Peripherals Mechanical Keyboards

I will be honest, I have been kinda disappointed with the Mechanical Keyboard shopping experience.

Having bought a Filco Majestouch second hand 5+ years ago, but knowing very little about the market in general, I would have thought that even a n00b like me could find a site that sells a wide variety of keyboard cases, with different keycap options etc, in a nice easy buying process (ie: choose size, choose base, choose switches, choose keycap design, buy) - but really, its been anything but straightforward. I am assuming that there are some fundamental difficulties that I am not aware of that makes things like that impossible, but the end result is that I'm probably just going to buy something from one of the big brands.


Looking at

Razer BlackWidow V3 - £60
Xtrfy K4 - £70
CM 550 v2 - £42
Corsair K63 - £64


BONUS EDIT QUESTION: would these keycaps fit the CM 550?

 

I'm so tempted by that CM550 even though i have no real use for it, its just so cheap lol.

 

It’s a pain in the backside at times, no single place seems to have everything you want. KBDfans have a very wide range and, although it’s coming from China, delivery is usually pretty prompt.

In answer to your question though; yes, those keycaps should fit the CM550. The switches are MX clones and almost all replacement key caps are for MX switches. If they’re not for MX keys, it’s usually plastered in flashing neon

 

It's the custom scene that's most annoying... having to see group buys in time etc. Boards being on offs, and if you miss them, they are gone forever. A few like the Frog TKL are on repeat, but most, if you miss them, you miss them... then the price of course.

 

Custom board or a board you can actually buy?

 

GMMK and Keychron are starting to blur that line though these days.

Hmmm... so its a "gaming" keyboard then... a RazorCorsairLogitech something or other.

 

Oh God.... I'm going in....

 

Good luck! My advice is do it small batches, that way you see progress a bit quicker and don’t have to invest a couple hours in one chunk. It’s all straight forward, just time consuming.

 

Yeah, I'm doing batches of 10 at a time. to save my sanity.

 

I recently peeked into the rabbit hole of "keyboard lube" and immediately backed off with a stern "NOPE" of penance. Had my day with all the keyboard shenanigans, and this K8 is so wonderful out of the box that I doubt I'll ever do anything to it.

 

I was going to get that early on in the decision process, but decided it was a gaming blingfest, and not really what I wanted. Plate mounted stabilisers and north facing switches would lead to disappointment, as customisability further down the line was a requirement.

 

• GMMK Pro: Black slate ANSI
• Polycarbonate plate
• Extra gasket foam
• PCB Tape modded
• Durock V2 Stabs: Holee modded with UHMW tape. Deskeys pads. Stem housings lubed with Krytox 205G0 and wires lubed with Krytox 205G2.
  
• Gateron Milky Yellows lubed with Krytox 205G0 and filmed with Deskeys film.
• Tai Hao Forest Deep Green double shot PBT caps.
  
  Apologies for background noise... my server was working quite hard moving some files across the network.
  
  

 

It's hard to deny that the sound is super nice and thocky... I'm not sure it's nice enough to make me consider going back to linear switches (I used MX Blacks for a long while) but damn, it is nice. Keycaps look really nice too.

 

The thing I like most about it, I can't show you. Which is the way it feels when the switches bottom out. The only word I have is "creamy". The PC plate and Milky Yellows are responsible for this I think.