OK I have decided to post my board. The reason being that after Metalliqaz comes out with his Zeta this month, maybe Kishy will post his Eta in June, Kurplop will have done up his Theta in July, and someone else will come in with his Iota in August and I won’t stand any more iota of a chance then than I will do now.
This is Gutz’s beloved Tipro.
It originated as a freebie from GeorgeK, demonstrating that stuff that you spend hundreds on, you don’t necessarily like in the end. I spent tons of money on other keyboards and wound up NOT liking them as much as I liked this one.
I removed the disgusting black switches and dremel modded the board underneath. So now all switches are moddable.
The backplate has been painted lilac, which shows up a bit between the switches.
The switches are greens with my signature orthodontic band jailhouse mod, which makes them high actuation and ultra silent. I’d say they are quieter than Topres, whether during the actuation phase, or on the rebound phase. Due to the actuation point being so high they are actually quite light, around the same as Korean 62g at actuation although they are actually using stock heavy springs.
I programmed it with all my usual favourite macros which explains the logic on this board. It is not just a pretty board. It is very, very functional. Everything you see on this board is perfect in my eyes because it serves a purpose.
The space and return keys are Row3 SA. That means they're flat and spherical topped. That is very useful because you strike the keys with the corners of your thumbs whereas for other fingers you strike with your fingertips. This means other fingers find it more comfortable to use normal keycaps, but the thumbs are not so comfortable. Only Row3 SA feels nice on my thumbs. I have tried practically every MX keycap profile and this is my recommendation.
The printscreen button (next to scrolllock as usual) has been replaced by a big blank key. It is a macro key that I use a lot, so I want it accessible to both left and right hands, and also accessible by touch since it feels different from surrounding keys. Since I use autohotkey, this button is still printscreen. That way I can take screenshots when I press alt-printscreen.
The caps lock has been recessed. I have plenty of relegendables, but I don’t want to use any of them for this caps lock because Tipro’s stock keys are the lowest I can find. I want to keep the functionality of CapsLock because occasionally I do use it, but I don’t use it often so it is deliberately kept low.
I moved the /*- to the side. Firstly, that creates space in the middle and makes the Del and End keys accessible since I use them fairly often. Secondly, when I am using the numpad, I like to have one side with a higher profile so that I can feel my way around.
The different sections are ergonomic and easily seen even in low lighting. I can detect where I am on the board, and press the right key, anytime because home keys F J are fairly centrally located. (My new home keys are actually S and E, but I totally have no problem touch typing on the first 4 rows because of the thumb keys (space and enter) which help me place hands correctly. It is when I need to type higher keys that I must have F J homing assistance. I put fingers there, and when I move up I can feel the different textures of the next 3 rows which lets me always accurately locate the vertical row. And with pinkies at TAB and Backspace when I move my hands up, I can locate the correct horizontal key due to muscle memory.
Windows and App keys are very important to me… since I always use them as macro trigger keys in Autohotkey.
I have navigation keys on both sides, which I like very much.
Apart from the lock lights, I also have the buzzer sound off whenever I trigger a lock key.
I changed all the leds to SIP sockets so theoretically I can swap different leds in. Since when keyboard is on the L1 key will always be lighted by default, I changed that to a colour changer which is quite fun. The constantly changing colour makes me feel the keyboard is alive without being disruptive.
I didn’t put the relegendable covers on for the sake of photo taking, since they reflect light a bit. In any case I don’t need the covers when using the keyboard. As long as the texture of the top row and the side columns (TAB, Backspace, Shift, etc) is different, I can locate them by touch. Also they are already higher than QRZ and :O? which is good for the pinkies.
I HAVE SUFFICIENT RELEGENDABLES. Gotta stress that, because I didn’t use higher profile 0 Ins and + keys for no reason. I want them nearer the height of other numerics for regular typing purposes. The mods like Alt, Win and App are kept lower using my xkeys. I don’t actuate them unless I purposely want to.
The only key that doesn’t make me happy here is the “ key. It is a bit too low for pinky to reach easily, but I didn’t really want to replace it with a relegendable bottom because it is an alphanumeric after all.
There are a few defects on this board that I couldn’t cure. You can also see I have a piece of painted over masking tape above F9 F10. There was a very deep scratch that could not be sanded down.
Another is the solder splash just below the back/ left arrow key on the left side. I couldn’t get it off and didn’t want to ruin my nice paint job.
The worst thing about my work is that I didn’t take photos along the way. I was merely experimenting with layouts at first and never expected to like this keyboard so much. I never even expected that I could desolder this entire board without lifting a single pad!
ps as it is nearly the end of May, maybe my board should be nominated in June instead. HINT, HINT.
Update: new photos uploaded
