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Author Topic: Any advice on building my own mechanical keyboard?  (Read 1756 times)

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Offline zpcomstock17

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Any advice on building my own mechanical keyboard?
« on: Sun, 22 January 2017, 16:15:54 »
I'm looking for good advice on building a DIY RGB Keyboard, I have a budget around 150-200 bucks and hope that's enough.
The thing is... I have no idea where to start. Phantom or Winkeyless PCB? Which type of diodes do I pick? What kind of resistors? Do I need a RGB controller and Keyboard controller, are they independent or they come in one single controller? PCB or Plate mounted switches, does the type matter?
I would appreciate any kind of help any of you have to offer, especially if you're typing from the same keyboard you're building from scratch.
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Offline fohat.digs

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Re: Any advice on building my own mechanical keyboard?
« Reply #1 on: Sun, 22 January 2017, 17:40:56 »
I recommend that you find a cheap(er) existing keyboard and use it for at least a couple of days to see how you really feel about it, then take it apart and put it back together for practice.

Before investing the time, money, and effort into a custom, you need to feel confident that you have selected the components that you like best, and that your skills are honed.
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Offline Findecanor

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Re: Any advice on building my own mechanical keyboard?
« Reply #2 on: Sun, 22 January 2017, 18:28:11 »
I don't think anyone here has built a keyboard with RGB backlighting as a hobbyist project, but I might be mistaken. Backlighting limits your options to which kinds of keycaps you could use. The highest-quality keycaps do not often have transparent legends that could be backlit.

I know some have gone professional and designed RGB-backlit keyboards though.
Input.club has released previous keyboards as DIY kits and is about to release their K-type some time this year. The K-type will have a regular tenkeyless ANSI layout and RGB backlighting, and the firmware is open source so that you could tinker a lot with it. I anticipate that it could be out of your budget, however.
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