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Boards

Thockfoot.

Our keyboard brand: circuit boards with art in the plate that shows between the keys, made by Squatch Stack.

Close over a keyboard circuit board: the black Trailcast plate on top, its white contour lines running between the square switch openings, with the green board, key lights and sockets showing throughRender

What it does

You pick the line and its art: Trailcast draws a place in contour lines, Sasqwerty hides a message in the letters, and any plate can carry a mark in gold, all around the real openings for the switches.

Who it’s for

People who build their own keyboards and want one nobody else has.

Why we built it

A keyboard is the thing you touch most all day, and the inside of one is usually plain green.

What we’re proud of

Every plate is drawn to the board’s real switch openings, so the art lands in the gaps you see, not under the keys.

Where it stands

Drawn, routed and checked. Not made yet.

Every picture here is a render of a real design file. Here is each part, and where it stands.

  1. The k60 circuit board at an angle: rows of hot-swap sockets and key lights, the radio module, and the walking mark in gold

    Routed and checked

    k60, our own test board

    A 60% board with USB-C and Bluetooth, a light under every key, a touch-sensing knob and hot-swap sockets, so switches go in without solder. It passes the factory’s design rules with nothing left unconnected, and its firmware types every key over a simulated radio. It is ours to test with, never sold.

  2. A close view of the Sasqwerty plate: white letters between the switch openings and a Morse key headed Read the gaps

    Three designs drawn

    The art plate

    A second board made the same way, 1.6 mm thick, with no circuit on it, so all of it can be art. It sits under the keycaps and shows between them every day. Thockfoot’s flagship plate carries the brand’s own design, and each Thockfoot line has a plate of its own: Trailcast and Sasqwerty so far.

  3. Part of the 65% board seen from above: rows of switch footprints and key lights, with the first traces between them

    Being routed

    A 65% board

    68 keys, for the 65% cases sold empty by many makers, with Bluetooth and USB-C. Its parts are placed, and the traces between them are being drawn.

  4. The walking mark printed in gold on the k60 board, beside the small chips of the touch knob

    Coming

    Your own plate

    Send a logo or name a place, and we draw it into your plate: your mark in gold or white, or your place in contour lines, with its name beside it.

Tell me when they’re ready

Your email opens with a note to us. A person reads every one.

How it works

What a board is made of.

  1. The circuit board: the switches, the light under each key, and the chip that talks to your computer.
  2. The plate: a second board made the same way, with nothing electrical on it, so every part of it can carry art.
  3. The art goes in gold, white and black, drawn around the real switch openings so it shows in the gaps.
  4. A clear case lets the art on both boards show through from the sides and below.

The plates

Thockfoot’s flagship plate, and one for each line.

Thockfoot’s flagship plate from above: each key’s name in white beside its opening, Walk soft. Type loud. in the space bar row, and a maker’s plate with the walking mark in gold
Thockfoot’s flagship plate, the brand’s own design: every key named beside its opening, a ruler along the top, and its title block with the walking mark where the space bar sits.
The Sasqwerty plate from above: rows of white letters between the openings, a Morse key, and Found you. beside the walking mark in gold
Sasqwerty, a Thockfoot line: rows of letters between the keys, with words hidden in them and a Morse key to find them.
The Trailcast plate from above: contour lines in white across the whole plate, with a coordinates plate and the walking mark
Trailcast, a Thockfoot line: the hills around Bluff Creek, California, in contour lines, with its coordinates on a plate.

Technologies used

What it’s built with.

More work

Keep looking.

Twelve circuit boards drawn from their design files, laid out in a gridMeasuredRenderInteractive

Twelve boards, zero design-rule errors.

Every board we have designed, checked by machine.

A green MVP-1 Rev B circuit board with a gold Squatch mark, bare and unassembled, resting on a laptop keyboardPhoto

MVP-1 Rev B, back from the factory.

Our guitar-pedal main board, still bare.

The input stage of a pedal schematic, drawn as a vector sheetMeasuredDrawing

Schematics match their boards, 10 of 10.

Sheets drawn so a person can read them.

All the work

Get in touch

Want something like this? Say hello.

A person reads every message.

Email [email protected]
Text us

Text us: +1 888-344-3607. You text first; we reply only in that conversation, about your question. No marketing. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out, HELP for help. SMS program

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