With compatibility for all kinds of stagger offsets as well as ortholienar PCB layouts, 3 USB cutouts on the face of the case and a wealth of testing, Therian should fit any 40% keyboard PCB you can find. With additional plates, you can build several versions and swap them out as you please to totally change up your typing experience.
Machined out of either Solid aluminium, polycarbonate or a mix of the two, the consumer has the option to spec out their board to fit their preferences. With an engraved brass weight in the base to keep the board planted on your desk and sorbothane gaskets to dampen typing vibration, this case feels premium
Therian puts an emphasis on the premium feel of the case. When development started, there were next to no high-end options for 40% form factor keyboards. This is a gap in the market that I set out to fill with Therian.
Every element of this case is designed to make it as quick to change up the typing feel or layout as quickly as possible. The base and top are secured with magnets, and the plate is suspended on sorbothane gaskets, making it fast and easy to chop and change.
This was one of the first self-led projects that I really sank my teeth into, and though it’s work from before my time at uni, I still think it’s some of the best I’ve done. The project as a whole did so much for me in terms of understanding the broader world of design as well as developing my workflow and various skills (3D Modelling, Networking, Marketing, etc.).
For a year or two in the lead-up to the weirdness that came with COVID, I had been spending a lot of my time and money speccing and building mechanical computer keyboards. I’ve got no idea where the appeal came from, but there was something about the process that really resonated with me. I suppose it’s kind of like design, where you start with a concept and research it (find components), develop it (check compatibility), get hands-on (assemble, solder it), test it, and then call it done. The end result always offered a rewarding sense of tactility that differed from board to board, depending on the switches and materials used in each build. Writing about it now sounds a bit odd, but it was fun at the time.
During my descent into the world of keyboard tinkering, I started to grow a following on various social media as I documented what I got up to. After a while, I was approached by someone asking that I merge my hobby with my technical skills and work with them to design a bespoke 40% keyboard case for a PCB they had. Ultimately this second party dissappeared off the face of the earth after the first month or two, but by then I was too invested so took the project on myself. The hope was to design the first ‘premium’ 40% keyboard case and incorporate as much compatability for different layouts and existing PCBs as possible. Now I just had to turn the thought into a product… and find people to help fund the process!
One of the core elements of this concept was the compatibility with as many different designers’ and manufacturers’ PCBs as possible. Given that 40% keyboards are a niche within an already very small niche, the process of getting any project off the ground takes the form of limited-run ‘groupbuys’. As a result of this, if you were to take any 2 different customers 40% boards, they’re likely to have come from totally different places and have a completely different layout of components, ports, etc. In order to make Therian fit this self-imposed criterion, I needed to test as many PCBs as I could get my hands on and design compatibility for all of them.
One element that proved difficult to design a single solution for was plate layout. the 2 main styles for any keyboard are staggered or ortholinear. There are a few different versions of staggered with slightly different offsets for certain keys; however, that can be addressed with wider slots without sacrificing too much rigidity in the plate. For ortho, though, as every key is in a different place, it would cause the plate to essentially just have one long strip between each row, which wouldn’t offer anywhere near enough support to use the board.
The following that I had started to build in the lead-up to starting this project continued to grow as I progressed through the process. As word spread about Therian, either from the posts and content I’d been making about it or word of mouth, my audience’s investment in the project grew with my own.
This growth served 2 purposes: firstly, it served as a great motivator to have other people eager to see how the project turned out, and secondly, it made for a great sounding board. Whenever there was a decision I was unsure about, I’d leave it to them to decide through a poll or survey, etc. As someone who loves to dwell on indecision, this was a lifesaver.
The first big change that I made to the overall structure/design was after the first 3D printed prototype was finished. Initially, the cable cutouts I’d made along the back of the case were all joined with a slimmer slit that created a void along the entirety of the rear of the case. While it served a purpose aesthetically, practically, it created a really odd flex profile and made me question the long-term strength/durability of the design. To remedy, I changed the opening to just be simple elliptical openings. It kept the aesthetic profile similar but added so much more stiffness.
I think the biggest revolution in the design of Therian came when the idea to use magnets and a ‘floating gasket’ system to assemble the case revealed itself. This would allow the user to totally change the look and feel of their keyboard quicker than any other case on the market, as well as create a smooth/supportive typing profile through the plate mounting system.
Coming home to a parcel wrapped in 3 or 4 rolls worth of tape and bright red plastic was probably the most excited I’d ever been about anything design-related up to that point and probably since. To open it up and find a ‘finished’ product that I had designed from start to finish, found a customer base, manufacturer and distribution network, was a really cool experience.
There were a few minor tweaks that would be needed before submitting a production run, but just minor things like a pocket for air to settle under the epoxy that held the magnets in place, perhaps tweaking the grit used for the pre-anodise sandblasting, adding threads to the holes in the base weight (how did I manage to miss that…).
Something I didn’t anticipate being quite so tricky was finding a manufacturer to produce the case once I’d finished designing it. Up to this point, everyone I’d encountered along this journey was more than willing to go above and beyond when it came to sharing tips, insight, mistakes they’d made and learned from. When it came to asking around about manufacturers, that totally changed. Every other designer, vendor, or hobbyist that I spoke to either hadn’t been privy to that information themselves or refused to share it. A bump, but by no means the end of the road.
Fast forward another couple of months, and I’d found some manufacturers that could provide the services I needed. A CNC Machinist for the aluminium and polycarbonate components, a shop in Germany that could cut gaskets from Sorbothane (a key material for the ‘floating gasket’ system), and a PCB designer based in Austria with a manufacturer in China. Things had all started to fall into place, and I finally managed to get a working prototype ordered.
There’s not much point in having a product if you don’t have a way to sell it, or people to sell it to…
Back to one of the nice parts of designing for the keyboard market, if you’re NOT asking about manufacturers, people tend to be pretty generous with their help. Given the structure of the market, most products are produced using “groupbuys”, meaning there’s typically not much burden on the vendor, which in turn makes them much more agreeable. They handle the postage of orders and take a consignment fee, and you do the rest. By the time the first CNC prototype arrived, I had Vendors arranged for the UK, Europe, Asia, and Oceania, with interested customers on each continent too!
The somewhat unfortunate end to this project was its move to the back burner, and sadly, it’s seemingly permanent residence there. As much as it irritates me to admit, toward the end of the project, after making almost all the arrangements for the final groupbuy prep, it came time to start university and along with that came all kinds of other projects and opportunities to focus on. The balancing of my coursework, social life, final arrangements and packaging design ended up being too much to juggle and still deliver at the level I wanted. So for now, Therian sits on its shelf in my childhood bedroom, gathering dust, but who knows, maybe one day it’ll come back to life.