots of the Atomic colorways, as this is where we spent the majority of our time/money trying to perfect the finish.

Left: first attempt, just PC, no coatings (very fine texture)

Middle: thin UV coat (still textured)

Right: thick UV (glass effect no texture) – final decision

Below you can see the update we made to the black bezel in the display area to hide the adhesive for the glass. On the left is the first attempt and on the right is the last attempt and what we will go to production with.

We now cast the silver inserts directly into the top shell during the molding process, instead of pressing them in by hand once they come out of the mold. This makes production faster and the finished product more durable.

Switches

For the switches we decided to upgrade to full POM as Gateron only announced them about 2 months ago, and they produce a better sound in our board compared to the custom switches we initially promised everyone. If you click here, you can hear a sound test of the switches as they will come from the factory. Looking below, you might also notice these switches have a lens in them which makes the LED behind the switches appear brighter without increasing the power draw of the keyboard.

All the switches are the old ones, expect for that one in the middle with the brightest LED – that is our new POM switch.

Below you can see the foam layers we will be adding to the build to improve the acoustics. Top image will be the foam that go between the plate and PCB, and the bottom image shows the foam that will go between the plate and the bottom shell.

Keycaps

We also fixed a type of “outline” issue that was being created during the dyesub process around any sharp corners.

Packaging

For our packaging, we hadn’t realized how complex we had gone with it (ie. we needed to make 3 molds to product this kind of biodegradable enclosure). Below you can see the the keyboard in orange along with the top, middle, and bottom paper pulp trays that will provide air cushions to your Nomad E during its transit.

Here we 3D printed the enclosure before getting the molds done to ensure a good fit. The video below is essentially the manufacturer telling us there is a tolerance issue between the keyboard, and the middle tray, which has since been resolved.

Ruler

Last but not least, we have the detachable ruler on the back, which we needed to redo the sample to make it a harder rubber. On the left you can see the latest sample, and on the right you can see the initial one – need I say more?😅

Firmware⚡

The firmware has been worked and reworked relentlessly to get the experience you see below. There are some small animation details needing to be added, but other than that it’s not only done, but we also added a mini on-board tutorial of how to use the display and dials. In a nutshell, hold the Fp button to toggle the widget functions, and when you aren’t holding Fp the dials and 4 macro buttons will default to whatever you’ve mapped them to.

Software (Input) 🎛️

Now that we’ve got a handle of the firmware, we started connecting everything so the front-end UI we built can interact with your keyboard. Below you can see us messing about in the UI.

Extras ⌨️

We’ve finalized the design and material choices of the included cable that will come with your Nomad E, and have paid for the tooling needed to make them like you see below (minus the logo detail on the housing, which is the tooling needing to be made). The main criteria we had for the cable was:

1. Make them aesthetic and quality (like a true custom cable)

2. Make it so they don’t kink

I’m happy to say we achieved both of these and will be moving forward with their production!

KNOB1 ⚙️

One of the nice things about the production of the KNOB1 is that it shares the same micro chip and configurator as the Nomad E uses. This means we won’t have to go creating totally new firmware and software. Below you can see we are using a gasket mounting system for this build – this will offer even better acoustics, and a bit more spring in the typing experience.