RGB Ruined My Life: MiRage Mechanical Keyboard Mk2

With hotswap Cherry AND Choc AND RGB AND e-paper!



The original MiRage modular mechanical keyboard had an incredible response - over 2000 people want to clack like Zack. I refocused on making the keyboard accessible to everyone, fix hardware mistakes, and make some improvements. Join my struggle to cram Cherry MX, Kailh Choc, RGB LED, epaper, and more into a single cutting-edge keyboard. It's got big problems, but opens up bigger possibilities. There will be a MiRage Mk3!

*SUPPORT THE CHANNEL!*

*JOIN THE COMMUNITY!*

Interference SFX from Partners in Rhyme

[mr_voron]

“Indie hardware development is an unrelenting bleak money pit” are the words that ring most true in my skull. Stay strong, and may your magic pixies never escape ✊🏻

[onedeadsaint]

boy, I really hope this project doesn't get cloned by some Chinese company before it's even finished. looks great though!

[TheMrR]

make it so that each individual key is the keyboard, and each key is on its own using magnets to stick together to form any shaped keyboard you want. I WANT MORE OPTIONS!

[GrayeWilliams]

Listening to Zack feels like someone has taken my ADHD inner monologue and weaponized it.

I mean this as the highest compliment.

[HisVirusness]

I think making the space for the display into a plugin module is definitely the way to go. It makes the keyboard infinitely more hackable and customizable.

[PommyDragon]

Looking forward to the Gridfinity mount that holds a full Mirage MK3 with all the additions. It’s the VoidStar Labs version of an MCU crossover event.

[TSyed-cb]

Y'know, you could counter the depth issue for the E-Ink panel by having a battery pack sit there and the panel itself sit on top of that with standoffs. This of course implies that you should totally make this wireless and the headache involved with that will surely be a fun time

[lolapplesauce]

ZACHHH FRIEDMAN! You can run the IO Expanders off of 5V as far as I know! I2C is a pull-down communication protocol, so all it detects communication through lows, not highs so this difference in voltage between the expander and the microprocessor won't matter.

but double check you won't end up as a Fried-man, man.

[thumbwarriordx]

Beware ordering the microcontrollers with lots of pins when building a custom keyboard.
You'll find yourself doing wacky crap like throwing in a trackpoint and an analog stick and 4 rotary encoders. Then you have to write the software to make 4 rotary encoders and an analog stick do something useful. Ew, desktop apps. Gross.

[drashna]

would love to see qmk support for this. (it supports rgb per key, without running the data line for rgb)

[ikeaforlife]

This video appeared to me like a mirage

[HipyoTech]

👀 I took a shot every time he said MiRage and I'm dead now

[randomentity]

I don't take enough time to appreciate how much time, work, and money Zack puts into this videos, with all the humor sprinkled throughout.
And of course also much appreciation to the lovely Patreons and their glorious usernames.

[lauradevries]

Amazing work! As a keybard enthusiast myself I will definitely try to buy one to costimuze monstrously.

However I would like to add that north facing LEDs/switches are generally not recomended because some very popular keycap profiles interfere with most chery style switches when northfacing.

[jcmkk]

If you make the center post hole a little bit larger and add a hole for the alignment pin, you could also support choc v2 switches. This will give folks the option to have a low profile switch with an MX keycap. The regular switch pins are in the same places as choc v1 switches, which means that they're compatible with the same hotswap sockets.

[nomadcrossfire]

You could switch from sata to rj45. It has 8 instead of 7, but that's just expandability for the future.

[aftabansari]

When will this be available. This seems like the most exciting keyboard I've ever seen. 60% 100% southpaw numpad dials touchscreen the possibilities are literally endless..

[DMusketeers]

Love seeing the progress on this Zack! Keep it up! I have never done a custom keyboard before, but I think this may sway me! The customizability is awesome!

[metanim]

Thanks so much for going into the code and the technical bugs!! It is really reassuring as someone starting in the tech field to see that just nothing works sometimes

[scottiewilkins]

Zack! - but your sponsor transition is no longer smooth like butter the moment you mention how smooth like butter it was!