I’ve now eased crashed into plateless, rebuilding all but one board without plate. I like that plateless sounds rounder and bottom-out feels softer. I also like that switch sound is more predictable. With plate, sound was all over the place depending on the case, plate, switch, and keycap combo. Now even shitty sounding switches sound better. And the cherry on top is that now I can tinker with stabs without desoldering.
The lone board with plate is a Tofu with polished Cherry blacks and brass plate which sounds and feels too satisfying to change.
BTW, is it just me or do matte black PCBs sound better in general than others? Hard to tell if it’s just my imagination.
Solder mask color does nothing to sound I think, it is a very thin layer of paint.
But the kind of FR4 laminate could change the sound, there are different brand and kinds that can for example withstand more or less high temperatures, can block UV or not, can be better suited for high frequency designs, …
I have using gateron ink reds and the loose-leaf problem is definitely annoying. I don’t know if the ink blacks have this problem or if it just a v1 or v2 problem. I ordered it on 1upkeyboard around April 2020
Oh, that would probably mean I got the short end of the stick as I purchased the switches around April 2020. Anyway, I want to switch linears but can’t decide between lavender switches or alpaca switches (I am planning to spring swap with durock spring 67g for alpaca)
Last weekend, I noticed a very faint rattle coming from the spacebar on my caseless plateless board. What started as ignorable grew into unbearable in no time so I looked into it and came up empty. There is practically nothing to the board beyond PCB, switches, stabs, and keycaps. The rest is just sculpted layers of foam.
I went to bed stumped but woke up next morning with a clue: the artisan keycap!
Sharing another oddball issue: I’ve wondered why Cherry MX switches had a curved cut-out on one-side of the top switch housing. I ran into a possible answer today when I tried to use CRP Desko keyset on a Cherry MX black board.
CRP Desko number row keycaps (tallest ones) interferes with North-facing Cherry MX black switches. When key is pressed, northern edge of the keycap stem hits the southern ledge of switch housing. This doesn’t happen when the switch is South-facing because northern edge of Cherry black housings has curved cut-out which is deeper than the flatter cut-out on the other side.
Note that CRP Desko was the only keyset that had this problem among all the keysets I have.
A worrying development for me. Always liked tactile switches. Ordered a Moonlander and decided to go with Kaihl Box Blacks — just because I didn’t have anything like that.
Arrived yesterday and I love them! Could be the beginning of a whole new odyssey!
I think a lot of people have gone down a similar path coming from tactiles, I know I definitely did. They’re lots of fun and there’s a lot you can do with them!
KBDfans Cherry POM blanks on my Polaris half-plate build with Gateron Black Inks. Number row sounds don’t matter much to me and I don’t want the cognitive load of remembering which uppercase attic each symbol keys are hiding so I put the POM keycaps only in the middle.
Stems on KBDfans Cherry POM blanks are sorta tight so beware. For me, they came in handy when a board feels great but sounds meh. These are 1.5mm thick so don’t know if those Jelly Rainbow POM keycaps with tin walls have the same effect.
UPDATE: Looks like KBDfans no longer carry Cherry POM keysets. Oh well.
If you dig the sound of POM, look for newer Cherry G80 & G81 (MY switches) with the black caps. They come with nice thick lasered POM caps stock & the newer ones only have the offset stem on the spacebar. They’re really nice sounding on plateless MX blacks in the G80-3000 housing.
Those are the caps I’m talking about. The white caps may be lasered POM also, but I’ve never gotten a white Cherry boards yet so can not confirm if they are or are not.
I sat looking at it for several seconds… It almost has some kind of vaporwave vibe going on or something, but water is just such a strange choice of locale for a keyboard render
Those are the caps I’m talking about. The white caps may be lasered POM also, but I’ve never gotten a white Cherry boards yet so can not confirm if they are or are not.
