G'day. Sonic here, from Melbourne, Australia. Let's chat about keyboards :)

[sonic_the_hedgehog]

G'day everyone.

So I've finally given in to fate and joined you lovely people here at geekhack.

I've been on OCAU (Overclockers Australia) forums for years; mostly buying, selling and trading, and posting the odd tidbit here and there.

It's a great forum, but the mechanical keyboard thread is just that... one single thread about mechanical keyboards.

And I keep asking questions on there which nobody answers. (So either they don't know the answers or they cbf answering lol).

So I've come here with a few things to accomplish:
 - learn more about keycaps and keyboard customization
 - find someone to sell me a Unicomp keyboard
 - find my "Ultimate" keyboard. More on that later.

I'll try to keep the story short.

Built new rig some time ago. Decided it was time to upgrade from my Sidewinder X4 (mainly because it was the wrong colour scheme), so went to have a look at what people recommended.

Stuff happened and somehow I ended up buying a Model M. Fantastic. Love it. Best keyboard ever. Except that it doesn't have windows keys. The two things I use most on my keyboard are the calcualtor button (on M$ boards) and Windows+R (Run). Can't do either of those things on the Model M. Can't even Windows+R -> Calc. So then I embarked on a quest.

Emailed Unicomp a lot about getting a custom board. Black with all-black keys, except blue alpha keys and blue numpad keys. Then they said they couldn't do sublimation black on black, and they only print black, so they couldn't do blue on black or white on black either. So I was going to go blank keys except alpha and numpad. Then I got a proper quote.... ~$90au for the keyboard, ~$70au for shipping, ~$80au for the keys... so ~$240au all up and still wouldn't be quite what I want.

Already owned a few mechanical boards prior to the Model M:
- a very old XT mech board which weighs a good few kilos. But it's XT only and no windows key, same problems as above.
- a very old AT/XT mech board in Japanese. Has more keys than necessary where the Windows key should be (kana / hiragana etc), but they must be some kind of BIOS-only features because they can't seem to be remapped.
- a reasonably old AT mech board, made just before they had Windows keys

So I tried them all out. All quite good to use, but none perfect. So I got on the forums, and read that (at the time) the closest alternative to buckling springs was Cherry MX Blue switches. So I bought a Blackwidow Ultimate for ~$80au.

Good points:
 - price
 - backlighting
 - a few macro keys but not too many
 - a few good features (USB/Audio passthrough) but no useless gimmicks

Bad points:
 - keys feel like a joke, light and tacky and plasticy and not at all awesome
 - construction not too solid
 - font of legends on keys is incredibly bad

So I sold that and bought a couple of Cherry boards (as per my sig).

So far, I don't mind the MX Browns. They're not quite heavy enough for my liking but they feel a lot nicer than the Razer did. The MX Reds are not really my thing, having to bottom out to activate a key is just not natural for me. They're nothing really like the Model M either, might have to investigate MX Greens or MX Blacks which were not readily available when I bought the Blackwidow

Thanks for reading this far, and stay tuned, there's more to come!

So I'm on the hunt for some custom keycaps, but the caps for these Cherry brand boards seem to be slightly thinner than normal keycaps? I emailed WASD keyboards as Cherry was not on their compatibility list, and neither is it on this list here on geekhack. They replied to say the Cherry keycaps are 1-2mm thinner than the caps on Filco / Das / Ducky / Noppoo etc. But I find this rather odd, as I thought one of the Das boards was a rebranded G80 anyway.

Can anyone confirm if "standard" Filco / Ducky etc keycaps will fit my Cherry boards? Has anyone put custom caps on Cherry G80 boards before? Or am I missing something?

Anyway, it'll all be a learnign curve. My body is ready. My wallet is not.

Looking forward to hearing your opinions / thoughts / etc!

[Larken]

ever considered using autohotkey to make a macro for launching run, or a calculator button? That would work even on a model m, although you still wouldn't have a key where the windows key should be.

I have the g80 3494 you have. As far as keycap compatibility is concerned, I have no idea how WASD's keys are done. But Filco and Ducky keycaps won't fit the 3494 perfectly - the problematic keys are the spacebar, and the off center capslock (but you should note that most groupbuys conducted here on geekhack do take care of those key mountings, although if you get in on a group buy, be prepared to wait a few months after payment before seeing anything. Being down in Australia probably also means you'd be paying a high shipping fee.)

I'm sorry, but there is nothing quite like the buckling spring if you're into that. For cherry mx variants, the closest you might be able to go would either by mx white switches (pretty rare on production boards as it is), or cherry blues with heavier springs (available as mx greens, or if you're so inclined, you could easily modify your own on the pcb mounted cherry board you have, by buying switches and springs - the heaviest combination could likely be blue stems+springs from mx clears). I have no experience with mx whites, except from hearsay.

Welcome to wallet-hack.

[inteli722]

Welcome!

I've heard that Cherry MX Greens are the most like Buckling Springs, though without trying either of them I can't give you a first hand account (I might be able to later )

I can't comment on regular keys creating problems on G80s (yet), and you are right, the old Das is a rebranded Cherry board (kmiller8 has a couple in active use) with blank keys. I believe WASD is referring to the new Das Keyboard. Larken's right, as the Caps Lock and the Spacebar is different on (I think) all cherry boards.

Cherry MX Whites are supposed to be quieter Greens, but that is hearsay for me, too, so don't quote me on that.

Welcome to WalletClack.

FTFY

[sonic_the_hedgehog]

ever considered using autohotkey to make a macro for launching run, or a calculator button? That would work even on a model m, although you still wouldn't have a key where the windows key should be.

Yeah, thought of that, but since it's only 101-key, there are no other keys which are a convenient substitute. People suggested "F"-keys and various combinations of L-Shift / L-Ctrl / Tab / Caps etc but none are really convenient for me 

I have the g80 3494 you have. As far as keycap compatibility is concerned, I have no idea how WASD's keys are done. But Filco and Ducky keycaps won't fit the 3494 perfectly - the problematic keys are the spacebar, and the off center capslock.

Not too stressed about spacebar and caps at this stage, mainly just want to change the alpha keys. Would Filco/Ducky keycaps fit these or are they a bit "taller" than the cherry ones?

Given that you've got a Filco and a Ducky and a Cherry, any chance you could measure the height of a keycap to compare? If it's too much effort don't worry about it though 

(but you should note that most groupbuys conducted here on geekhack do take care of those key mountings, although if you get in on a group buy, be prepared to wait a few months after payment before seeing anything. Being down in Australia probably also means you'd be paying a high shipping fee.)

Group buys - another key reason I joined up lol. Not stressed at all about delivery time but would love to get a few keysets/individual keycaps that actually really suit the Cherry board.

I'm sorry, but there is nothing quite like the buckling spring if you're into that. For cherry mx variants, the closest you might be able to go would either by mx white switches (pretty rare on production boards as it is), or cherry blues with heavier springs (available as mx greens, or if you're so inclined, you could easily modify your own on the pcb mounted cherry board you have, by buying switches and springs - the heaviest combination could likely be blue stems+springs from mx clears). I have no experience with mx whites, except from hearsay.

Given that I don't really like the board with reds, and given that in every other respect it's pretty much the same (i.e. I can mix and match custom keysets etc), I may mod the switches. Hadn't thought of that before now - thanks! 

Welcome to wallet-hack.

Thanks. I'm looking forward to it. My bank balance is not. (Must get around to selling some of my dual quad-core Xeon boxes to fund buying keyboards - anyone after some high-end Xeon gear?!)

Welcome!

I've heard that Cherry MX Greens are the most like Buckling Springs, though without trying either of them I can't give you a first hand account (I might be able to later )

Thanks! Yeah seems to be Whites and Greens that people have been recommending but would love a first-hand account. I'll have to delve deeper into the depths of geekhack to see if someone's done a decent comparison.

I can't comment on regular keys creating problems on G80s (yet), and you are right, the old Das is a rebranded Cherry board (kmiller8 has a couple in active use) with blank keys. I believe WASD is referring to the new Das Keyboard. Larken's right, as the Caps Lock and the Spacebar is different on (I think) all cherry boards.

Ah, didn't realise there was an old and a new Das. Not too stressed about the caps and space bar as I said, but I'm a bit worries that getting custom keysets for these Cherry boards might be more difficult than I originally planned - one of the key reasons I got them (over an Alps or some other switch technology) was so that I could easily get heaps of different keysets to try out.

Cherry MX Whites are supposed to be quieter Greens, but that is hearsay for me, too, so don't quote me on that.

Yeah but I've also heard that Browns are like quieter Blues, and from owning both the BW Ulti (blues) and this G80 (browns), I would say they're really not that similar in feel at all, but maybe that's me. The 'bump' on the blues seemed to me to be a lot more bumpy, the browns seem to be more like the reds, except for a little bit of resistance where the bump would usually be, and obvioulsy activating the input at that point.

Welcome to WalletClack.

FTFY

What is it with everything around here being Clack? So confused...



Anyways thanks for the replies guys, appreciate it!

[Larken]

The alphanumeric keys from a filco or ducky would fit your cherry board fine, but yes, they would be taller than the cherry keycaps by about 1-2mm. I've actually tried it out for a period of time and while I like the key feel, oem profile keycaps (meaning filco keycaps) on the 3494 makes a ton of noise compared to the stock cherry keycaps. As it stands, I find cherry profile much better overall.

I've experimental with ghetto greens (blues stems, clear springs), and while the force required to actuate the key feels similar to a buckling spring, the feel of the keypress simply doesn't measure up, and this is coming from someone who isn't a big fan of BS boards. Greens are basically hard to press blues with a solid click, while Buckling Springs.... well... the buckling of the spring is so damn unique its just not the same. You can match the amount of force needed, but it still won't be a BS board. The question would then be if greens/white are your choice of poison for cherry mx switches.

[sonic_the_hedgehog]

The alphanumeric keys from a filco or ducky would fit your cherry board fine, but yes, they would be taller than the cherry keycaps by about 1-2mm. I've actually tried it out for a period of time and while I like the key feel, oem profile keycaps (meaning filco keycaps) on the 3494 makes a ton of noise compared to the stock cherry keycaps. As it stands, I find cherry profile much better overall.

Thanks for the really useful info man, really appreciate it. Especially real-world use experience like louder keys.

But damn, that means that I either have to get a whole 104-key 'OEM' set (Ducky or Filco style) and have all the keys slightly higher and hit slightly louder, or if I get a 37-key set as I was planning to (or whatever it is for just alpha and numbers etc) and they'll sit higher than the rest of the keys. So that obviously isn't going to happen.

Anywhere aside from here on geekhack (not allowed to do group buys yet  ) where I can get a set of replacement keycaps with the cherry profile? I quite like typing on the Brown board so I don't really want to have to change again.

I've experimental with ghetto greens (blues stems, clear springs), and while the force required to actuate the key feels similar to a buckling spring, the feel of the keypress simply doesn't measure up, and this is coming from someone who isn't a big fan of BS boards. Greens are basically hard to press blues with a solid click, while Buckling Springs.... well... the buckling of the spring is so damn unique its just not the same. You can match the amount of force needed, but it still won't be a BS board. The question would then be if greens/white are your choice of poison for cherry mx switches.

Yeah, agreed. I actually saw this board on PCCG - one of our local suppliers of gear -  it would be a great way to try out a bunch of switches in an easy, convenient package but since you wouldn't type on really anything but the reds so it's kinda pointless.

May have to reconsider doing the custom unicomp board for daily use...