I have the latest Gen 2 FW13 keyboard in black US English. It came as part of my FW13 AMD AI 300 Series laptop.
I’m considering buying the Clear ANSI keyboard both to use as a daily driver and also to tinker with the possibility of making it QMK-compatible.
The Gen 1 model is in stock and $10 off right now, but the Gen 2 is not available yet.
For those of you who happen to have both the Gen 1 and Gen 2, is there a noticeable difference/improvement with the Gen 2? How big of an improvement? (In other words, is it worth paying more for and waiting who-knows-how-long for?)
The Gen 2 keyboard is claimed to have moved from metal to plastic for the keys and also it has some new artwork. Changing to plastic keys supposedly will help reduce noise.
As @Scott_H said, there are only 2 changes in FWL13 gen 2 keyboards, from what I recall. Minor changes to the artwork / legends on the keycaps. And a switch from using a metal part within the key mechanism (of larger keys only) to a plastic part. Framework said this was done because it was found that the metal piece could vibrate in a way to make some noise when the volume of the laptop’s in-built speakers was turned up high. If this hasn’t been a noticeable problem for you, I’d suggest saving money with the gen 1.
Ohhh, I’d love to see that!
I’ve thought about creating an add-on board to switch the FWL13 keyboard to QMK, but I don’t have a keyboard to prototype on. And I also don’t actually have a need for a QMK FWL13 keyboard. So a little hard to justify spening the time on it
Yeah, it’s not really useful to me either, haha. Without the ortholinear layout, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to actually rearrange keys using QMK. The only value-add to me of QMK with the staggered layout would be to gimp the Airplane Mode key and stack layers on top of some keys.
That said, I like learning, and I’ve never prototyped a flexible PCB before, so there is value in learning how to do that… My bet though is that it’ll be so expensive that the project dies in the middle. Come to think of it, I should scout out the price of a small run of flexible PCBs first before doing anything at all…
UPDATE: I just found a Kickstarter for a flexible RP2040 Pico clone for about $20. Presumably, I could get one, remove the USB C connector, and see if it can fit anywhere inside the Framework 13. (Yeah, I could do this by calculations given the thickness of the RP2040 chip itself plus the flexible PCB, but I could also buy this and immediately start prototyping by soldering thin wires.
For those in the USA, oshpark is convenient for prototype PCBs. They offer 0.8mm thick boards, same price as standard 1.6. And they also have kapton / polyimide flex pcb, though rather than coverlay they use soldermask. If you want a board made with less effort, it’s a big upside. No need to learn to work with coverlays. Of course, it’s a negative if you wanted to do them. docs.oshpark.com/services/flex. Osh stencils being a US option for solderpaste stencils. That is, if you don’t need or want PCB assembly.
I hadn’t run into that kickstarter flex RP2040 Pico before. I hope it does well enough to prompt more ultra-thin rp2040 boards. Only ones I’ve run into are the picofly /hwfly / mcfly type boards. But those only break out a few io pins, since they are really just intended for game console modding.
Hmm, if you don’t mind soldering to little pads, plus sticking the board where ever there is room, and running wires over, then maybe you could use one of the tiny (but not flex-pcb-thin) rp2040 boards. The ones often sold under the name “Core A” are the smallest and no USB connector to desolder. But, of it’s 28 gpio, 8 have nearly microscopic pads. aliexpress.us/item/3256807201670760.html. The black rp2040 “supermini” has more reasonable pads for it’s extra pins. Those are 1.27mm pitch. Has usb pads if you need to remove the type-c connector. aliexpress.us/item/3256808384841433.html. It looks like Aliexpress is listing the added “tarrifs” / tax if you set your location to USA.
