Peripherals Mechanical Keyboards

Ooooh i like the look of that CapsUnlocked CU65; would go well with my custom 60%. As its hot swap, would it take any brand of switches, or would I need to go with the switches/brands they list? And can anyone elighten me as to what difference smokey vs clear stabilisers would give?

 

Good questions MG, I'd like to know as a mech keyboard ignoramus.

ATM I'm wondering about a full size board to use WFH, and keep my K65 TKL for LAN nights.

The K65 is nice to use, but a lack of numpad for work and daily use is quite restricting. Maybe I need to have a CU 65 as well, just for good measure!

 

I use a fullsize Ducky Shine 5 for my work daily driver, and have my home machine on the custom 60%, mainly to save space on the desk.
For typing the 60% is fine, it just becomes a bit awkward when you need to switch rapidly between letters, cursor keys, and other functions - hence why i like the idea of a 65% - just struggle to find a 65% in UK-ISO!

 

This was my thinking exactly. However I've literally just opened a box containing a ymdk numpad kit (from mechboards), plus the parts I need to try hand wiring a media/volume macropad like the Pikatea.

This only started a couple of months ago buying a gmmk compact to save desk space.

 

It should take any mechanical Cherry MX clone switch, which is almost all of them to be honest: obviously anything by Cherry, but also Kailh, Zeal, Gateron, Glorious, NovelKeys TKC, JWC, etc. etc.

I'm pretty sure the clear vs smokey is just about colour, they do a pink version too if you fancy it...

 

but you cant see the stabilisers, can you? they're what give the bigger keys their stability...!

 

Maybe, it depends on the combination of case and keycap to be honest, some boards have a floating key design that leave the top half of the switch and the stabilisers visible above the plate (at the edges anyway), and some people just like to colour co-ordinate these things even if they're not going to be seen. I think all my ones are clear but, to be honest, the colour of my switch casing/stabs is of very little interest to me as I don't spend my time looking at them. I'd rather they just worked well.

 

I just joined the mechanical keyboard club!

Anyone else got a Logitech Legion?

 

Looking at a Ducky Shine with MX blacks at the moment. Could use it as a daily driver and home gaming, as I'm not going anywhere soon

 

Good choice i have had the 5 for a good while now and i've got no complaints

 

Thanks for the recommendation @MadGinga, let's see how things play out on eBay in the next couple of days.

 

No probs; just looked back at the when i ordered it - April 2016(!), so its been my primary driver on my PC from then 'til March 2020, so light to medium usage in the evenings; and it was also utilised by SWMBO for her business so saw relatively heavy use during the day from 2017- march 2020; and since march 2020 its been my daily driver for working from home... not a single issue.

 

Disappointing news from eBay. I was watching the item and was unable to bid late as a customer came to talk to me at the wrong moment.

 

Retrieved this from a desk drawer in work today (Noppoo Lolita Spyder 87 w/Kailh browns).



For the last several years I just assumed that it was knackered (hence languishing in a desk drawer), but after testing all the keys it turns out it was only one that was not working correctly. So today I learned how to take apart a Cherry MX-type switch and repair the leaf spring inside it. Clearly it's not a long-term solution, but it's so much more preferable to my cheapy regular day-to-day keyboard (Magicforce... something something... with... erm... Outemu...? browns):



(EDIT: Jesus christ, look at that white balance shift!)

I really really miss having a full-sized Home/End cluster, and not having dedicated F-keys was starting to drive me absolutely crazy! Although the arrow keys on the Spyder are in a slightly different position, so I keep pressing LCtrl+LShift+RCtrl when trying to select text...

So I think I'm going to mod the Spyder with blue switches. Can anyone recommend a decent supplier that isn't going to charge me an absolute fortune for Cherry-style blue plate-mounted switches? I'm not really fussed on the brand tbh, I've never used blues before so I have no preference. I can get 120 Gateron blues from Banggood for ~£25, but only from the Chinese warehouse and there's no better shipping option than the £1-odd uninsured slow boat.

 

Try MechBoards.co.uk (switch page here), I've bought bits from them before. The cheapest option they have is the standard Gateron switches (straight clone of Cherry) and you'll need 88 to cover that board, so £28.35 plus postage (9 packs of 10).

EDIT: alternatively, Overclockers sell Glorious PC Gaming Race bits, a box of 120 Gateron Blue will set you back £35.99 + postage... (linky)

 

I second Mechboards. Bought a few things from them over the past 3 weeks, and all turned up rapidly. Their Discord is pretty active if you need any help too.

 

So it turns out that it's not all roses... Only the one switch was outright knackered, but quite a few are a bit dodgy, so... Back to the spongy rubber dome Logitech keyboard I've been using for work...

Thanks for the recommendations, both!

I see that Mechboards also sell Cherry switches, so... the temptation deepens...

 

So. Big ol' bag o' switches arrived the other day.



Time to change some switches!

Some people will tell you that there's no such thing as too much flux. Well I'm here to tell you that this is too much flux. Trust me, by the time you've burned off all that flux... yeah, it gets a bit much. REALLY need to sort out some proper ventilation, a fan pointing at the window doesn't cut it!



Board desoldered, stripped, and cleaned off. "No clean" flux is a lie - you always need to clean that **** off!



New switches in place, all ready to be soldered! There are two missing in this shot because: one of them still had some solder in the hole so the pins can't get all the way through, and the other didn't clip into the plate properly because of how the plate was designed.



87 switches with two pins each - 174 solder joints yaaaaaaay! .



It's not that bad really, it's quite relaxing once you get into a flow. This probably took me about 20 minutes in total...



Reassembled, tested and working fine, so time to put the caps back!



All done! The caps are still a bit gross and dirty but I don't really care about scrubbing them up since I plan to replace them. A good wipe down with some antibac wipes will do the job just fine. I was going to replace them anyway, but now I don't know what sort of colour I want... I planned to go for a darker colour scheme to match the grey plate and black plastic case, but you can see the white of the switch casing underneath and that just doesn't work with dark caps... I'll try the white caps from my spare board to see what that looks like (although I can't use them full time since they're ANSI and this is an ISO layout...)



Honestly, the actuation force on these switches feels very light. I don't mind the clackity-clacking, but it's different to the Model M clacking that I'm used to; it's much higher pitch and more "chattery" than the Model M spring twang. But it does the job for audible and physical feedback, even if the resistance/actuation force feels very very light to me!

All in all this seems to have been 100% successful. Quite glad I didn't immediately throw this keyboard away when I brought it home from work!

 

Finally a GMK buy I like the look of - decided to jump on the Deepwell buy!
My lysol blanks are cool but damn it's annoying when you can't find a symbol

 

Bloomin’ ‘ek! A GMK set that doesn’t charge you £50+ to get U.K. ISO coverage? It’s a miracle!