Help with a keyboard for my dad

[Error213]

Hello, my dads bday is coming up soon and I wanted to build him a keyboard. However he is very picky with what he wants.
He needs a 100% w/ media keys (mute fast forward etc) and here’s the kicker a built in rotary encoder it’s hard enough to find a 100% build kit much less one with all the stuff he wants, and no they can’t be on a macro pad. Idk why

[Altain]

as far as I can tell I can't recall a custom board with all the mechanics you mentioned. I can only suggest a Razer keyboard that has dedicated media keys with a volume rotary.
Maybe suggest him to split up the keyboards? Ex) 75% with encoder plus 8 or 10 keypads. 

[Error213]

as far as I can tell I can't recall a custom board with all the mechanics you mentioned. I can only suggest a Razer keyboard that has dedicated media keys with a volume rotary.
Maybe suggest him to split up the keyboards? Ex) 75% with encoder plus 8 or 10 keypads.

yeah sadly it can’t have an external numpad/macropad it has to be all in one keyboard

[Faceman76]

Any 1800s that are rotary encoder friendly?

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[suicidal_orange]

Are you looking for a 100% board with (4?) extra dedicated media keys above the numberpad or are media keys on a layer ok?

I vaguely remember a really cool little PCB that fitted a rotary encoder in place of a switch on any board but searching my posts failed to find anything so it might have been one of my annoyingly realistic dreams which I cannot separate from reality.  If it does exist it might be useful here, though if you want dedicated media keys not sure where it would fit.

[tp4tissue]

Definitely does not exist. 

better off just handing him a better report card, way easier.

If you wanted the rotary, you'd need to use a custom firmware, cut a very nice hole on the top shell, Solder a rotary encoder onto the PCB,  Glue it,  Then whittle a plastic tube insert of sorts into it.

This is an immense amount of handiwork, and don't say 3D printing, cuz 3D printing looks like garbage except for the $200 prints you buy online done on deposition printers.

[Faceman76]

Are you looking for a 100% board with (4?) extra dedicated media keys above the numberpad or are media keys on a layer ok?

I vaguely remember a really cool little PCB that fitted a rotary encoder in place of a switch on any board but searching my posts failed to find anything so it might have been one of my annoyingly realistic dreams which I cannot separate from reality.  If it does exist it might be useful here, though if you want dedicated media keys not sure where it would fit.

This is close:  https://keyhive.xyz/shop/uno-single-key-keyboard

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[Error213]

Are you looking for a 100% board with (4?) extra dedicated media keys above the numberpad or are media keys on a layer ok?

I vaguely remember a really cool little PCB that fitted a rotary encoder in place of a switch on any board but searching my posts failed to find anything so it might have been one of my annoyingly realistic dreams which I cannot separate from reality.  If it does exist it might be useful here, though if you want dedicated media keys not sure where it would fit.

uhh yeah either one works

Are you looking for a 100% board with (4?) extra dedicated media keys above the numberpad or are media keys on a layer ok?

I vaguely remember a really cool little PCB that fitted a rotary encoder in place of a switch on any board but searching my posts failed to find anything so it might have been one of my annoyingly realistic dreams which I cannot separate from reality.  If it does exist it might be useful here, though if you want dedicated media keys not sure where it would fit.

[Leslieann]

You won't get anything off the shelf (other than an old programmable Focus battleship board using tweaked macros).
You can often get a few dedicated buttons but they are not mechanical or MX and not a great board in general or you can get a decent TKL with a volume knob, but you won't get anything decent with everything. Besides the fact that trends have been towards smaller boards for some time, you also have covid making finding even normal stuff difficult these days.

You could do it with custom plates or a 3d printer, some hand wiring and QMK, but that's about the only way to get this.  You would still have issues with matching keycaps, for that check WASD, they can make some caps with proper legends.

[Maledicted]

 

[Leslieann]

(Attachment Link)  

I stand by my comment about nothing decent having those features.

I'm not saying say it was a terrible board but it wasn't anything great while in it's prime and now you have to tack on it's age.

[Maledicted]

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I stand by my comment about nothing decent having those features.

I'm not saying say it was a terrible board but it wasn't anything great while in it's prime and now you have to tack on it's age.

The plate's nice and thick and I have had a total of 0 problems with it in 6-7-ish years of ownership and daily use that couldn't be chalked up to obscene levels of deferred cleaning, which were all resolved by cleaning the board once every few years. I don't think I've even cracked this one open. What more do you need to make a great keyboard?

[Leslieann]

My thoughts are if it gets 5 years you got your money worth regardless and I personally liked some of the features.

I think people really didn't care for the aesthetics, bland was trending as a response to all the gamery crap entering the market and this was just more of it (RGB has has had backlash as well). This was also one of the first higher end boards out of a lower end(?) factory and the price at the time certainly didn't help (it was quite high). None of that necessarily makes it bad today but at the time it certainly did. I seem to remember a few issues with them as well but my recollection may be off, I didn't own it so I only caught passing remarks.

[suicidal_orange]

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6 week year old shine through caps that still have legends?  What type of black magic do you practice...

Has a wonky bottom row but if you don't need to replace the caps that's much less of a problem.

[Leslieann]

6 week year old shine through caps that still have legends?  What type of black magic do you practice...

I kind of wondered about that myself.

The caps aren't so tough to replace so long as you aren't into GMK or doubleshot PBT.

[suicidal_orange]

The caps aren't so tough to replace so long as you aren't into GMK or doubleshot PBT.

That 1.5-1-1.25-6.5(?)-1.25-1-1-1.5 bottom row is not covered by a standard set and if that is a 6.5 spacebar as maths suggests even GMK isn't going to save you.

[Maledicted]

My thoughts are if it gets 5 years you got your money worth regardless and I personally liked some of the features.

I think people really didn't care for the aesthetics, bland was trending as a response to all the gamery crap entering the market and this was just more of it (RGB has has had backlash as well). This was also one of the first higher end boards out of a lower end(?) factory and the price at the time certainly didn't help (it was quite high). None of that necessarily makes it bad today but at the time it certainly did. I seem to remember a few issues with them as well but my recollection may be off, I didn't own it so I only caught passing remarks.

This board literally flexes less than a 1980s Model M, since that's apparently a thing for some people, and the Model M is somehow considered a durable design in spite of the plastic rivets. K70s are tanks.

K65 and K70 look industrial to me. Their aesthetics are what I love the most about them. People didn't like the legends on the original caps, for whatever that's worth. I think I got mine new for around $120 or so, which is a way better value than this KBP V80 I'm typing on right now in terms of material quality.

I have heard reports of problems with them, I have yet to find a board that has any though, even though I have stacks of them I have purchased used, just like Matias boards (I did find one old Matias board with Forward-made switches that chatter ... that is all so far). Maybe there was a period of QC issues? I haven't been able to pin it down, if it exists and wasn't just a handful of issues that were all reported by the loudest consumers.

(Attachment Link)  

6 week year old shine through caps that still have legends?  What type of black magic do you practice...

Has a wonky bottom row but if you don't need to replace the caps that's much less of a problem.

That's another one of the problems people would report with some of these boards. I have mentioned it in another thread that I recently cleaned this board again and since I had all of the caps off anyway, I swapped to some nice Chinesium doubleshots I got for cheap on Aliexpress. I could get some good pictures of the original cheap lasered caps. I used them almost daily for 6-7 years. They're shined like a mirror but the legends are unchanged. I put a full zinc set on a K65 (besides spacebar at the moment). You can hack slits in the mounts on any standard spacebar to fit the Corsair Stabilizer spacing. The spacing and profile looks weird on a few caps in the bottom row as a result, but I'm not that picky.