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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: PerniciousPony on Sun, 26 March 2017, 11:42:55

Title: Realforce 84U
Post by: PerniciousPony on Sun, 26 March 2017, 11:42:55: (http://i.imgur.com/jCi9bqK.jpg)

Small Album (http://imgur.com/a/1Zmhu)

This 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. (http://i.imgur.com/JLKFXez.jpg)

UPDATE: I ordered a BKE-2010 about a month ago, and it finally arrived over the weekend. I've got a small album (http://imgur.com/a/RFJfZ) 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.
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: mrboovn on Sun, 26 March 2017, 12:45:20: Nice board Perni,although I don't like MX slider swapping,but that set comes out really nice with your board :thumb: One day I will find a WKL Realforce :D
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: PerniciousPony on Sun, 26 March 2017, 12:51:20: Quote from: mrboovn on Sun, 26 March 2017, 12:45:20
Nice board Perni,although I don't like MX slider swapping,but that set comes out really nice with your board :thumb: One day I will find a WKL Realforce :D

I may swap it to HiPro soon ;D
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: MandrewDavis on Sun, 26 March 2017, 13:09:09: Quote from: PerniciousPony on Sun, 26 March 2017, 12:51:20
Quote from: mrboovn on Sun, 26 March 2017, 12:45:20
Nice board Perni,although I don't like MX slider swapping,but that set comes out really nice with your board :thumb: One day I will find a WKL Realforce :D

I may swap it to HiPro soon ;D

Damn, at that point you are using 5-6 keyboards worth of parts. With the 7u spacebar you can go full SA. MMMMM
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: bmilcs on Wed, 29 March 2017, 17:30:13: Quote from: PerniciousPony on Sun, 26 March 2017, 11:42:55
Show Image
(http://i.imgur.com/jCi9bqK.jpg)

Small Album (http://imgur.com/a/1Zmhu)

This 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 91UB. 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. (http://i.imgur.com/JLKFXez.jpg)

Hey man. I recently got the 45g & 55g Realforce 87u's and am finding them both to be too harsh on bottoming out. Me and ergoclears have a longgg relationship at this point; do you think lubing and silencing them would help?
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: Niomosy on Thu, 30 March 2017, 00:18:33: Here I was thinking it would be a 75% board. I am disappoint.
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: PollandAkuma on Thu, 30 March 2017, 04:28:10: Where are the 35g domes? You selling them?
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: ander on Thu, 30 March 2017, 05:00:29: What's a blocker? I assume you're not referring to Dan Blocker, who played Hoss on Bonanza (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6fJmjt84zZiWk6e8mBtjFUU2PCVcO_I6).

[attach=1]
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: tp4tissue on Thu, 30 March 2017, 05:09:38: Awesome Keyboard. !!

This Band saw should be your next component purchase to upgrade your keyboard.

[attachimg=2]

[attachimg=1]
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: romevi on Thu, 30 March 2017, 16:05:05: Jeez, that's quite the dedication.
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: PerniciousPony on Thu, 30 March 2017, 17:03:12: Quote from: Niomosy on Thu, 30 March 2017, 00:18:33
Here I was thinking it would be a 75% board. I am disappoint.

Are there any 84-key 75% boards? I thought 75% boards generally had more keys than that. I could have just said it was a Winkeyless Realforce :p

Quote from: MandrewDavis on Sun, 26 March 2017, 13:09:09
Damn, at that point you are using 5-6 keyboards worth of parts. With the 7u spacebar you can go full SA. MMMMM

It took quite a while to get all the parts sourced. Now I've just gotta figure out how to get the other boards back to being usable haha. Full SA has been achieved as well (http://i.imgur.com/J2Z4wgN.jpg)

Quote from: PollandAkuma on Thu, 30 March 2017, 04:28:10
Where are the 35g domes? You selling them?

I bought the 10th AE JIS board gutted. All it had was the case, plate and pcb. The sliders, springs, domes and caps had all been salvaged from it already :(

Quote from: romevi on Thu, 30 March 2017, 16:05:05
Jeez, that's quite the dedication.

It's been a goal for most of the time I've been in the mech game. And soon I'll have more parts to take it to the next level :-X

Quote from: bmilcs on Wed, 29 March 2017, 17:30:13
Hey man. I recently got the 45g & 55g Realforce 87u's and am finding them both to be too harsh on bottoming out. Me and ergoclears have a longgg relationship at this point; do you think lubing and silencing them would help?

Silencing with hyper spheres will only dampen the upstroke, not the down stroke and wouldn't help with a harsh bottom out. O-rings might help, but I'm not a fan of o-rings in general so I haven't tried them on topre. As for lubing, I'm not sure how it would help with bottoming out, but it does make them feel extremely smooth.
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: Bucake on Sat, 01 April 2017, 16:12:51: awesome.
really, very awesome.
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: PerniciousPony on Mon, 24 April 2017, 17:37:41: I just finished installing some BKE-2010 domes on this board and have updated the OP. I'm not sure if anyone here has any experience with BKE domes, but I'd love to hear from others as my domes appear to be different than other BKE-2010 boards.
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: dblack on Tue, 25 April 2017, 14:28:54: Looks great, gonna start a search for all the different parts.
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: MandrewDavis on Tue, 25 April 2017, 14:35:50: Quote from: ZuXzu on Tue, 25 April 2017, 14:28:54
Looks great, gonna start a search for all the different parts.

If I could just find a Realforce 86UW PCB, I would be set.
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: dblack on Tue, 25 April 2017, 16:49:32: Yeah this definitely wont be easy.
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: dblack on Tue, 25 April 2017, 23:25:14: The biggest problem for me is finding a 10th AE JIS Realforce 91UB. I cant find it anywhere!
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: PerniciousPony on Wed, 26 April 2017, 12:13:36: Quote from: MandrewDavis on Tue, 25 April 2017, 14:35:50
Quote from: ZuXzu on Tue, 25 April 2017, 14:28:54
Looks great, gonna start a search for all the different parts.

If I could just find a Realforce 86UW PCB, I would be set.

You'll need a plate as well, unless you are going to try to get a custom plate made. The bottom row cutouts are in different places on the 86u plate, as well as a different caps lock cutout. The caps lock key has a 1.5u housing, whereas all the other realforce boards I've used have a 1u capslock housing.
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: MaNiFeX on Wed, 26 April 2017, 12:29:45: Wow. Looks so great. I had no idea so much work went into your board! :thumb: Congrats on the build.
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: sncbraxsc2 on Mon, 02 April 2018, 14:26:09: might be my favorite topre build ^-^
Title: Re: Realforce 84U
Post by: nogoodnames444 on Tue, 03 April 2018, 00:33:00: This is nuts