F1 Plateless w/ CEM-3 Galatea PCB
Considering the F1-8x v2 drops at the end of the month I thought I would made a post here for visibility since this particular topic has only been discussed sparsely and could be a source of issues for newcomers.
Here are some important stuff you should know about the plateless kit :
As the installation guide mentions, the kit was designed with the Fave87 and Galatea PCB in mind (Fuyu also works). However, NOT all Galatea are compatible !
First, there exist Galatea different from Geon's which are not really compatible, notably ApexKeyboard's and RNDKBD's. These two have the same compatibity issue as other PCBs with the A87 footprint; they include cutouts for gummy o-ring mount which are not completely incompatible but will require you to either use odd tab placements or do some additional modding.
Second, not all Geon's Galatea are compatible. This is probably obvious for most of you, but the 1.0 and 1.2mm Galatea are not compatible with the plateless F1 even though the store page implies they are. This holds for other PCBs as well. Even if I am sure you could make it work with some modding, the kit otherwise requires a 1.6mm PCB.
Lastly, even if it seems fine for most, some have reported difficulties or straight up incompatibility with the 1.6mm CEM-3 Galatea. It is because the tolerances for the installation are very tight and there is some variance in the thickness. You might end up with a PCB slightly too thick making it impossible or close to impossible to install. In that case, I recommend you to remove carefully the solder mask with some kind of blade where you want the tabs to go. See picture. It should remove enough thickness so that you can place the tab fully without damaging your thumbs or the PCB randomly. Try one side only and do the other if it is still too thick.
Best of luck,
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