Received the Epomaker Tide65 today. It’s nice, but I have to say I’m pretty glad I paid what I did for it. The lavender/purple anodizing is done very well, I have to say, and the general appearance is definitely something that cost more than thirty bucks. Decent heft too, though I’m considering ditching the battery and sticking more steel wheel weights in there, as with my Tofu. That does bring us to the first chuckle moment. While the board is solid aluminum, the vast expanse of branded shiny metal on the bottom is not a weight; rather, it’s a polished sliver of sheet metal stuck on with adhesive. Also, it appears that the charging light for the battery is the Fn key’s LED, and that it is not changeable in VIA. Speaking of VIA, it wouldn’t appear in the Linux desktop app until I downloaded the json, likely confirming that they’re not following the QMK license. Cheap Chinese-designed wireless board almost implies that these days though, doesn’t it?
Stock switches are something called Epomaker Lemon, a light linear. They seem nice enough and rather smooth, but I don’t like light linears. I’ll figure out something else to put in there, though maybe just spring swapping them will be enough. I do have some Box Pale Blue lying around, which is tempting, but I have no idea how that would sound. The board has a gasket mount, FR4 (I think) plate, plate foam, and case foam, and while it doesn’t sound hollow like an unmodded Tofu, the stock switches and keycaps (some just-past-Redragon front-shine Cherry… things) combine to make it very loud and very high pitched. “Clacky” I believe is the word for it. I have an MT3 Dusk TKL set (which I also got for thirty bucks, LOL), and I think that will go fairly well with the case and should change the sound in what can only be a good way.
Typing is firm, and despite being gasket mount, it’s a tiny bit softer-feeling than my Tofu that has only the barest of force-breaks. I don’t mind that, though, and it’s the least of the board’s issues. The final interesting thing going on here is the VIA json and the PCB. When I loaded the file, it came up with a “split space” layout, and I was confused, but put it onto single-spacebar. That’s when I looked, and like a flashback to the old days when a cheap Chinese gamer board might be (Outemu) hot-swap and not market it, the PCB for this thing supports 2.25/1.25/2.75 split space. The (regular) hotswap sockets are even there. I need to test them with a jumper wire or something, but I’m betting they’re fine. The plate, however, does NOT support the split space, and with plate-mount stabs that’s going to be an issue, but not insurmountable. I have a few ideas piling up, so I don’t know when, but eventually this little goober of a board is going to have a DIY plate with split space.
Honestly, that little discovery may have saved a return, because while I find a board like this interesting, in a lot of ways it doesn’t sound or feel any better than the junkboards I make for myself, though the psychology of that preference could be pretty complex, LOL.