Ok chaps, it`s done, and spoilers......
I`M SOOOOOOO GLAAAAAAAD AND IS SOOOOO COOOOOOLI leave here a sneak peek at the result
Let`s start, cause let me tell you, this was a STEEEEP learning curve.
Mistakes were made. Blood whas sheaded (literally, I bled for this board bruh!)
So, going back a bit, I had no issues at all with the vendor. Things came fairly quickly, in two weeks the bag of switches where here, a week later the board with the PCB, stabs, plate & case. And the last to arrive were the keycaps.
Everything came neatly packed as you can see, the board box was a little bit smash, but no problems inside. All good. I`m sure you can all imagine what a bag of switches looks like.
I considered to open the switches and lube them, but this being my first board, that I have no clue what I`m doing, I didn't want to mess it up much, and I also wanted to have some experience with my new keyboard "stock" so that I could have a baseline of what it feels and sounds like.
And from here on the mistakes start to pile up. First of, because I'm a bit of a snob I wanted my stabs to be clear so that they would match the top housing of my switches when you see it from a bit of an angle. I apparently did not read properly because these are screw-in cherry stabs, but I wanted either PCB or PLATE mounted stabs, but nooooope.
Well, how bad can it be? They are cherry after all, cherry stuff should be good no? I actually have no idea. But mine I would consider doubtful at best. The BACKSPACE is ok, but the space bar is wobbly, the right side sinks easier than the left.
And the tall return is straight-up bad. The top left corner won't sink and gets stuck. I'm not sure if that is common or what. I might switch if for a spare and see if it's an issue with that particular one.
They came pre-lubed, which is a nice touch, with their golden magnetic screws and washers. I'll make do with that for now.
The case, pcb and plate are quite nice looking and at first glance all looks ok. The plate and the case were a bit dirty, what looked like marks of water, maybe from the cnc machine fluid? No biggie, just clean them and get going.
The included cable, again nothing fancy, but is braided and looks sleek enough. I will probably buy a coiled one that matches a keycap set or something.
But things get really down when looking at the keycaps. It is not that obvious from typing distance, but when you get close you notice it.
I know that buying crap from random shops in aliexpress should not surprise me if I get something of poor quality. But one has hopes and feelings.
The plastic is thick and solid, but to the touch is not exactly nice, and the corners are hella sharp. I don't know if that is the case with all the GMK profiles.
But the worse part is the legend. It seems to me that this a mixed match of different technics or batches of keycaps. The dark ones have really sharp legend that has quite a noticeable "height" to it. But on the lighter ones, the legend looks more blurry to me and is not as noticeable to the fingertips. There is also a difference in the index markers for the home row, the one in the F is much taller than the one in the J.
In any case, who cares, LET'S BUILD A KEYBOARD!!!!!!
Get the case, put the feet, present the PCB, place some screws in, present the plate, have fear that absolultley everything you are going to do will break your "expensive" new keyboard.....
Plug it in and check the pretty lights!!
I took me quite a bit of time to understand the fact that the plate is held in place by the switches themselves. That it just "floats" and the pcb is the only thing that is attached to the case. I was like, ´
This is too high, this is too low, this is not touching there but it is there!!! WTF!!!´
With enough switches in place, the plate just falls into its position and won't move again.
But that didn't save me from having to mount and demount the thingy five or ten times.
The only issue here apart from my newbiness was a little clearance problem.
One of the sockets was fitted wrong or the pcb as a bit of a design issue here because that socket won't allow the switch to si properly in its place because the thick pin in the middle won't go all the way down. I ended up shaving a little the pin in the bottom housing of the switch for it to sit properly.
Finally, the board was assembled. Time to do the software part.
This part drove me nuts!!! But again that is because I'm a newb. Steep learning curve as I said.
This cutesy little keyboard comes with a manual that shows you how to flash it. But it doesn't show the fact that the pcb has a little button on the back that you need to push in order for it to go to bootload mode. It actually says to do it with SPACE + B.
For two days I battled the damn thing, the keyboard not responding properly, keys out of place that have made me develop typing issues where I look for keys that I know where they were but my head know doubts. Navigating to the depths of windows to find crap I'm most definitely not meant to find....
Everything ended up in mi having to disassemble alllll the board once more, bleed throughout the process because I don't have a keycap puller, flash it, and mount it once more.
And then flash it again com ten more times cause you are an idiot that misses and mistakes the placement of keys in a keyboard.
Yeah, I love the thing. The feel and sound are nothing nice, it's scratchy and springy. The sound is not terribly low, but it's not hollow.
But it already is sooooo much nicer than the low profile crap that I had before.
I will eventually lube the switches and try some o-rings and see how it changes the board. I want to get that nice "THOCK" sounding experience.
And there you have it with the beer I had yesterday cause it was a very nice one. And the fans on my computer having a stroke at the back.
GG!
************-------------------- FROM HERE COMES THE ORIGINAL POST ------------------------------*************I pulled the trigger on my first board. Taking some " advantage" of the Black Friday situation (which is a global scam that I fall for to many times) I ordered my first keyboard parts from the lord above: Aliexpress
I gave away some 130 euros for a hot-swap PCB with uderglow (because RGB brother), acrylic case, alu plate, 120 gateron yellow and an MX profile keycap set with spanish ISO legend. Apparently I saved the bast amount of 10€!!!
... Saving my economy 10 ñoclos at a time ...
good stuff peeps.
So, it being my first board I wanted a hotswap because for one I don't want to break the pcb soldering and I don't have soldering equipment. I actually paid some 30$ extra for the hot swap pcb, this one to be exact:
https://ymdkey.com/collections/75-84-96-keyboard-diy/products/ymdk-ymd75v3-qmk-hot-swap-hot-swappable-kailh-socket-84-pcb-fully-programmable-support-ansi-iso-interchange-ymd75-v2
It's a YMDK pcb with a 87% layout, which actually contains 88 keys for my chosen layout because of the short left shift.
I originally was in the hunt for a TKL layout, and was looking at the KPRepublics 87% board. The sad problem was that I don't like the looks of the cases for the 87% boards. And their Womier boards which I like do not support the ISO layout (the tall enter is a deal breaker for me). And if I'm going to drop two zeros of my hard earned cash I want something specific, and I will buy that and nothing else.
It was then I cam across YMDK and their board. It has all I wanted:
- Tall enter
- Dedicated arrow keys (I use them a lot while coding and I don't want a 2-key combination to reach them)
- Delete (cause who on earth lives without delete)
- Page Up / Down - Home / End (for navigation too)
The only thing I could complain about is that the layout looks a bit cluttered, but a small price to pay for a smaller board that won't restrict my mouse movements while gaming as much as a full layout board.
For the case I wanted acrylic or polycarb cause I'm a sucker for light shows. Half of the time I'm in my bedroom whitout any lights but the ones from the computer and the screen itself. And now with the underglow it will be LIT!
https://ymdkey.com/collections/75-84-96-keyboard-diy/products/ymdk-84-kit-cnc-acrylic-case-anodized-plate-underglow-rgb-fully-programmable-pcb-stabilizers-for-75-84-keyboard-ansi-iso-layout
In my case i won't have per-key lights because my keycaps are not see-through. I personally I'm totally fine with that and I have the choice of soldering white leds down the road which I might try.
I also got the aluminum plate cause it was cheaper than brass and I wanted some rigidity to the board.
The PCB, case & plate came together at a price of 94.35€.For the switches I chose gateron yellows because never having had a mehc keyboard I wanted a linear feeling and by this point I was in budget constrain.
I got a bag of 120 pices because it was almost cheaper than buying a bag of a 100 or a bag of 70 + 2*10.
I'll have some spares to play with, cherry pick the best sounding/feeling ones and try my luck on lubing.
I have gone for the black bottom and clear tops because I read some people having issues with the milky ones. I was interested in buying the inks, but those where out of budget, and the opinions on the milky ones made me choose the most extended option in this case.
https://es.aliexpress.com/item/1005001445849494.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.74b84c4dzjz0lRIn due time I plan to get some lube, and further down the road change the stems and maybe half the housing to try other options that I've read give some of the best results.
The bag of switches came at a mere 19.16€.And finally the keycaps. Those where a hard to find with some personality. For a time I considered front legend see-through keycaps, or may puddings, to take advantage of the underglow. But was never fully convinces, and there where almost NONE with the legend I use. And I also didn't want fully black or white caps, I wanted some color scheme the give the board more of a feeling.
I finally found a set with the spanish legend and some color. Having the legend it's a bit of a must for me because I still look at the board to find the alternative characters on the 5th row.
https://es.aliexpress.com/item/4000130061265.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.74b84c4dzjz0lRThese came at a handsome price of 24.59€.
And this is what i got for my first board. What do you think geeks?
I'll update the post when I get the suff and try it.
