BUILD LOG: GON Nerd60 V.2.1, GON Acrylic case, Zealios, ergo clears, ergo blacks

[ideus]

I hope this log may interest some of my fellow GHers. I know there are other similar logs, but I have not seen one with the acrylic case. Besides, this time I will add some Zealios that are still in the mail.


This job will take some time, because I am still waiting for some parts, including the silicon balls from IMSTO. I will try the trampolin mod using IMSTO's silicon balls with the Zealios. For now, I will be posting pictures of the parts, tools and the soldering steps. I am a newbie at soldering, that may help fellow GHers that are still intimidating to try it, demostrating that it is not that hard, even the surface mount leds and resistors. I already build the current Nerd60 I am typing on right now, so this will be my second kit.


The switches mods


The board will have purple Zealios for the alphas, and ergo-clears with sprit's gold springs for the rest, top number row, modifiers and space bar. I am planning to add the trampoline mod with one or two IMSTO's balls each, but, considering that the plate will not allow top removal, I will do it first with my current GON that has PCB mounted switches, if I do not like it I can reverse it easily with it. The ergo clears will have Gateron bottoms, gold springs and original Cherry clear stems. The Zealios will be stock.


5b27


The iron tip was grinded in a ax shape that works wonderful for this soldering job, including surface mount as well as pass through components.





5b21 SMD soldering


The first step is to put flux and melt some solder on one of the paths of each component. In the case of the LEDs polarity is important.





The component should be place besides the solder, melt it and push the component inside the molten solder drop. The other side of it is the easiest one to solder. The final result for one resistor and its LED is shown bellow.



5b21 four layers acrylic case





5b21 Soldering unit and iron tip pictures







GON 4 layer acrylic case mini-review


General description


This is the cheapest sixty case in the GON's catalog, it has a plate that holds the switches, a top frame, a middle frame and a bottom. I ordered it with translucent top frame and bottom, the plate and middle frame are transparent and they came with the protector film still installed. The bolts and two legs are included, they are nice aluminum pieces that I ordered anodized in red.


Layouts available


The case support ANSI layout only and the shift keys and backspace can be splitted. It has openings for the stabilizers, that should be PCB mounted. The bottom row can be standard with 6.25u space bar and 1.25 mods, or the winkeyless style with 1.5 mods and 7u space bar. I will use the last one.


The switch plate


The plate holds the switches loosely, I will check if this feature makes the assembly a little bit harder. It does not allow top removal, therefore the switches should be customized before to mount them, or they will have to be desoldered to change springs, stems, or tops.


I will try to use it with no top frame to get a lower profile, it seems that it only needs shorter bolts.


More details and pictures coming soon.

5b19 - Components

Type	Component	Supplier	Status	Qty	Price/pc	Total
Case	Acrylic 4 layers Case	GON	On-Hand	1	66	66.00
PCB	Nerd60 PCB Version 2.10	GON	On-Hand	1	55	55.00
PCB	Surface mount LED	GON	On-Hand	26	0.1	2.60
PCB	Surface mount resistor	GON	On-Hand	30	0.03	0.90
PCB	Cristal diodes pass thru	GON	On-Hand	61	0.075	4.58
Switch	Purple Zealios (Alphas)	Zeal PC	In-the-Mail	34	0.75	25.50
Switch	Gold springs 62g	sprit	On-Hand	27	0.12	3.24
Switch	Gateron bottoms	hwood	On-Hand	27	0.3	8.10
Switch	Gateron clear tops	hwood	On-Hand	27	0.3	8.10
Switch	Cherry clear stems	Old stock	On-Hand	27	0.1	2.70
Switch	IMSTO Balls	IMSTO	In-the-Mail	122	0.015	1.83
Key caps	OG Cherry Alphas DS WoB set	Muirium	On-Hand	1	35	35.00
Key caps	Bluegaloo Mods set	billnye	To be shiped	1	45	45.00
Key caps	PBT Cherry space bar 7u	IMSTO	In-the-Mail	1	5	5.00
Stabs	Cherry Stabs PCB set	IMSTO	On-Hand	1	7	7.00
					Total w/o shipping	270.55

5b18 - Surface mount LED and resistors:



Pass thru diodes

[Sed8op8]

Very cool please let me know your experience with the smd side leds as I am currently having an issue getting them to turn on and am really hoping I just missed something stupid

[slushi]

Excited to see your build ideus! Definitely watching this thread.

[ideus]

I hesitated a lot on posting this log; actually, I did not do that with the previous GON assembly I did, but your words are very encouraging, they mean, the log may have some value, besides being a documentation of the job. Thank you.

[suicidal_orange]

I'm very happy doing through hole soldering but last time I tried SMD it did not go well, that was a long time ago but I've avoided it ever since.  Will be watching with interest to see how you think it's not so hard

[slushi]

I hesitated a lot on posting this log; actually, I did not do that with the previous GON assembly I did, but your words are very encouraging, they mean, the log may have some value, besides being a documentation of the job. Thank you.

I think your project is very interesting. I honestly had never considered the trampoline mod before and I will be using 67g tactile Zealios on my Duck Orion V2 once it comes in. I'd love to see all the mods you do and what your review is!

[filphil]

I love build logs.  GLW LOG

[ideus]

5b19 OP Record update - table of components with status and approximated costs.


Edit: Coming soon, mini-reviews of the Acrylic GON case and the Nerd60 PCB.

[ideus]

Please feel free to post questions regarding the components or the build, I will try to answer them in enough detail to provide you with the information you are looking for.

[gabba-gool]

Will definitely be watching this build.

What equipment are you using? I'm almost ready to make my purchases and always like to see what other GHers are using.

[ideus]

Will definitely be watching this build.

What equipment are you using? I'm almost ready to make my purchases and always like to see what other GHers are using.

Do you mean the soldering gun? It is a cheapo one that cost me under $40, I will post pictures of it later. It worked well with my first build. In my experience the most important part is the tip you use.

[gabba-gool]

Will definitely be watching this build.

What equipment are you using? I'm almost ready to make my purchases and always like to see what other GHers are using.

Do you mean the soldering gun? It is a cheapo one that cost me under $40, I will post pictures of it later. It worked well with my first build. In my experience the most important part is the tip you use.

Yup, was curious about your setup

[slushi]

Also, are the zealios you're using 62g as well?

[heedpantsnow]

Oh good to see this build log.  I love build logs too!  I hope all goes smoothly.

[infiniti]

Subscribed and Happy Building!

[ideus]

I posted pictures of the soldering unit and its iron tip. I will post later today detailed pictures of the PCB and Case. I will install the surface mount LEDS flat, instead of facing the side of the board as GON recommended, it is just too hard to install them that way and the final effect is pretty close.

[ideus]

I made some progress on soldering diodes this afternoon, I found that this version of the Nerd60 PCB has both paths for SMD diodes as well as pass-trough holes, the main issue with this setting is that if some flux goes over the SMD paths while you are soldering pass-through ones the final result will not be very aesthetic.


Some additional information on the soldering tip at the OP.

[KeyNinji]

Hey ideus, it's cool you're building your own.

I'm thinking about building my own acrylic gon keyboard, but I have concerns that Gon hasn't been responsive to folks. Is he fairly quick to ship parts for keyboards?

For what it's worth, I use a type of solder that has flux in the core. It's 63/37 (63% lead). This type of solder is extremely easy to work with and is self cleaning: http://bit.ly/1kY1olS.

If that link doesn't work, the brand is multicore, 63/37, C502. This is really good stuff to do your work on. It's also very thin at .38mm. This is great for small components.

[ideus]

Hey ideus, it's cool you're building your own.

I'm thinking about building my own acrylic gon keyboard, but I have concerns that Gon hasn't been responsive to folks. Is he fairly quick to ship parts for keyboards?

For what it's worth, I use a type of solder that has flux in the core. It's 63/37 (63% lead). This type of solder is extremely easy to work with and is self cleaning: http://bit.ly/1kY1olS.

If that link doesn't work, the brand is multicore, 63/37, C502. This is really good stuff to do your work on. It's also very thin at .38mm. This is great for small components.

The parts I just bought from GON took under a month to be delivered, if you consider that the case is made to order, that was not bad at all. Thank you for the reference on the solder, it is very cool it has the flux already included. While I have not had any issue with what I am using now, it is very nice to know there is another alternative material.

[KeyNinji]

Good to know about the order. I think I'm going to consider ordering the parts I need soon.

[ideus]

Good to know about the order. I think I'm going to consider ordering the parts I need soon.

My experience purchasing parts from GON has been great so far, the quality of his PCBs are second to none and the interface to program the boards are outstanding, very simple to use and you can do pretty much anything you want. I have read about some people waiting a long time for their orders; but, in most cases those included assembled keyboards.

[ideus]

Diodes soldered.





The Zealios arrived.





The GON Nerd60 waiting for the Bluegaloo modifiers.





The alphas have Zealios, the modifiers and symbols have Gateron bottoms with clear tops, vintage white stems with gold springs; the number row got the same Gateron cases and springs but with vintage black stems. All the board feels great, butter smooth, and very quite.


With this build I confirmed that the final overall feeling depends on the case, plate, switches and key caps. It has OG white on black Cherry key caps.


Edit: The plate gives the board a very solid feeling while typing and reduce the noise down to almost zero, this thing is extremely quite, that makes the trampoline mode unnecessary. The PCB mount stabs at the bottom of the switches were not needed to be removed, the final assembly of the switches is very very tight.


No key chattering.




The last part of the project: The bluegaloo modifiers.

[lunas]

Subscribed! Love build logs and very interested to see how you go about connecting the SMD components. I've done a bit of soldering, but nothing surface mount. Thanks for sharing.

[ideus]

Subscribed! Love build logs and very interested to see how you go about connecting the SMD components. I've done a bit of soldering, but nothing surface mount. Thanks for sharing.

The OP has a brief explanation and a couple of pictures on SMD soldering, if you need more details just let me know. I can elaborate the explanation and post some references to videos that show how to do it. It is not hard, it just requires a firm hand and a lot of patience.

[lunas]

Thanks. I think I may need to buy a cheap kit and try my hand at it. Don't even know enough to know what questions to ask at this point.

[stoic-lemon]

Work logs like this are so valuable for those that come after. Thanks for sharing and making our build a little easier. I like that you explained how you did things, rather than just posting a ton of photos.

[ideus]

Work logs like this are so valuable for those that come after. Thanks for sharing and making our build a little easier. I like that you explained how you did things, rather than just posting a ton of photos.

If you need any further detail, just say so, I will be very happy to elaborate on it.

[ideus]

Update: A picture of the board with the last component, the bluegaloo modifiers and a nice Cherry profile PBT 7u spacebar. Thank you Billnye and IMSTO.

[axtran]

Did you solder any of the Side LEDs in perpendicular orientation? Or did you do all of them flat? A fully-illuminated picture would be a great addition to the thorough build log that you already have!

[appleonama]

Show us the pcb 

[ideus]

Show us the pcb 

I will take and post some pictures of the PCB over the weekend.