Al Pantone

Great Wave Keyboard

Computer keyboard in an aluminum enclosure with art printed on the keys depicting the artwork 36 Views of Mount Fuji

The Great Wave Keyboard

Hand holding a computer keyboard enclosure made out of aluminum showing marks indicating it was made on a CNC mill

Solid milled aluminum enclosure

Computer keyboard taken apart to show a plate of switches on top and a placerholder PCB on the bottom

Laser cut switch plate and placeholder PCB

Computer keyboard keys featuring the artwork 36 Views of Mount Fuji

Custom designed UV printed keycaps on the printing jig

The Great Wave Keyboard

Not happy with existing keyboard options, I wanted to build my own from scratch. The Great Wave is a 65 percent keyboard inspired by the Bakeneko 60. It features an enclosure milled from billet aluminum, full RGB per-key lighting, a custom keycap set, and optional encoders and OLED screen.

I first designed the enclosure in Blender to get a feel for it and the key layout, then remade the model in Fusion for CAD and CAM. I milled the enclosure myself. I then designed the art for the keycaps by taking a piece from 36 Views of Mount Fuji and applying it as a mask to a custom key layout made from a KLE json file. The art alone is striking, but I took great care to not detract too much with the legends and other key decorations. I printed the design using a UV printer, which is not as durable as PBT, but has held up well so far. I had to design a jig for the printing process to align the keys through different passess of material.

I used the same json file to make a switch plate, and I am currently in the process of designing the PCB. So far, I'm really liking how it's turned out.