Amiga 600 mechanical keyboard kits available

[aeberbach]

A few months ago I made an A1200 keyboard, and some people said "A600?" so here it is. This is a similar project using one circuit board, one 32-way socket, one ribbon cable, 78 Gateron Brown MX keyswitches, three stabilisers and one LED. I also designed 3D-printed parts to mount the keyboard and to make the available spacebar fit. Then I made some custom keycaps* where required using a cheap laser engraver and keys dipped in laser toner.


Like the A1200 project, once I clean things up a bit this will open source on Github, along with the 3D print files. For now I have some circuit boards and parts for sale. (Please note all figures are Australian dollars - that's about US$0.7, UKP0.52, EUR0.62.)

Base Option: Amiga 600 PCB with 3D printed mounting parts


This includes the PCB, double-sided on 3.2mm substrate, and three pieces of attached "rail" that makes the keyboard snap neatly into the A600's top case.
$40

Addition: 7U spacebar stabiliser assembly + two other stabilisers (for Tab and Enter keys)

I designed a unit to fit in the 8U spacebar position of the A600. It has stabilisers and correct wire 'U' for the 7U spacebar, as an 8U spacebar is very hard to get. To make it fit with no gaps it has 1/2U blank platforms either side of the bar.
$12

Addition: Molex 32-way socket and ribbon cable to connect the PCB to your A600.

The keyboard uses a 32-way socket with only circuits 1-30 in use. The ribbon cable has two conductors trimmed from one end so that it is a 30-way connector at the Amiga end and fits in exactly the same as the green membrane connector of the original.
$10

Addition: 78 Gateron Brown PCB-mount MX keyswitches


Soldered to the PCB for you. These are tactile but not clicky, you only feel the click. I only have this type and only enough for a few keyboards. Caps Lock LED fitted too.
$35

TL;DR: a fully assembled keyboard ready to plug in and attach keycaps to is AU$97.


Cost of shipping to places within Australia is AU$20. Cost of shipping elsewhere in the world is AU$38. Sorry the prices went up - I just got back from posting one and that's what it is costing!

To order please send a PM. I'll acknowledge here. Payment to be Paypal (friends & family) or you can add the fees.

If more people want keyboards than I have PCBs I will accept pre-orders and order more PCBs to send out, provided there are enough - ordering one PCB makes no sense. If that is the case I'll let people know the cutoff date and we'll see if we can get an order together. After that, you'll be able to get the PCB files and STL files to make your own.

*I am not supplying keycaps. There is too much choice! You can get a big set of caps from AliExpress for about US$35 that will fill all the spaces on your keyboard, but they won't have all the correct Amiga legends. Maybe you will need to buy some blanks in addition to a set that has the ISO Enter key. You can't buy a full Cherry MX Amiga set of keys anywhere right now as far as I know. If you must have a perfect keyboard that looks just like the ones Commodore made you should buy the Kipper2K keyboard from Amiga on the Lake.

[Heywood]

My A600 is in the middle of a rejuvenation spree and I need to think a bit more about whether I should put this down on my list of upgrades but I just wanted to say that "Hey this looks cool and it's great that you're offering this, well done"

[aeberbach]

Thanks! I'm really happy with this one. It has turned out possibly better than the A1200 using the thicker PCB substrate, and the stabiliser/blanking approach for the spacebar really worked. Makes me feel like getting out a text adventure...

[aeberbach]

You find find the KiCad project files, and the STL files to print the 3D parts in this Github repo. MIT License.

At this stage 1 keyboard is still available.