Now I can never unsee that, thanks…
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Sure, there’s one top photo in my editorial but the board is disgustingly dirty. I’ll put together a proper post and gallery after disassembly and cleaning, just like with the Hammond 2 – another acquisition of the week:
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Got the Videowriter I bought in today & holy shit is it clean! This is actually an insane run I’ve been on lately TBH. In all the years I’ve been buying vintage boards this is the first time I’ve managed to get 2 super clean vintage boards in a row, let alone 3 in a row! For those that don’t mess around with vintage boards, now that mechanical keyboards are well known to be worth something it has become much harder to find vintage boards/parts in good condition for good pricing. Most know what they got & price it accordingly (no more $30 NOS Pingmasters nowadays LOL!). If it is priced decently that usually means it’s not in the best shape in one way or another. However most sellers are not gonna tell you that & make sure the pictures show what’s for sale in the best light. I’ve bought a bunch of boards that were cleaned well on the outside & seemed like a good deal from the pics. Only to get it & find unspoken horrors under the caps or in the case.
I’m tempted to say vintage hunting is back after the stuff I got in this week! Prices, while still much higher than before the hobby kicked off, are normalizing to what stuff is actually worth finally. Plus it seems like those that have been sitting on good condition vintage boards/parts hoping to get crazy money for them, are finally figuring out the crazy money for anything MKB was just a side effect of everyone being stuck at home during the pandemic & stuff won’t sell at those prices anymore. I could be wrong & just got incredibly lucky with these 3, but it sure feels like vintage hunting is not just a fool’s errand again!
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Damn, that looks clean. Looks like there’s not even a spec of dust under those keycaps, that’s rare.
And i hope you are right there. Some of the prices for vintage boards have gotten unreasonable during the pandemic. Almost 200USD for a NEC board that looks more brown than beige and has shiny keycaps is pretty normal on Ebay and it hurts. I feel like some vintage sellers just look under the keycaps to see if it’s rubberdome or not, and as soon as they see a funny colored slider they immediately add 100 dollar to the price or something. Just crazy.
Edit : Wow, did the reply function not work properly? huh.
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Yeah there still is a lot of this & people thinking slider over dome boards are mechanical. So it definitely takes a good bit more searching nowadays, but from what I’ve seen over the past few months the prices are trending down on vintage boards/parts. A good trick I’ve found is if you see something you’re interested but it is overpriced just add it to your “watch list”. Most of the boards marked at outrageous prices have been sitting & relisted multiple times, so the seller will usually send you a offer of a lower price. Which you can even send a counteroffer back to try to get a even lower price. I’ve scored a few good deals that way cause the seller wasn’t in the hobby & didn’t want to be sitting on something forever. I’d say the hobby is still in the hangover from the pandemic rush, but we are really close to things balancing back out. Prices will never be as low as before the hobby become more visible, but I feel like vintage stuff is getting back to at least reasonable pricing finally.
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YOK BSUN BEGONIA SWITCH
There is lubricant at the factory, but the sound is very bright and loud. Pinch sound.
so they need to be re-lubricated. BUT this is optional. You can leave it if you like bright sound. There is full POM material here. But there is no friction typical for these types of switches. Well, maybe after relubrication it will. Now this is not the case.
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Interesting that you don’t get the typical Pom on Pom friction. Also really nice color. How is the stem wobble? I would use novelkeys creams or dream switches in so many more builds if they had less wobble.
The case sits firmly. No film needed.
The stem is shaking as usual, there are no major deviations. It’s more correct to say that when you press the wobble you don’t feel it, there’s also a light spring and when you press it you immediately go down.
Here are the QKs that I threw earlier. There is a wobble system there. And my opinion is that it is because of the stem, but not because of the size, but because of the tip. The tip has a thinning at the end and it is very long, this gives the feeling that the stem is dangling when you start pressing. And in the middle of the move it’s no longer there.
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DCS Vert just arrived!
Pictures on my Manta75 incoming;)
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Cheese Mocha Linear Switches
Specs
- Linear
- MX stem
- Stem: POM
- Housing: Nylon
- Total Travel: 3.6±0.3 mm
- Force Pre-Travel: 1.3±0.3 mm
- Operation Force: 30±5 gf
- Bottom Touching Force: 43±5 gf
- Spring: Extended double section
- Manufactured by PAIGU
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Ranked POM Ink keycaps arrived today. I already had the white/jelly version but I was feeling more cherry profile POM in a different color.
(I was very curious about the keycap fitment that I forgot to show the packaging first, lol)
Sprue mark is located at the bottom corner of the keycap.
Spacebar is straight, though my white/jelly POM version used to have a slight warp which was easy to fix.
Only things I would like to see improved is fixing the tight stems. The tighter stems mostly comes from keys that are outside of the full size support. Also would like to see scoops since this only comes in home bars. They do have an extra R3 keys if you don’t want home bars but again, these are very tight.
Even when taking out caps, I have to hold the board because it will lift the board as I try to pull. That’s how insanely tight it is, yet I have not experienced caps or switch stems cracking at all.
Just a picture of my Duck with Ranked POM Ink. The texture feels very smooth and the caps makes the switch feel lighter than GMK (I think these are 1.45mm while GMK is 1.5mm). Sound is slightly lower pitch than GMK, not that big of a difference. Overall nice caps but again, please be aware of the tight stems I mentioned in case you’re thinking of trying it.
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Thanks. It’s Ink in name only but made me wonder how keycaps made out of same material Gateron Black Ink switches are made out of.
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So, I have wanted to do a 100% POM keyboard… these would work nicely for that.
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I was visited by the Switch Fairy today!!
- Invokeys Black Sesame linears
- Coffee Break Keyboards Trash linears
- Geon Silent Red linears
- Geon Silent Yellow tactiles
The Black Sesames were re-stocking as I already love them in my PC Mode Envoy, but the Geon silent switches are me “dipping my toe” into the silent switch pool after enjoying the LICHICKX Lucy switches in my 40% board.
The fact that neither of these silent switches use a silicone dampener but still are as quiet as the Lucy’s is crazy to me. There is a very slight leaf ping present in these Geon switches, but is easily remedied with a brushing of lube behind the rear of the leaf.
The Trash linears sounded interesting after @pixelpusher brought them to my attention. They feel and sound fantastic right out of the box. I am looking forward to popping these into a future build or rebuild of a current board.
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Wait, do you make these labels for your switches? That’s awesome. I haven’t seen that before.
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I picked up one of these:
https://www.amazon.com/Phomemo-M220-Bluetooth-Inventory-Compatible/dp/B09HPDYT5D
Picked it up specifically for organizing my switches. It’s great to be able to view the switch materials as well as if they have been modded or not.
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Finally I put together a post of this Videoton VT-340 keyboard:
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Beautiful example of cable lacing - practically a dead art now, except on things like the Perseverence Mars rover
And it looks like a Centronics connector to me.
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Awesome, thanks. I’ll update the post with this info.
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Ready for another round of bad Photos? From left to right :
- Bald Brother Strawberry Ice Cream v3. Manufacturer may be Philikey/Drinkey, and they are quite nice. Usual POM long pole stem, PC top, Nylon bottom combo. “Jagor” nameplate, which used to be a quite old keyboard brand, if i remember right. Performance is quite good, very little wobble and they are smooth too.
- QK01 switches, Manufacturer either Duhuk (formerly lumia) or GrainGold, depending on the listing and who you ask. Another POM long pole stem, PC top, Nylon bottom combo with some additives thrown in here and there. These are quite exceptional though, imo. Almost no wobble, very smooth and the sound is also quite nice. I also have a soft-spot for fully black switches.
- Dragon Ride Peach Toot. No idea who the Manufacturer is or what the Material combo is, nothing of that was stated in their listings. I assumed it would be the usual BSUN again, but it doesn’t seem like it. It also doesn’t seem like they are MeiRun or Aflion or JWK or anything. I assume they are the usual POM stem, PC top, Nylon bottom combo just because that’s usually a safe bet, but i’m not sure. The sound is quite muted on these, despite being long pole and pole bottom out. Well, at least i think they bottom out on the pole. They have very weird small raised squares on the bottom housings, so they may be rail bottom out or cape bottom out or something. Very smooth and very little wobble on these and they are very nice to type on.
Also got some very interesting keycaps today. It was a set of “Orange on Black” keycaps in a profile similar to MDA for just 3USD, and it came with a full set of “Black on Grey” too. I mounted them in my Plateless BBox60 with the peach toot switches from earlier. Very nice. Nice texture to them, not too smooth but also not too rough. The sculpt/scoop is quite nice and not too aggressive and reminds me a little of DSA homing keys.
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