Portico Keyboard – Build Kit

Polycarbonate case colors

• Clear
• Smoke
• Terminal Green
• Mint
• Purple
• New: Black (also available separately)
  

Typing angle: 7 degrees

Plate

• Mounting style: Gasket-mounted, for a luxurious and cushioned typing feel
• Plate material: FR4
• Plate thickness: 1.5mm

PCB

• Hot swap – no soldering required. It's easy to insert and change switches.
• In-switch RGB and underglow. Note: these are not individually addressable.
  
• Compatible with VIA
• USB-C connection. Includes a starter black coil cable.

Stabilizers

• Screw-in, PCB-mounted stabilizers
• Housings: includes 5 sets
• Wires: includes four 2u wires, one 6.25u wire, and one 7u wire
• Made by C³Equalz
  

When you buy Portico, you'll get:

• Portico case (top and bottom pieces)
  
• PCB
  
• Plate
  
• Silicon dampening mat
  
• Felt dampening mat
  
• Standoffs
  
• Screws
• Stabilizers
  
• USB-C coiled cable
  
• Protective carrying case with matching zipper accents
  

Switches and keycaps are not included. You'll need to buy these separately.

Portico is a keyboard kit. You will have to assemble it yourself. You'll also need to buy separately:

• Switches (x67)
• Keycaps
  

Assembling a complete Portico keyboard will take around 60–90 minutes. See our written Build Guide, complete with photos, for a walkthrough of every step.

The default Portico layout can be adjusted in VIA Configurator.

You can adjust the RGB settings by holding down the Layer key (the key immediately to the right of the spacebar) and pressing:

• Q - On/off
  
• W - Mode
  
• E - Hue up
  
• R - Hue down
  
• T - Saturation up
  
• Y - Saturation down
  
• U - Brightness up
  
• I - Brightness down
  
• A - Speed up
  
• S - Speed down

See high-res layout image →

Is this easy to build for beginners?

Yes! We designed this specifically for folks who have never built a keyboard before. You have to be mindful of small parts like screws, and check that things work, but it’s a straight forward process that anyone can do. A brief summary of steps is:

1. Assemble and attach the stabilizers to the PCB.
2. Screw together the plate and the PCB.
3. Put this into the case, and screw it together,
4. Insert switches.
5. Put on keycaps.

And you’re done! You can get the full rundown in our Build Guide →

How do I configure the keymap?

Portico is compatible with VIA Configurator, which is an easy to use app. You click to change what keypresses do, and changes take place instantly—you don’t need to flash your keyboard to apply the changes.

Read more about using VIA Configurator →

In addition to this build kit, what else do I need to buy to build a complete keyboard?

You’ll need to buy switches and keycaps.

• Switches: Portico uses 67 switches and works with MX-style switches. We recommend buying 70+, so that you have a few extra in case a pin gets bent or you lose one. Unfortunately, we don’t currently have any switches in stock, but are expecting more to come in early 2021.
• Keycaps: Portico has a 65% keyboard layout. We have keycaps designed specifically to go with Portico, which contains all the keycaps you’ll need. Portico is compatible with most custom keycap sets, as it doesn’t feature any unusual key sizes. As always, take care to double check the keycaps you’re buying to ensure it would fit on the Portico layout!

This layout is missing keys! How do I type them?

You access the missing keys via another “layer” of keys. It's like typing numbers or symbols on your smartphone, or holding 'shift' on your keyboard to type capital letters.

For example, to type F1, you would press FN + 1. Pressing FN toggles the next layer so you can access more keys that aren’t on the default layer.

This can all be configured in VIA.