Keychron has what you’re looking for, and it’s wireless. I have 2 of their keyboards and they’re pretty good and an excellent value.
As for a Model M with a backlight, yea I don’t think that would work with the buckling spring… there’s just nowhere to put the light. My daily driver is currently a Unicomp New Model M and I just don’t think the shape of the board would make it easy to do this without sacrificing all that makes it what it is.
You won’t be sad about Colemak, but you don’t need half those keys
You may need to email them for support. Boardsource is making a lot of proprietary products and I don’t think there are going to be enough people here to answer questions about their interoperability with other components.
I recommend going to the Boardsource discord and asking there. A lot of what you’re asking is going to be specific advice for their products. The Unicorne case/PCB is brand new and I doubt a lot of people here have one.
I like it a lot. I practiced with the layout on a Lily58 and Corne, just subtract switches. It’s very comfortable.
Lol that’s how I ended up ordering PCBs from China.
First 36 key? Ballsy
Rather than pinky stagger, consider the pinky mod. I’ve done this on a Lily58 and Sofle (by removing switches), and eventually the PicaChoc came along: https://kbd.news/PicaChoc36-1853.html
LEDs are soldered to the circuit board. The switches then have a transparent channel that the LED shines through.