Preferred Build Process

I wouldn’t say that’s a stupid question, and the short answer is yes.

Caveats might be that de-soldering would be significantly more difficult, or if they aren’t the lower-profile ones, you might end up with a PCB of switches sitting a fraction of a mm too high. If everything fits and you don’t plan on changing things later, there’s no reason why the joints wouldn’t be solid and functional.


Soldering in general:

Agreed with @sarvopari; if you can lube stabs, you absolutely possess the manual dexterity, visual acuity, and common sense necessary to solder. I have a feeling you’ll find it shockingly easy, and have a chuckle to yourself about it. Find something to practice with, arrange some good ventilation, and have a little fun picking up a new skill.

Now, de-soldering… well. With that I’m in agreement with @blackriver - that activity is disproportionately not fun in comparison. A motorized gun (brrr) helps a lot - like… a lot… but it still kinda sucks. (D’oh - no pun intended) Definitely one of those disciplines that takes genuine patience and a fair bit of care.

I’m 100% confident you could become proficient at it in an evening; it just tends to be a slog. :stuck_out_tongue:


Soldering in context of personal keeb builds:

I love my hot-swap boards and use them the vast majority of the time, but there is something satisfying about a build with a sort of “bow on it” - when some switches and a chassis come together right, it’s nice to lock-in that gestalt with a little solder.

I think of the hot-swap boards as platforms; my [ keyboard ] with [ today’s switches ]. For a personal build, once I find some things that I really like or that I think work well together, that’s when I might move to a soldered version of the same PCB, or to an otherwise similar soldered keeb to edify a favored configuration. Instead of being filed in my head as my [ x model ] with [ x case ] and [ x switches today ], it’s more like my [ numerically unique, individual keyboard ].

With some platforms (including a couple of my favorites), both hot-swap and soldered PCBs are available - and for the KBD67L, I picked up one of the latter for myself with a particular plan. When I’ve tried all the plates and padding configurations I care to try, and when I’ve tried enough switches to find at least one I’d love to always have in a build, I’ll take that configuration and put it together as a permanent build to have alongside my constantly-changing hot-swap daily-drivers.


As for my build process, I’m gonna say it sounds a whole lot like @pixelpusher’s :upside_down_face:

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Uh, so here it goes:

Buy parts for build

Test PCB

Wait for a bit (Dunno, I just wait. Like just shivering with excitement for a few hours)

Lube switches (All at once, usually at weekends)

Lube/tune stabs for the spacebar

Redo stab for spacebar (I have a feeling that for every build, I need to get one stab wrong to know what I did wrong and do it better on the other keys, 65% do be clutch there)

Do rest of stabs

Put it all together

Look for switches that sound weird or just different and relube them

Search for that one Franken switch for the spacebar

Realize that I need to replace the spring with the same one as all the others

Fine tune (again)

spam spacebar for tick (I am ruthless :slight_smile: )

EDIT: Put dampening pads on only the spacebar (am I the only one that does this? It feels good ONLY on the spacebar for some reason)

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Actually one of the boards that I mentioned having some issues did have mill maxed sockets. I soldered that board because the switches and pcb were cheap and to @Deadeye 's point, I probably won’t ever disassemble it. Not a bad question at all.

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