Love him or hate him, this is interesting
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Got my final model F caps today. This is pretty much end game for me unless a 1.75U stepped escape symbol key with a caps lock front legend gets madeā¦
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Just stumbled across this interest check. I realize itās not buckling spring, but I love the SSK look. Iād buy one even though itās going to be regular Cherry MX style switches. Think all the colors look nice too.
Would look better if they ditched the blank badge though, imo.
Iād be sold if it ends up being hotswap and VIA compatible. [Edit: Just notice it says hotswap and VIA compatible in the specs.]
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Up for pre-order now:
The interest check link Iād posted originally is down now, so itās hard to compare pictures from that with whatās on the pre-order page. It looks like the new images have the badge/logo area looking cleaner. It looked like a half baked idea previously being just a blank oval with a color that looked off in comparison with the rest of the case.
Browsing for a new job keyboard on Aliexpress during 11/11 sale, i came across this, a Mathew MK100, which at the time had zero units sold.
What caught my eye was the seemingly insane value for the price, seeing it came already assembled with an MK100 base, which includes Bluetooth 5.0, 2.4ghz, a 5000mAh battery, hot swap sockets for the switches, as well as full RGB, KTT Red Wine switches (or many others you could choose from) and a set of PBT dye sub XDA keycaps from Mathew Tech themselves, so i decided to risk it.
Assembled like this with the keycap set and switches, it set me back just under US$60 during the 11/11 sale event (with the help of a store coupon and a few bonus coins i had gotten from previous purchases, to be fair), now its going for around US$76, which i still argue is an excellent price for this keyb.
Say you wanna replicate this board buying all the components separately, youād need:
An MK100 base - US$57 (with a store coupon)
Mathew āEnlightmentā keycaps set - US$28
100x KTT Red Wine switches - US$27~
Youād be spending at least US$110 to replicate this on your own, so how is this possibly this cheap? To be honest i have no idea, but my theory is, they assemble these out of excess stock, mainly seems to be the case with the keycaps, seeing as it doesnāt come with the entire set, i assume they piece out a good set out of defective sets, the base seems to be new, it has no scratches or use marks.
And thereās no drawbacks as well, other than the keycap kit not coming with the entire set, but i honestly donāt mind, as i donāt intend to use this kit anywhere else.
As for the features, Bluetooth and 2.4ghz are great, i tested both on my living room with the keyboard connected to both my PC and my Android TV, and its flawless, never missed a beat.
It has a software straight out of 2013, where you can assign different key profiles, control the RGB and so on, it works but its nothing special.
I really like the switches as well, i was yet to try KTT switches, and i heard good things about this Red Wine model, the travel is so smooth and they sound really nice on this chassis, if i wanted to improve them iād take them out and lube them, but i donāt believe its necessary.
And for now, lets see how long itāll last, for the next months, hopefully years, this will become my most used keyboard, seeing as iāll use it everyday for at least 6h at a time.
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And on the same day the MK100 arrived, iāve assembled this, a Dukharo VN96.
I went with Kailh Pro Heavy Berry switches, Akko Black & Silver keycap set and Everglide Panda V3 stabs.
It sounds really good, the heavy switches with the full case and gasket mount chassis, as well as the thick keycaps gave out a really nice sound profile, despite having dry switches.
This is my new HTPC/Android TV keyboard, after the unfortunate demise of my MK870 due to (i assume) my own incompetence.
I really like the knob, i can even use it on Android TV.
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Finally home and digging into the QK65
https://forum.level1techs.com/t/post-what-new-thing-you-acquired-recently/149881/15319?u=token
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Hey team, I am finally going to mod my MaxKeyboard with Cherry MX Blues by starting with key caps. I want black, backlit key caps for Russian, Japanese, Korean, and French (Azerty). I have been trying to find caps but none of them are backlit if I can find them. Where do you all get your key caps from?
aliexpress most of the time. It sucks because so much is stolen IP but its impossible to find things in stock elsewhere.
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I am really trying to avoid that too. I believe that if you like something, then you should support it. but I can understand why they exist.
Aliexpress!
The sole exception was my Akko, that one i bought on a store called Terabyteshop
She is a beaut.
Things I hope to fix:
- didnāt ship with PE foam, this is a biggy for me as Iām aiming for this to be my poor manās budget jelly epoch.
- maybe some hacky custom Bluetooth switch that is easier to operate.
Bummers:
- doesnāt work with VIA, maybe because I have the Bluetooth model?
- no flex at all, maybe cause of all the foam? Maybe need to swap large foam isolators/mounts to the small ones? Currently my gasket mounted tofu has more bounce.
- must pop off spacebar everytime one is switching between wired and Bluetooth
Pros:
Might not have VIA but the QK software is pretty much the same
Good documentation page
Jelly epochāish potential if I get the foam and rubber/gadket mounts figured out
Can go wireless and keeb from the couch (need wireless mouse and full lazy mode acquired)
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Hey Keyboard friends,
I am selling a coiled aviator cable I bought from Drop a while back but never used. Going pretty cheap if you want itā¦
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Another Unikorn, this is one of the HK commissions. There were 31 units made. Build = carbon fiber plate, cherry blossom keycaps, switches are evolution, nylon blue bottom, cherry top, blizzard stem, tx 70g.
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Wow, just wow.
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Got most of the parts for my Dactyl build. My first custom keyboard build.
Started on the soldering, first time using my hakko properly and first time doing SMD parts. Not too hard with proper tweezers and that flux gel that comes in the syringes. 100 diodes, 50 LEDs. These are the Amoeba Kngs.
Got a couple of Elite-Cās so gotta make sure I use the VBus pin on that to power the LEDs since iāll be pulling like 600mA, so itāll have to be on USB3 (900mA) or USB-C port (3000mA). I was toying with the idea of giving every key an LED and having a switch that would half of them off for the USB3 bus, since 80 of them is 960mA.
Laid out how the wiring would work:
Gonna have modify the QMK firmware since the 5x7 layout there is missing 2 keys per side. I bought the prints from a guy on etsy called WylderBuilds and just had the best experience. Added him on discord and chatted directly to him for help on stuff, clarifications etc.
The hardest part has been picking keycaps since I want backlit DSA or XDA but they are few and far between. Finally settled on some āAmazons Choiceā ones that Iām probably going to hate so will end up splurging on the Ergodox-EZ ones.
Still waiting for the Kalih hotswap sockets to come before I can finish putting it all together. Thought I could save some cash doing it myself but forgot to account for shipping everything to the bottom of the planet so Iām probably looking at $NZD200 on shipping alone 
I blame @freqlabs for showing off his ones on the discord and giving me the mechanical keyboard bug 
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Try Etsy