Alps Only - blocked 4x12 ortho = endgame

I love the short travel of the Kailh low-profile switches, but the lack of keycaps has its downsides. 

There was a set of Alps-compatible typewriter keycaps on r/mechmarket featuring doubleshot ABS modifiers and dye-subbed PBT alphas with English and Japanese characters. The color was amazing, so I picked them up. I need to make a board that was worthy of these keycaps, as well as placing them on proper switches.

In the end, I ended up with a blocked 4x12 design, omitting two bottom row switches on each side. This was done to accommodate the pro micro on the left, as well as a hidden Adafruit piezo speaker on the right. This corresponds to my preferred 5plit layout (same as the Minidox) with an additional two columns in the middle. Using QMK, I was able to program the piezo as a beeper and play the opening Contra theme when starting up.

Glamour shot

The Alps only board uses a 1.2 mm PCB switch plate, and is supported by two 1.6 mm PCB plate supports. This corresponds to the Alps specification; the spacing between the top of the switch and the PCB is 4.5 mm; 1.2 mm for the switch plate plus 3.2 mm from the dual 1.6 mm pcb support plates = 4.4 mm total. The 0.1 mm shortfall is minimal especially with the PCB screw holes being pads (for reference, 0.1 mm is the thickness of printer paper).

PCB bottom featuring Alps specifications and drawings. Courtesy of Deskthority wiki

The PCB support plates are connected using M2 x 3 mm stand-offs (3 mm OD), which had to be gently hammered in for a tight friction fit. M2 x 3 mm screws hold the everything together.

Switch plate + 2x support plates- the extra space above the switches are for diodes, bottom left is for the piezo

While this keyboard could support any version of Alps, including Matias and other clones, these keycaps got my favorite: Alps SKCM Orange. They sound glorious with this board.

The bottom row has two lock switches, one for a numpad, and the other for PS/2 mouse functionality.

Top view, with color-matched socketed pro micro

The piezo speaker is glued to the PCB, hidden under the Alps logo

The Alps Only board is endgame for me. It's the lowest possible profile for Alps switches, and is comfortable to use with stationary wrists flat on the desk. The 4 layers of PCB makes for a nicely weighted board, and the easily-accessible socketed pro micro is easy to replace. I'm not sure about the longevity of the piezo speaker, but this keyboard was designed to last.

After I finished this SKCM Orange keyboard, I also made an SKCL Green version and a linearized SKCM cream-dampened version, using Taihao and m3501 keycaps respectfully. However, this board is undoubtedly my favorite.

Gerber and QMK code is on github if you want to try it yourself, along with my other boards.