Small AlbumThis is a board I've been planning on making for close to a year. I finally sourced all the boards/parts necessary to make it happen.
The case is from a 10th AE JIS Realforce 89UB. It is the only Topre case I know of that has blockers.
The plate/pcb are from a Realforce 86UW. This is a discontinued board that uses a more standard bottom row. The bottom row is as follows:
1.5 | 1 | 1.5 | 7 | 1.5 | 1 | 1.5
The domes and springs are sourced from a Realforce 87UB EK 45g uniform.
The sliders are from a Novatouch
The board is hypersphere modded and lubed with traxxas 10k dif lube.
GMK stormtrooper is used with the proper, matching GMK 7u spacebar.
Most realforce boards use 6u spacebars which are very hard to find, and completely ruin the aesthetic of a build. Here is my previous attempt without the 86u.
The extra 1u key and improper space bar drove me nuts.UPDATE: I ordered a BKE-2010 about a month ago, and it finally arrived over the weekend.
I've got a small album somewhat detailing the process of harvesting the domes from the board. One thing that I found to be interesting is that my domes did not have carbon pads. I've talked to a few others, and their boards had carbon pads on all of the domes. The only domes on my board with carbon pads were the mod domes. Also, my 1u domes are a grayish color, while the mods are more of a bluish color. I was sent a BKE dome by platabear before purchasing the BKE-2010, and his dome is the same bluish color as my mod domes.
And this is where it gets more interesting. I used some nickels to perform some remedial keyboard science, and the domes were different weights. My grayish domes would support 7 nickels before buckling. The bluish 1u dome from platabear would support 8 before buckling, and my bluish modifier domes would support 9 nickels before buckling. This would mean that with the springs, my domes come out to around 40g, while the dome from platabear was 45g, and my modifier domes are 50g. I haven't done any more testing since building the board but I did find it interesting that my domes differed from the two other people I know who have BKE domes.
I am a huge fan of the BKE domes though! They have a much more snappy tactility to them, and buckle much different than all my other topre boards. The only thing left I'm considering for this board is a detachable cable mod, but the board is currently used as my daily driver at home, and rarely gets unplugged so I don't see much of a purpose in doing that mod anytime soon.
