It sounds like this transformer had its center tap grounded and was the path to ground on one side of a ground loop as the geomagnetic field moved under pressure from a CME, inducing a common-mode current in the long-distance power line. A gas pipeline in an area of poor ground conductivity in Russia was also destroyed, it is said, resulting in 500 deaths.

One can protect against this phenomenon by use of common-mode breakers and perhaps even overheat breakers. The system will not stay up but nor will it be destroyed. This is a high-current rather than high-voltage phenomenon and thus the various methods used to dissipate lightning currents might not be effective.

Ooh. We'll have a look. Thanks!

Hi @dotdancohen, We're using Matias Quiet Click switches. We're definitely aware that different folks have different preferences and assuming we can make the numbers and logistics go, we hope to offer several other Matias Alps options including their louder variant.

The ÂTron isn't for sale. (Nor is the Fingerworks or any of the other weirder stuff.)

I'd love to hear/read more about the leather keycaps.

And yep, I've actually been documenting my prototypes on GH :)

Yep. It's not for everybody. This is the first thing we're making. If it goes well enough, we'll definitely be looking at a 'traditional' layout option.

Bamboo is certainly on the list of wood-like things we're considering.

We're not planning to make them PS/2 compatible out of the box, but we'd love firmware patches. (and or design help) to make them so. If you can do it with an Arduino Leonardo, you'll be able to do it with one of our Keyboards

Gruber said in another comment in 2012 that the reason why you can't get subsidies for the federal exchange is so that states will be encouraged to make their own exchange.

In March 1989 much of Quebec lost power for the same thing.

They lost power because the common-mode breakers tripped, not because their system was actually damaged.

Shenzhen was amazing. I need to spend more time there. But we need to get a little bit further with product design before I have a legitimate reason to go back.

We're planning to launch a crowdfunding campaign this fall. But we'd rather delay the campaign than launch something that we're not confident we can deliver and be proud of.

Initially, we intend to ship fully assembled & working keyboards. We believe pretty strongly that open hardware shouldn't require users to pick up a soldering iron. But we know that some folks _want_ a kit and we hope to get there eventually. If you're looking for something sort of like a Keyboardio keyboard in kit form, check out the ErgoDox on Massdrop: https://www.massdrop.com/buy/ergodox. (They require login before you can see things. It's unfortunate.)

There are definitely many awful MicroUSB ports out there, but there are also high-quality MicroUSB ports out there. The price difference between a cheap MicroUSB port and a high-end one is several orders of magnitude. As _specced_ they're supposed to be rated for more insertion cycles than MiniUSB.

We haven't made final component choices yet and this is something we're keenly aware of (and have debated internally). I'd be pissed if my keyboard's USB port failed. I'd be even more pissed if my customers' USB ports failed.

There are a few such sites, but http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/ is probably the most amazing of em.

That's correct. If you pop open a Maltron, there's a gorgeous web of fine copper wire. :)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/8413586842 is a photo my friend Mark took of my Maltron and Kinesis with the bottoms off.

The durability we're looking for is somewhere between aluminum and balsa.

For the contours we're going for, the mechanical engineers and product folks we've been working with have assured us that we couldn't get away with stamping. It's pretty much die casting or milling. The numbers we've been getting for die-cast tooling just don't work out for the scale of production run we're expecting. I'd love to be wrong about all this.

The interior "key plate" and the bottom plate of the enclosure will, of course, be stamped aluminum.

Black anodized isn't the look we're going for but yes, there are a number of things we could to to differentiate it while sticking with the aluminum.