geekhack

geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: pixelpusher on Thu, 26 January 2017, 17:07:52

Title: 68% or TKL DIY with Costar?
Post by: pixelpusher on Thu, 26 January 2017, 17:07:52

Are there any DIY options out there with costar plate mounts available?  The reason I ask is that I've had issues with cherry stabilizers and SA keycaps (keycap stems not perfectly spaced so causes stabilizers to not work correctly).  I don't mind costar.  I deal with them on a cheap CM board as well as my Matias v60.

I see that I can create a plate with costar mounts pretty easily on skillkb using KLE and send it to Lasergist, but I don't know of where to get hold of specs for things like the Clueboard plate or Tex phantom plate.  Any ideas?  Has anyone built a custom board larger than 60% with a costar stabilizer plate?

Title: Re: 68% or TKL DIY with Costar?
Post by: Hyde on Fri, 27 January 2017, 11:23:41

I'm not exactly sure on this but I believe most custom plates comes with cutout that supports both Costar and Cherry Stabilizers already.

Are you trying to stay with custom keyboard option?

I was going to say there are a lot of stock keyboard that come with Costar by default you could just go with that.

If you can state your ideal size then I can give you more suggestions.  :)

Title: Re: 68% or TKL DIY with Costar?
Post by: pixelpusher on Fri, 27 January 2017, 14:46:10

I already have 4 60% boards, so I was looking into building a 68% or even TKL.  I don't have to build it myself, but I would prefer to so that I could program to my needs.  I rely heavily on my QMK layouts on the 60% boards I already have.  I started looking into a clueboard, but it's built for PCB mounted stabilizers.  I had a whitefox in the mail but it got lost and I decided to refund my money instead of replacing it.  I regret that decision now, since I realized it had costar stabilizers :(

I ended up buying a Filco TKL to tide me over.  I managed to snag a majestouch with silent MX switches which I have never tried before.  However,  I'll want other boards down the road to put SA caps on.

By the way, I just tested it out, and sure enough, the SA spacebar feels perfect on costar (basically unusable on cherry).

I'm in on the M65A Rama board and I believe it originally planned for plate mounted stabilizers.  Maybe jchan will work with me to get a custom version of the plate. ( just noticed that jchan is out for a while with emergency family issues).