Hey guys, just wanted to document the journey of my trusty Leopold FC980M so far.
It started out in July with Cherry MX Browns, I got it from mechanicalkeyboards.com for around $100 as a returned/RMA'd item. I wasted no time at all swapping in Outemu Teal switches, with a Kailh Burnt Orange spacebar switch. The first keyset I put on was GMK Coniferous.
In October 2017, I decided I didn't like the teals, so I desoldered it again and put in ergo clears - 78g spring, Tribosys 3204 lubricant (test version) from SwitchMod, and standard MX clear stems/housings. At this point I've traded Coniferous for GMK Honeywell, and received GMK Plum as well.
Sandwich for scale.
I got bored of Plum and found a great opportunity to trade it for GMK Muted, one of my favorite keysets in late December. It immediately went on this board alongside GMK CMYK.
The board was my daily driver for a few more months, until my G80-1800 was completed in February with the shipping of GMK 9009 R2.
One of my biggest gripes about the board was the bottom row layout and having to use a non-stepped caps lock key (the original Leopold caps lock is slightly stepped). I set out to fix these problems by designing my own PCB, something I've done a few times in the past (most notably the G80-1800 above). The most annoying part of this process was getting the spacing correct - Leopold doesn't use 19.05 or 19.00mm spacing. I've found 19.03mm is about as perfect as I can get it. The Fn row, arrow keys, and numpad are also slightly weirdly spaced; I can't remember the exact numbers on those. I actually purchased a set of 5 PCBs before I realized my spacing was slightly off, because I used 19.00mm initially. I was able to fix this with the second version of my PCB.
Ver. 2 of the prototype PCB. IT's 1.2mm thick. I went with a standard 1.5-1.5-7-1.5-1.5 bottom row, stepped caps, as well as the split - and + keys on the numpad.
I just built this board tonight and tried to document the process a bit:
67g Zealios, with switch film and Tribosys 3204 lube (MX Tactile Grey stem w/ 78g spring for spacebar)
Soldering the PCB, I used mini MELF diodes because they have a cool vintage kinda look to em and are super easy to solder.
I made the PCB 100% compatible with the stock Leopold USB board. I'm awaiting smaller JST connectors in the mail to connect the cable, so I just soldered this one directly to the USB board.
GMK screw-in stabilizers w/ band-aid mod, Krytox GPL 205 g0 (switchmod again) lube, and snipped.
This showcases the modifications I had to make to the plate, was pretty straightforward with a dremel tool. Decided not to paint the plate after the fact.
Picked up this rebranded Dolch PAC (I forget the brand/model, sorry) from a friend a few months ago. These caps would be perfect.
They are! Done just in time for the Indy meetup this weekend.
