Hello!
I want to share my recent project. I've had a stock Sentraq S60X w/ stock Cherry MX Clears for the last few years and have accumulated parts for a gb keyboard that was meant to replace it. Unfortunately, my order never shipped so those parts have now ended up in my S60X. I didn't put much care into this project so it ended up being a little wacky. Here's a picture of the side without the acrylic casing:
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From the bottom going up there is the aluminum bottom, 1mm neoprene foam, dynamat, PCB, 3.175 mm silicon, 1mm neoprene foam (not pictured but it would in between the acrylic and the plate), aluminium plate. I also used lubed 78g zilents and lubed these purple stabilizers i got from a groupbuy I don't remember joining.
I replaced the machine screws with trimmed rubber computer fan mounts that I got from Amazon. Here is another side profile, this time with the acrylic casing:
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I imagine a lot of the material I added don't actually do anything for the sound or feel of the keyboard but I enjoyed messing around with them. Here are some more pictures of the internals:
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This is the aluminum bottom, neoprene, and dynamat:
This is the top of the keyboard without switches and the plate. You can see another layer of neoprene and the silicon gasket I poorly cut:
Replacing the machine screws with the rubber case fan mounts was a silly idea but once I thought of it, I couldn't stop myself. I had to widen the holes in the acrylic but it turned out pretty well actually. This is what it looked like before I cut the ends off:
I am very inexperienced when it comes to keyboards so I wasn't sure what to expect from zilents and gaskets and all that but it felt wildly different at first than what I was thinking. I think it feels good though; the switches have a less defined tactile bump from my clears but that may be because of my poor lubing job. Aside from the spacebar, it is very quiet, or at least much quieter than my stock clears. It's kinda weird because you can feel the keyboard squirming when typing since its being held by rubber instead of metal screws. I absolutely love it and find it really enjoyable to type on. It looks ugly but its my baby now so I don't think I could ever dislike it haha. Here is a type test on youtube. It was recorded on my phone so it misses a lot of the low-end thonk-iness though. The switches at the beginning are stock Kailh speed silvers in an Ergodox EZ with SA keycaps. I added them for reference but it might not help.
https://youtu.be/QCfYyiGXh40My only problem is that the diode for my '4' button fell off somehow so I'll need to pop a new one back on at some point. Also, I want to find a way to secure the ends of the rubber 'pins' that are holding the case together. Right now, it's relying on friction which is fine but I don't want to pick up my keyboard one day only for it to fall apart.
I bought the GB for Vega so hopefully I can retire this silly keyboard soon and try something more proper but for now I will cherish it! Thanks for reading, if you have any suggestions on making this keyboard better, I'd love to hear them!
