Knock knock - Who's there? Deck Hassium and Francium

[BucklingSpring]

I just received my Deck Hassium and Deck Francium, both with Brown MX.

The TKL will go at the office and the full size at home. 

I'll play with them a little more before making a review.

They are very nice. The fit and finish is excellent.

For a weird reason, the programming protocol differ  from one to the other. I found this a bit annoying.

Stay tuned

(The brown MX sounds different on the Deck than the xArmor - More quiet  on the deck, as the steel plate doesn't ring or reverb)

[tp4tissue]

Nawhice..

awaiting review.

[terran5992]

Waiting for amazing pictures

[SpAmRaY]

Tell us all about the double shots!

[Reomero]

I'm also awaiting pics

[BucklingSpring]

Tell us all about the double shots!

MechKB made an excellent review about them... All I can say is when I pulled a keycap off, I got the PBT doubleshot just like the ones they reviewed there
http://mechkb.tumblr.com/post/59664045773/our-stock-of-deck-hassiums-are-genuine-pbt-doubleshot

[SpAmRaY]

Good to know!

[BucklingSpring]

I'm also awaiting pics

It's dark here and I don't have proper lighting. I tried numerous times with different options... They all look horrible.

Ok here's a couple of teasers:

[rowdy]

Perhaps with the quality of keycap construction people might be a little bit more forgiving of the legends.

[Pacifist]

font is somewhat bearable

[MJ45]

Are those the ones with the Aluminum top cases?

[127001]

font is somewhat bearable

I feel like I'm in Microsofts dream of Egypt.

[BucklingSpring]

Here's another one that came out pretty good. Thanks to my patch of Godzilla skin :-)

Left - Previous Deck PBT, Right New generation found in the Hassium and Francium.


The stem on the older one is much thicker, but the new one is reinforced.
The new Keycap itself is much thicker.

[BucklingSpring]

Are those the ones with the Aluminum top cases?

I wish... No it's plastic.
The paint has some sort of metallic dust in it that makes it sparks a little under light.

[BucklingSpring]

Speaking of the new PBT backlit friendly... The first thing you will notice is the light is not spreading evenly across the surface of the legends.

It doesn't bug me at all but someone used to backlit ABS will probably see this as less attractive. After couples of years of use, the ABS will be all  scratched and leaking light as opposed to the Deck's who will still be just like when they came out of the box.

The actual photo is much less forgiving than the eye. The 8 and 9 are quite obvious to the eye.

[rowdy]

Speaking of the new PBT backlit friendly... The first thing you will notice is the light is not spreading evenly across the surface of the legends.

It doesn't bug me at all but someone used to backlit ABS will probably see this as less attractive. After couples of years of use, the ABS will be all  scratched and leaking light as opposed to the Deck's who will still be just like when they came out of the box.
(Attachment Link)
The actual photo is much less forgiving than the eye. The 8 and 9 are quite obvious to the eye.

The 8 and 9 (9 especially) are fairly obvious.

You'd need some sort of moulded light pipe or spreader under the keycap to spread the light from the LED evenly across the underside of the keycap.

[Linkbane]

Speaking of the new PBT backlit friendly... The first thing you will notice is the light is not spreading evenly across the surface of the legends.

It doesn't bug me at all but someone used to backlit ABS will probably see this as less attractive. After couples of years of use, the ABS will be all  scratched and leaking light as opposed to the Deck's who will still be just like when they came out of the box.
(Attachment Link)

Please, continue your advertisement, I want more.

[terran5992]

Here's another one that came out pretty good. Thanks to my patch of Godzilla skin :-)

Left - Previous Deck PBT, Right New generation found in the Hassium and Francium.
(Attachment Link)

The stem on the older one is much thicker, but the new one is reinforced.
The new Keycap itself is much thicker.

Wow are those thick pbt?

Must be a dream to have backlit friendly thick pbt

[BucklingSpring]

Must be a dream to have backlit friendly thick pbt

It is... Arrrrrrrrr. Who's yar daddy?

Fade to black, I'm going to make keyboard love. See ya tomorrow.

[IvanIvanovich]

Definitely the same source as the Vortex PBT doubleshots... too bad they didn't use that font. Even with the first version with all the different italic legend alignment it still more attractive than Deck font!

[BucklingSpring]

Definitely the same source as the Vortex PBT doubleshots

Do you have any pics to compare?

[Reomero]

I also figured their sourced from the same place where Vortex get their PBT doubleshots, judging by that "dot" pattern seen on the underside of a cap.

[IvanIvanovich]

Not my pic but...

[dante]

Are the Deck's keycaps OEM profile?

How is the profile / typing height compared to other boards in your collection?

[Awful]

I actually really like their legends also those caps are stout!

[czarek]

Horrible. That font, that backlight... At least layout is usable and the color scheme (if you disable the backlight) looks nice.

[berserkfan]

I'm still waiting for BucklingSpring to rename himself HassiumFrancium. (Or MXBrown)

[BucklingSpring]

I'm still waiting for BucklingSpring to rename himself HassiumFrancium. (Or MXBrown)

I hope you are very patient. Did I rename myself for Alps or Matias when I was raving about their products? There is so much junk out there, I'm always happy to promote good products.
I'm sold to Deck, Topre, Unicomp, Filco and recently Ducky. The first mechanical keyboard love was with IBM M's and my nick will stay true to it.

I brought the Francium at the office today. It was a busy day, I didn't had time to switch keyboards... Then I got the KBT Pure PRO delivered at my desk.

Sorry Francium, I had to try that 60% first... Hikes, that short shift and the up arrow next to it are driving me nuts. I'll have to train myself to the 60% layout in order to type properly with it.

I wonder if doing such will wreck my ability to type properly on a regular keyboard.

[BucklingSpring]

Are the Deck's keycaps OEM profile?

How is the profile / typing height compared to other boards in your collection?

The previous gen Decks were flat. Something that was not for everyones.

The new Hassium and Francium got the EXACT same profile as the Ducky... I haven't dig in my storage to compare with others. I'd say yes to EOM.

[Hyde]

I also figured their sourced from the same place where Vortex get their PBT doubleshots, judging by that "dot" pattern seen on the underside of a cap.

Not my pic but...

Show Image

Need to find out which factory it is and get a group buy on it LOL.

Are the Deck's keycaps OEM profile?

How is the profile / typing height compared to other boards in your collection?

The previous gen Decks were flat. Something that was not for everyones.

The new Hassium and Francium got the EXACT same profile as the Ducky... I haven't dig in my storage to compare with others. I'd say yes to EOM.

Yeah looks like sculpted OEM profile to me.

[soleusrex]

I thought I would like clears, because I love tactile feedback and have found blues a bit light for my taste. I ordered a WASD CODE but ultimately found the clears unpleasantly "grindy," as they say (after a trial period I resold the board). At this point I'm waiting for the right green board to jump on.

[davkol]

I thought I would like clears, because I love tactile feedback and have found blues a bit light for my taste. I ordered a WASD CODE but ultimately found the clears unpleasantly "grindy," as they say (after a trial period I resold the board).

I had the same thoughts at first, but they needed some time to break in. Less used keys on my ergodox still feel a bit weird, but the rest is awesome. Lubing would help as well... you can't do that easily on a non-custom plate-mounted board though.

[dante]

Blues are all over the freakin place.  I just got back from Fry's and messed around with some of the boards on display.  I played with a QFR and XT both with Blues and out of the box the XT seemed more satisfying to type on because the switches felt slightly heavier - having albeit a bit more bite.  Another conflict is I preferred the gray casing on the QFR much more than the black.

I was also disappointed that the XT had the exact same profile as the QFR.  One of the selling features of this board was supposibly "lower profile."

I'm going to guess the XT has a much stiffer plate than the QFR.

[Linkbane]

Blues are all over the freakin place.  I just got back from Fry's and messed around with some of the boards on display.  I played with a QFR and XT both with Blues and out of the box the XT seemed more satisfying to type on because the switches felt slightly heavier - having albeit a bit more bite.  Another conflict is I preferred the gray casing on the QFR much more than the black.

I was also disappointed that the XT had the exact same profile as the QFR.  One of the selling features of this board was supposibly "lower profile."

I'm going to guess the XT has a much stiffer plate than the QFR.

Of course, haven't you heard of the new element 'aluminum-XT' which is stiffer than 'aluminum-R'?

[Grendel]

Just got my hands on a Deck Hassium MX brown. A bit underwhelming IMHO. The build quality seems nice (heavy, nice fit, thick caps), but it lacks in the details -- the legend font (altho I have seen worse, CM Storm or 710+ are bad examples), the legends uneven illumination because of the double shot process, no symbols in the TK caps, "WIN" key (spelled out, not a symbol), non-detachable cable (at least it's braided), the gimmicky lighting modes and thus PWM flicker (1).

An interesting feature is the macro programming for each key (!), have to play w/ that a bit more. The BL scripting is more of a gimmick IMO, don't really need that.

Examining its USB descriptors comes up w/ some interesting info -- the boards reports USB 1.1 compliance at full speed, that combination shouldn't really exist. I have seen that in a Ducky S3 which could point to either the same OEM of the board or at least the same MCU (Holtek in Ducky's), assuming someone reused some example code. Another interesting bit of info is that the 108 manufacturer string is "Heng Yu Technology", apparently Deck's OEM.

Overall an ok board -- if it were cheaper. For around $175 I would have expected better.

(1) have to give some kudos to Deck here tho, the Hassium uses the highest frequency of the BL boards I have seen so far. By just eyeballing it, high (better) to low (bad) frequency in BL boards: Deck 108, Corsair K70, LT 710+, Ducky Shine 3. I can use the 108 and K70 with the lights on, but not the 710 or S3 (the flicker drives me nuts.)

[Linkbane]

(1) have to give some kudos to Deck here tho, the Hassium uses the highest frequency of the BL boards I have seen so far. By just eyeballing it, high (better) to low (bad) frequency in BL boards: Deck 108, Corsair K70, LT 710+, Ducky Shine 3. I can use the 108 and K70 with the lights on, but not the 710 or S3 (the flicker drives me nuts.)

I'm pretty sure that Grendel's a superhuman.

[Grendel]

No, I'm average ;P I'm also not alone. Even more.

Interestingly the flicker of a light source is defined within a standard EN12464-1:2002 which states that flicker causes distraction and may give rise to physiological effects such as headaches. Stroboscopic effects can lead to dangerous situations by changing the perceived motion of rotating or reciprocating machinery. Lighting systems should be designed to avoid flicker and stroboscopic effects. It is noted within the standard that this can usually be achieved for example by use of DC electrical supply for incandescent lamps, or by operating incandescent or discharge lamps at high frequencies (around 30 kHz). [..]

Of course if your LED driver uses Pulse Width Modulation technology then your ripple current is actually 100% as the current through the LED varies between 0 and full current at a specific PWM frequency. If you require high resolution current control then unfortunately a major disadvantage with PWM is that the flicker frequency drops to only a few hundred Hertz at best.

A recent flicker study by the Lighting Research Center in New York State tested how 10 humans detected and more importantly accepted flicker using both the flicker frequency and also the degree of percentage flicker with very interesting results as shown in figures 8 and 9.

In figure 8, the lower the flicker frequency enabled the subjects to detect stroboscopic effects of the light source especially if the flicker percentage is high. For example, the majority (80-100%) of the subjects would be able to see stroboscopic effects of a PWM (100% flicker) driven LED system with a PWM frequency of up to 1KHz whereas an LED light source with a flicker frequency from 1KHz and only 5% flicker would not be seen by observers. For clarity an LED light source with 5% flicker is essentially a DC light source with 5% ripple current.
However, figure 9 shows that the majority of subjects in the study would accept light sources which give rise to the stroboscopic effects irrespective of the flicker percentage after a flicker frequency of approximately 1500Hz.

Since I'm using a low light setting (just want to be able to see the legends in a dimmed room, not light the room up) the flicker rate is > 50% using PWM control. If you look at the two figures mentioned, most people see stroboscopic effects at that rate for frequencies > 1kHz (fig. 8 ) but also most people find these effects acceptable starting at 300Hz (fig. 9). I'm just less tolerant

LED monitors can be a PITA as well BTW.

This whole issue is why TG3 equipped their 82 boards w/ current limiting brightness control -- having one of the current PWM implementations in a police cruiser would not not have gone over well.

[jonjonjon]

Since I'm using a low light setting (just want to be able to see the legends in a dimmed room, not light the room up) the flicker rate is > 50% using PWM control. If you look at the two figures mentioned, most people see stroboscopic effects at that rate for frequencies > 1kHz (fig. 8 ) but also most people find these effects acceptable starting at 300Hz (fig. 9). I'm just less tolerant

LED monitors can be a PITA as well BTW.

This whole issue is why TG3 equipped their 82 boards w/ current limiting brightness control -- having one of the current PWM implementations in a police cruiser would not not have gone over well.

i have to agree the CTRL, ALT and WIN spelled out in huge letters is ugly. the number keys also look bad with the huge nonalphanumeric characters next to it. is this a result of PBT keycaps that can be backlit? if not the designer should be fired and i'm surprised a company would come out with a design like this in 2014 maybe if it was 1994. i'm not a fan of the font but i could look past it but the modifier and number keys are really bad.

why do all the keyboards use PWM if its worse? is it because of the cost or does it allow them to do the dumb demo led modes so people can make youtube videos of flashing leds?

[Linkbane]

Since I'm using a low light setting (just want to be able to see the legends in a dimmed room, not light the room up) the flicker rate is > 50% using PWM control. If you look at the two figures mentioned, most people see stroboscopic effects at that rate for frequencies > 1kHz (fig. 8 ) but also most people find these effects acceptable starting at 300Hz (fig. 9). I'm just less tolerant

LED monitors can be a PITA as well BTW.

This whole issue is why TG3 equipped their 82 boards w/ current limiting brightness control -- having one of the current PWM implementations in a police cruiser would not not have gone over well.

i have to agree the CTRL, ALT and WIN spelled out in huge letters is ugly. the number keys also look bad with the huge nonalphanumeric characters next to it. is this a result of PBT keycaps that can be backlit? if not the designer should be fired and i'm surprised a company would come out with a design like this in 2014 maybe if it was 1994. i'm not a fan of the font but i could look past it but the modifier and number keys are really bad.

why do all the keyboards use PWM if its worse? is it because of the cost or does it allow them to do the dumb demo led modes so people can make youtube videos of flashing leds?

From their thread, apparently making PBT-enabled backlit molds are quite expensive, and they really couldn't care less about the consumer for the most part to change the godawful font for a price, instead catering to the few who don't care, who also probably don't care that it's PBT. I'd never buy from them for that sole reason.

[jonjonjon]

From their thread, apparently making PBT-enabled backlit molds are quite expensive, and they really couldn't care less about the consumer for the most part to change the godawful font for a price, instead catering to the few who don't care, who also probably don't care that it's PBT. I'd never buy from them for that sole reason.

that's a shame because the keyboard had so much potential. not sure why its so hard for these companies to come out with a keyboard with PBT keycaps with a nice standard font/layout and good backlighting that only dims and turns off. seems pretty simple and i bet they would sell a bunch.

[Linkbane]

From their thread, apparently making PBT-enabled backlit molds are quite expensive, and they really couldn't care less about the consumer for the most part to change the godawful font for a price, instead catering to the few who don't care, who also probably don't care that it's PBT. I'd never buy from them for that sole reason.

that's a shame because the keyboard had so much potential. not sure why its so hard for these companies to come out with a keyboard with PBT keycaps with a nice standard font/layout and good backlighting that only dims and turns off. seems pretty simple and i bet they would sell a bunch.

Probably mostly to GH users, though. I imagine that plenty of people would still buy their keyboards if they were ABS, so I wonder why they drive away the people they would attract by having PBT backlit keycaps by having their unsightly choice in font.

[tbc]

i wonder if it's a perception of quality thing.

by switching to PBT, they avoid customer complaints of shiny (and therefore cheap-seeming) keycaps.

I mean, did they say they switched to PBT BECAUSE us keyboard enthusiasts demanded it?

if the PBT switch wasn't for our benefit, then logically, then would never change their font to appease keyboard enthusiasts (because their goal wasn't to make us happy in the first place).  gaming fonts > cherry fonts outside of geekhack btw.

[jonjonjon]

From their thread, apparently making PBT-enabled backlit molds are quite expensive, and they really couldn't care less about the consumer for the most part to change the godawful font for a price, instead catering to the few who don't care, who also probably don't care that it's PBT. I'd never buy from them for that sole reason.

that's a shame because the keyboard had so much potential. not sure why its so hard for these companies to come out with a keyboard with PBT keycaps with a nice standard font/layout and good backlighting that only dims and turns off. seems pretty simple and i bet they would sell a bunch.

Probably mostly to GH users, though. I imagine that plenty of people would still buy their keyboards if they were ABS, so I wonder why they drive away the people they would attract by having PBT backlit keycaps by having their unsightly choice in font.

ducky seems to be selling a ton of shines and they are about as plain as it gets. sure they have some demo led modes but who uses those modes after the first 5 minutes? basically a shine with pbt keycaps and non pwm flickering led's. anyone who does enough research to know what a ducky shine is and willing to spend $140+ on a keyboard would probably also understand those benefits.

[tooki]

These look like such great keyboards, except for the fact that I cannot possibly buy a board with such fantastically hideous legends. What on earth were they thinking?!? 

Why is there nobody out there making sensible PBT keycaps? A well-designed font, sized and placed aesthetically and ergonomically, with clear symbols.

(And c'mon, would it really be so hard to make the three extra molds to make Mac keycap replacement sets? If they can do Tux, they can do Mac.)

[Linkbane]

ducky seems to be selling a ton of shines and they are about as plain as it gets. sure they have some demo led modes but who uses those modes after the first 5 minutes? basically a shine with pbt keycaps and non pwm flickering led's. anyone who does enough research to know what a ducky shine is and willing to spend $140+ on a keyboard would probably also understand those benefits.

Are you sure we're talking about the same Ducky? They have pretty much the best features you can ask for; dual-layer PCB, removable cable (although not braided), a billion LED modes far superior to any currently existing, good keycaps, either thick PBT on their limited-edition series or still a fairly good ABS on others, repeat acceleration/delay, which I don't believe comes on any other keyboards, plus DIP switches. When you compare, they're honestly better than any other supplier in the choice and quality they give.

PWM flickering. LOL. I can't take people who talk about this as a problem seriously. If you can't see it with your eyes and it's only an 'optical' effect, it's nonessence.

[BucklingSpring]

The new MAX Keyboards seams to have good caps and decent fonts.

[Linkbane]

These look like such great keyboards, except for the fact that I cannot possibly buy a board with such fantastically hideous legends. What on earth were they thinking?!? 

Why is there nobody out there making sensible PBT keycaps? A well-designed font, sized and placed aesthetically and ergonomically, with clear symbols.

(And c'mon, would it really be so hard to make the three extra molds to make Mac keycap replacement sets? If they can do Tux, they can do Mac.)

They do, they're just rather expensive usually. Ducky makes nice PBT caps with a professional sans-serif font as well as engraved ones on the Yellow Shine 3 (the caps are quite good, I have the blank ones, though). IMSTO also makes good ones, they're just prohibitively expensive to most ($70-90 in different colors), and Vortex has a rather polarizing font, but they are double shot. I like them personally, but they are quite odd. They just made a new font which seems much more agreeable to members, though.

[jonjonjon]

ducky seems to be selling a ton of shines and they are about as plain as it gets. sure they have some demo led modes but who uses those modes after the first 5 minutes? basically a shine with pbt keycaps and non pwm flickering led's. anyone who does enough research to know what a ducky shine is and willing to spend $140+ on a keyboard would probably also understand those benefits.

Are you sure we're talking about the same Ducky? They have pretty much the best features you can ask for; dual-layer PCB, removable cable (although not braided), a billion LED modes far superior to any currently existing, good keycaps, either thick PBT on their limited-edition series or still a fairly good ABS on others, repeat acceleration/delay, which I don't believe comes on any other keyboards, plus DIP switches. When you compare, they're honestly better than any other supplier in the choice and quality they give.

PWM flickering. LOL. I can't take people who talk about this as a problem seriously. If you can't see it with your eyes and it's only an 'optical' effect, it's nonessence.

i never said shines weren't a good keyboard but there is plenty they could improve. the shine is about as plain and generic as it gets so you don't need some over the top "gaming" keyboard in order to sell them. the PWM frequency was enough of a problem that ducky increased the frequency in the new firmware and you see people complaining about it.

[Linkbane]

ducky seems to be selling a ton of shines and they are about as plain as it gets. sure they have some demo led modes but who uses those modes after the first 5 minutes? basically a shine with pbt keycaps and non pwm flickering led's. anyone who does enough research to know what a ducky shine is and willing to spend $140+ on a keyboard would probably also understand those benefits.

Are you sure we're talking about the same Ducky? They have pretty much the best features you can ask for; dual-layer PCB, removable cable (although not braided), a billion LED modes far superior to any currently existing, good keycaps, either thick PBT on their limited-edition series or still a fairly good ABS on others, repeat acceleration/delay, which I don't believe comes on any other keyboards, plus DIP switches. When you compare, they're honestly better than any other supplier in the choice and quality they give.

PWM flickering. LOL. I can't take people who talk about this as a problem seriously. If you can't see it with your eyes and it's only an 'optical' effect, it's nonessence.

i never said shines weren't a good keyboard but there is plenty they could improve. the shine is about as plain and generic as it gets so you don't need some over the top "gaming" keyboard in order to sell them. the PWM frequency was enough of a problem that ducky increased the frequency in the new firmware and you see people complaining about it.

As I just showed you, the Shine is one of the most innovative keyboards in the market. You're being extremely rude, would you like to cite how it's plain or generic in any way?

[neunelfer]

ducky seems to be selling a ton of shines and they are about as plain as it gets. sure they have some demo led modes but who uses those modes after the first 5 minutes? basically a shine with pbt keycaps and non pwm flickering led's. anyone who does enough research to know what a ducky shine is and willing to spend $140+ on a keyboard would probably also understand those benefits.

Are you sure we're talking about the same Ducky? They have pretty much the best features you can ask for; dual-layer PCB, removable cable (although not braided), a billion LED modes far superior to any currently existing, good keycaps, either thick PBT on their limited-edition series or still a fairly good ABS on others, repeat acceleration/delay, which I don't believe comes on any other keyboards, plus DIP switches. When you compare, they're honestly better than any other supplier in the choice and quality they give.

PWM flickering. LOL. I can't take people who talk about this as a problem seriously. If you can't see it with your eyes and it's only an 'optical' effect, it's nonessence.

i never said shines weren't a good keyboard but there is plenty they could improve. the shine is about as plain and generic as it gets so you don't need some over the top "gaming" keyboard in order to sell them. the PWM frequency was enough of a problem that ducky increased the frequency in the new firmware and you see people complaining about it.

As I just showed you, the Shine is one of the most innovative keyboards in the market. You're being extremely rude, would you like to cite how it's plain or generic in any way?

I think you need to take a couple steps back and calm down. Nowhere in his posts was he rude, he was simply expressing his opinion about Ducky. It sounds like you're being overly defensive about the keyboard because you own one.