What did you get in the mail today? (Part 1)

[pixelpusher]

So lovely. 1992 After School Special DSS keycaps. Love everything about these. Thanks @norbauer

[Deadeye]

The spirit of the 90’s is alive in this keyboard.

[habbang]

My KBDfans Tofu and KBDfans 60% case foam arrived today, so I managed to upgrade my baby to a new case, and a new look!

[dwarflemur]

I got the test board for a little something I’m working on, it came a few days earlier than dhl estimated, so I haven’t even ordered parts for it yet

[5thoughts]

Discipline. Now for switches and a soldering iron.

[Manofinterests]

Them be a lot of solder joints! Have fun!

[Rob27shred]

@donpark

I retried filming NK Dry Yellows with more care this time, making sure all the legs are latches tightly.

The result was different from my initial filming test. Filmed switch now sounds better than unfilmed. Unfilmed, there was this annoying swishing noise that I noticed only during use. Filming removed that noise. I also retried 205g0, applying a thinner coat this time. I liked the result more this time. At par with 3204 but buttery.

I guess the lesson here is to be more careful when testing and more conservative when sharing the result of testing.

I wonder if you possibly had the films shoved to far forward & the slider was catching on them? I’ve had that happen on a few switches before when I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should’ve been & it made them feel scratchy & sluggish. Once the the film was moved back into its proper placement they felt fine.

[5thoughts]

Practicing for my first custom build. Figure this would be a good start. Looking at soldering irons; any suggestions on what to stay away from?

[Manofinterests]

If it doesn’t have any sort of temperature controls, you’ll want to stay away from it.

You will want one with (or with the option for) a chisel tip. Pencil tips don’t transfer heat too well the pads for switches.

Typically you want to stay away from those trashy $20-35 “soldering kits” that have a multitude of cheapo accessories. You can build a keyboard with those, and it’ll work in a pinch, but not my recommendation if you plan on sticking to keyboards.

[5thoughts]

I definitely appreciate the insight. I was looking to spend $75 minimum, but saw some interesting kits in the $50 range. I just figured to ask to see if there were any manufacturers to stay away from or temperature range to be withing. I do understand that temps are based on solder composition.

[phitz]

I’m interested in any recommendations here too. I’ve seen some people mention trashing one or two while learning and improving, so I could be into spending less on one to learn with, but it still has to be “good enough” - whatever that is…

[Deadeye]

@phitz

I’ve seen some people mention trashing one or two while learning and improving

I’m probably one of those people - I do want to clarify that my iron is fine; what I melted were the replaceable tips - which last just fine when treated right.

When I first got my rando cheap kit, I wasn’t sure how I’d take to soldering. Looking back, @cijanzen and @Manofinterests are both right about only having to buy one iron if you start with a good one - even if you make the same goofs I did and melt some tips.

This is more a question to go along with yours - I’ve seen praise for the TS100 iron but I wouldn’t know hype from substance in that realm. I saw them online for a little under 70 USD shipped - does that sound like a good iron to invest in to the more seasoned solderers out there?

[Rico]

Oh, nice!
Looks like a bluetooth macropad

[dwarflemur]

More or less, yeah, there’s a bit more to it, but we’ll see how it works out

[Manofinterests]

Crown TKL!

[Rico]

You’d want an Iron with integrated cartridge tips, the ones that integrates both the temp sensor and the heating élément.
The TS100 looks to be the more popular.
The KSGER T12 stations also works very well(I own one), just be sure to take the one with the blue Iron handle(I have the black aluminium handle version, tends to get hot for long soldering sessions). Tips are cheap and I bought lots of varieties.
The Pace that @Manofinterests owns has great reviens, I’d love to own one myself, but it is more expensive (around 200€).

Chisel tips works nice for switches as said Huey, but also big conical tips works well. The most important is to have a tip with a good thermal mass to solder the switch holes easily.

[Rico]

I love the bottom!

[kimslawson]

Who is the actual vendor for the TS 100? Looking on Amazon I see lots of look-alike irons and I’m not sure if any of them are the real deal. You are lost in a maze of soldering kits, all alike

[skepp]

What I recall is that all of them is around 80-120$, so just go with the reviews.

[Deadeye]

@kimslawson

Who is the actual vendor for the TS 100? Looking on Amazon I see lots of look-alike irons

From what I understand, the design of the TS100 is open-source, kind of like the K-Type keyboard and its subsequent cousins the Massdrop CTRL and Hexgears Gemini.

From what I’ve seen on youtube, aside from similar models popping up, a kind of cool thing about that is being able to flash the firmware - among other things, it lets you customize the little OLED display and even adjust some temperature stuff.

@Rico Thanks for the recommendations! I’m just starting my journey with soldering, but I have two projects coming up with many hundreds of joints each so I figured it was time to upgrade from my Babby’s First Chinesium kit.