We did not expect such a rush for this drop.... Vendor quoted us 100 units for this drop originally - we're working with them to see if we can reopen this asap.
Sorry about the confusion + thanks guys!
XiKThank you! Still a few questions though: What brand/type of hotswap sockets are these? And will the unassembled kit require soldering (or are the sockets pre-installed)?
wtoeThey are the same factory that made the XD, KBDfans if I recalled correctly - not sure if they all use the same "brand". But you can expect similar if not higher quality. The unassembled kit will require soldering --> I will confirm this info
XiKAlso (and I'm in on the drop either way, because I assume an XD75 plate will fit or can be made to fit) what kind of plate does it have? The photo looks like it might be a composite of some kind?
Just my two cents (regarding many other comments on this drop), the price on this drop is good enough that, while I also felt like there's not enough information in the description / photos to really know what's in the kit, it seemed worth the risk. Under $100 for everything but key caps? Even if I have to buy a plate or do some modifications, I'll come out all right.
e.l.bXD75 should fit, the plate is also aluminum in this one I believe...
Will double check the sample later after I locate it... lol things move fast at massdrop hq....>_<
XiK@ XiK Maybe i'm to dumb to see/understand?
" The unassembled kit will require soldering --> I will confirm this info "
What needs to be soldered going for the kit, leds, "holtites"?
Cheers
XiKKpreublic makes the XD series. Could we get a shot of the pcb and what needs to be soldered? A blow-up shot of the parts included in the kit would be great
Edit: other reports are coming in that it is kbdfans and xd was a mislabel
rockydbullthanks thanks
Got confirmation that the pcb is SMT, w/ Kailh hot swap sockets. No need to be soldered. Will look for the sample and take a pic of the plate as well.
rockydbullYeah, we're not sourcing these directly from KBDfans nor KRepublic. But straight from a related distributor that also produces the plates and cases for both parties (at least that's what I was told). Sorry to confuse you all, just trying to be as transparent as possible to what I know.
rockydbullAww thanks, I am confirming a few things on the plate. These unicorn/new items are always hard to get the best info on, we'll try to answer all the questions you guys may have.
XiK" These unicorn/new items are always hard to get the best info on ... "
What about, get the info first, once received, place the drop.
Hope this isn't to much logical thinking.
XiKSo since the "sold" counter on the product page is at 202 now, and the one on the mechkeys drop listing page is at 102, I assume that these are 200 devices in addition to the initial 100 devices, i.e. 300 devices overall, right?
XiKHighly appreciative of all of the follow-up information. Sorry to reiterate the same question over and over but could you clarify the following?
Is this: "Got confirmation that the pcb is SMT, w/ Kailh hot swap sockets. No need to be soldered."
...an update on this?: "The unassembled kit will require soldering --> I will confirm this info"
I ordered the assembled kit before this new information because I don't have soldering tools, but if the kit requires no soldering then I'd like to know so that I can change my order.
shadyincNo need to be smooth, she is used to my manners and kidding since day one.
Besides that, a few decades of age and couple of thousand miles inbetween, nothing to worry about.
But that smile on her face, thats what it is all about and worth it!
XiKAlways a pleasure. People often forget the second word right next to Massdrop on the top - Communities. That's what it is about - helping people make informed decisions and get good products along with enough information. :)
XiKCan you confirm if it is the same PCB with pre-soldered Kailh hot swap sockets for the kit and the preassembled version of the drop? I feel like that is still unclear given the discussions below in this thread.
datadanneEdit:
"Assembled" = put together at the factory
"Kit (-$20)" = you get to put it together at your home.
@XiK please confirm this once and for all. Hope it helps.
shadyincEven if we got the unassembled kit, I really hope we don't need to solder the hot swappable sockets. @XiK can you please clarify if we need to?
DesibiduSo to answer your question, you will have to solder hotswappable sockets if you buy Unassembled. At this point I am not sure if the PCB in unassembled kit will have physical points marked for soldering the hotswapple sockets.
As someone who has no clue or interaction with Drop Leader or Component Vendor, this is the closest to accurate answer I can provide you. :)
Clone7Actual query by rockydbull: "Kpreublic makes the XD series. Could we get a shot of the pcb and what needs to be soldered? A blow-up shot of the parts included in the kit would be great"
Her response: "Got confirmation that the pcb is SMT, w/ Kailh hot swap sockets. No need to be soldered."
Response to unassembled kit and soldering required is yet to come from @XiK. What I feel about unassembled kit is either of these three possibilities:
a) Unassembled: You just have to put the PCB, Top Plate, and Case together.
b) Assembled: Read to use out of the box.
Apologies for the confusion.
shadyincThose are possible indeed. There were many people claiming that unassembled kits came with the kailh sockets soldered on though.
Honestly, Massdrop should allow everyone who joined this drop to edit if they want assembled or kit AFTER they have confirmed this info.
shadyincI don't think XiK could have been referring to anything other than the kit. Obviously an assembled keyboard doesn't need to be soldered. That's not information anyone would be requesting, and as the previous poster mentioned, she said it in response to her previous post about the kit. You said yourself that everything is pre-soldered based on the pictures of the PCB that she posted. I don't know how anyone could take what's been said and interpret it to mean anything but option a).
ChinspikePeople are getting confused by the term "unassembled" and don't care reading full threads (because it can get tiring when the clock is ticking.)
ChinspikeTrue. I realised she posted that the PCB is SMT. So it's just two options - Let them put it together for you or you put it together yourself. That's it.
Note: Editing previous responses which might have lead for further confusion.
Clone7Agreed. MD should've provided a fine print between both options. Let's consider this - communicating with the manufacturers located in the East could take longer due to language and timezone barriers. Since MD is directly dealing with the manufacturers, I guess that should be cleared soon.
shadyinc" Yup. Both 16 rgb SMDs and Kailh Hotswappable sockets come pre-soldered. Clearly visible from the green PCB photo that @XiK posted."
Aw man... Before the drop ended I changed my order to the kit because I took this comment to mean that the kit would require no soldering, but I'm so confused now. Trying ask support to change my order to assembled because this is way too much guesswork.
techtreeAh sorry you missed the drop! :( The second batch sold out before the intended end date as well, we are going to fulfill these two batches (300 units). Hit the request button, we'll try to bring it back as soon as we can.
XiKHi, I'm the PCB designer and manufacturer of XD series. Just would like to clarify that: I never use same manufacturer with other brand. Any further questions please contact me via xiudi@outlook.com freely.
Thanks.
XiKHi Xik, received mine yesterday and put it together, so far so good. Any chance we can get a copy of the default firmware and keymap posted somewhere so we can start customizing our layouts?
Thanks!
XiKI may be mistaken but on Reddit XiuDi said that they were the designer of the XD75 and this is not the same board. The reason we are asking for the stock firmware is the XD75 firmware that is already available online doesn't map correctly to this PCB and without a proper stock firmware people's keyboards are bricked...
ElijahdprophetThe fact that this doesn't run the stock XD75 firmware is *very* disappointing. I will not be able to use this board without being able to build a good qmk for it, so I hope the vendor replies soon. (Particularly as the original drop was notified to me because I had requested the XD75 in a poll, and also said it runs qmk!)
e.l.bI was able to reset the board it and QMK Toolkit recognizes it as a DFU flashable device, but without the right pinouts anything people are flashing to it becomes a janky mess. The ATmega32U4 only has so many pins, I'm tempted to start trial and error flashing it to figure out rows and columns, but since it has integrated lighting I have no idea if it could cause permanent damage if I goof too hard with the settings.
Elijahdprophet@Elijahdprophet I am sure you have already looked at the zip file from the XD75 webpage on KPRepublic, yes? (https://kprepublic.com/products/xd75re-xd75am-xd75-xiudi-60-custom-keyboard-pcb) I did, and it includes "How to Flash" instructions, but they seem to be a bit of a corn-maze at it first glance. Do you have any comments regarding those instructions? As a side note, I used keyboardtester.com to see what the key layout is at default and it has a few 'discrepancies' to put it lightly, such as; more than one "Z" and random "3", "4", and "5". This is all disconcerting concerning the fact that this board was advertised as "QMK compatible". Of course I have also attempted to get use the QMK Toolbox to flash, but I am having an issue with the Configurator, as it cannot Compile the .hex file(s). I am a bit at a loss right now, and sad. What do you think I should do @XiK@xiudi ?
KeeblurThe problem is that this is NOT an XD75 board. Its similar in layout and shares some design aspects, but any XD75 firmware that is flashed to it leads to inconsistent keymapping.
I've seen the same issue with the default keymap as well, and without a proper pinout to work from nothing can be flashed to it. I may take line into the office today and try to reverse engineer a pinout, but I shouldn't NEED to do that, the thing should have been shipped with a working default firmware.
XiKWhy is Massdrop even selling products with non-existent documentation and details? Aside from the price, this drop has felt underwhelmed from start to finish. The flimsy plate only adds physical evidence to the poor experience.
ElijahdprophetJust heard back - see below:
*Works on Firebox, Chrome, and Opera, Explorer:
1)Please use this site: http://qmkeyboard.cn/.
2) Select below:
XiKThank you! That keymap looks like the default mapping we are seeing with the boards, and the pinouts are definitely different from the firmwares people have tried flashing. Hopefully I can give this a try tonight after work, or someone else on here can test it out before me.
XiKThis is great, and I'm glad that the pins are changed compared to the xd75. If this mapping is correct then the backlight pin is on hardware PWM finally.
XiKUnfortunately, the "Download .zip" link for the source does not work on that site. Can you get the vendor to release a qmk source package for the keyboard, or at least the relevant files?
ElijahdprophetNice, I didn't try the pins tab! I have qmk here, I use it for a Preonic, I'll try to create a layout.
Massdrop is required by the terms of the GPL to provide us the source for the firmware that's on the board they sent, of course.
HydromoverPerusing this source and the qmk upstream (pulled from git today), it looks like this is just plain a new design. I can't find any keyboard in the qmk sources with a substantially similar matrix configuration or backlight setup.
Still, with the mappings, all things are possible. :-)
HydromoverI can flash the board, i've currently got it working, just haven't decided on all the keys to assign, layers, etc.. I shared my JSON above which can be uploaded to kbfirmware to compile a hex that flashes with qmktoolkit no problem.
e.l.bI was able to compile the sources above against today's qmk (which is more than a year newer!) with minor changes. The diff is here:
https://gist.github.com/eblanton/f5c0c9371637eb6c0155b37fe0b9098a
I can't test it yet, my keyboard is en route, but 'make md75:elb' builds a .hex file. The autoconfigurator sources don't do anything at all with the backlight or LEDs, so neither does this build. Once I have the board in hand, I'll look at that.
e.l.bThe configurator does set port B7 for backlight and F0 for underglow, as well as setting the number of RGB LEDs to 16. I imagine all that should work fine as long as you have keys mapped to enable them and set the appropriate rules in your own build.
ElijahdprophetI'm going to try and convert over the xd75 default so our board can be added to the qmk GitHub. I want to have the variables match so any of the xd75 layous can be easily transfered
superuser41Yes, it sets those things, but its bindings do nothing with them. (You can turn the backlight on and off, but that's it.) It also doesn't define things like where the addressable RGB LEDs are on the board (although it does define that they exist). Once I get the board and play with it, I can give meaningful names to these things and define reasonable default behaviors. Like turning it all off, because glowing keyboards are stupid. ;-)
HydromoverI think you could copy and paste an XD75 layout into the setup I linked above, and it would work. The XD75 defines some extra LED behaviors that I haven't looked at yet, but the layouts should be compatible (either using the full matrix, or the KEYBOARD() macro).
I don't quite understand the qmk layout well enough to figure out how to bind in the "generic" 5x15 layouts, though, without linking them into md75/keymaps, and the one I looked at was actualy 6x16 for some reason.
XiK@XiK and everyone, with the new information, I've opened a PR into QMK master, we should be able to use the QMK Configurator on this board shortly.
I've called the IDOBO just like qmkeyboard.cn
https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/tree/master/keyboards/idobo
Please let me know of any bugs you guys find. =)
Support on the QMK Configurator will come. https://config.qmk.fm/I think I need to have someone poke the bot that updates the Configurator. Fixed. https://config.qmk.fm/#/idobo/LAYOUT_ortho_5x15
I'm not sure the default keymap in the repo matches what ships on the board. If anyone can confirm/deny on that, reports are appreciated.
noroadsleft@noroadsleft@Hydromover Quick question, I realize I am a total amateur with all this QMK stuff but; With no reset button on the bottom of the board, how do I get the QMK Toolbox to notice register the board in preparation to flash my .hex?
HydromoverThis board does not work that way. I can't get my QMK Toolbox App to recognize when the board is plugged in. Any ideas? Could I take the PCB out of the case and use tweezers to reset the board?
KeeblurThere is a reset button on the bottom of the board, near the center. (Just to the left of the CPU.)
I was able to flash a custom firmware using the QMK head idobo board configuration, and all works as expected.
Edit: I should clarify that I used dfu-programmer on Linux, but I imagine the qmk tool should work, as well.
e.l.bOh man! I unscrewed the (2) case screws and there it was; the answer to all of life's woes in the form of a beautiful baby reset button. That allowed the QMK Toolbox to register it and I was successful in flashing my layout. Whoop whoop! Thanks @e.l.b and everyone else who has made this drop a success!
XiKi was just able to successfully flash the board with the default xd75 key map and have it work except the lighting. Has anyone had luck with the lighting?
KeeblurAgreed, for the price, I am well pleased. It's not as nice as an Atomic for sure, but it's also a) much cheaper, and b) actually for sale. I can't compare it directly to an XD75.
With a set of Jack Humbert's Acute keys, I foresee typing on this keyboard for many, many years to come.
Sorry about the confusion + thanks guys!