Good to hear, I got a batch of dry yellows in the mail right now!
2 Likes
Thanks! Yeah for the price I couldn’t pass it up a second time when I saw there were a few spots left to fill. Pretty happy with it so far, gotta get some properly tuned switches in it soon to really see how good it can get!
2 Likes
What’s your take on brown alps?
I have some but I’ve never built with them. I almost used them in the M0110. They felt and sounded really good to me. A bit stiff but they felt like a cross between a lubed holy panda switch and topre. However, I eventually decided on blue instead since I don’t have many clicky keyboards anymore.
1 Like
Two long awaited things arrived these days:
- MT3 Susuwatari arrived earlier last week (ordered in October 2018)
- Rama U80-A (Moon Grey) arrived today (ordered in July 2019)
And since the colors are quite close, I just combined them for a beginning:
In the back of that potato shot (which definitely doesn’t show the unfussy glamour of thhe U80-A) you see the Vortex Tab90M with GMK Oblivion Git Kit which I used the past two weeks while working from home. (And no, that tiny 7" screen is not my only screen, there are three 23"/24" screens in the back, too. Currently it just shows mpv used as MP3 player. 
I usually have it in middle of the keyboard, but since the U80-A has its USB-C socket centered in the back, I had to move it a bit aside.)
I’m really happy with the U80-A, despite there were a few minor issues which I expected to not happen with a Rama keyboard:
-
There were two differently sized Torx wrenches included. One, the smaller one, started spinning in the screws after very few screws. One end was no more usable.
-
The assembly instructions are often unclear. They mostly describe the order and which parts are involved, but not how to actually put them together. Like e.g. it was not mentioned in which directions spacers or the USB-C daughterboard needs to be mounted.
Also the LEDs are initially set to very bright which is annoying when you’re going to test switches before mounting keycaps.
And I haven’t found any documentation on the default layout/keybindings and hence how to change the RGB settings. Took the one from the M60-A and by chance that happily worked at least for the RGB control of the U80-A, too…
-
Case fits too tight for my taste. Had several times hassles to actually get top and bottom to properly slide into each other.
-
The included Durock stabs have enough clearance so that you can assemble them with the stem in the wrong direction while still being able to move them (until you put the wire in, then they’re stuck).
-
One of the rubber feet bands (rubber feets which go over the whole width of the keyboard) was about 2mm too short and is now not properly centered. But the glue on it was superb. Wasn’t able to remove and center it properly. The other one fit perfectly. No gaps left.
But as mentioned, I’m still happy with the board as most of the above issues only showed up during assembly. So on the positive side we have:
- Perfect surface finish
- Heavy weight
- Unfussy design—maybe even a bit too unfussy as you can’t see the polished weight while sitting in front of it typing. Some LED indicators couldn’t have hurt IMHO either. Wouldn’t have wanted any fancy LED indicators, though.
- Obviously a lot of thoughts have flown into details.
- Well packaged (but one of two outer security seals was scrubbed of. Doesn’t look as if happenend manually, more like due to too tight outer packaging — still no signs of tampering on the other one, so the box hasn’t been opened by customs or so)
- The whole board is rather well dampened—except the spacebar which is noisy as hell. Will probably be the first board where I’ll try a bandaid mod, hotglue mod or similar. Otherwise it would have been office-capable out of the box (with the Gateron Silent Ink switches included in the U80-A starter kit).
- Can be used as weapon—if you can lift it quick enough.
I’m also still unsure if Moon Grey was the right choice over Kuro Black. But I already have quite a few black keyboards. And the grey color hopefully works with both, bright and dark key caps sets, i.e. should colorwise work with more key cap sets than just dark key cap sets. (Basically that argument tipped the scales at the end between those two colors.)
Also a note about MT3 Susuwatari:
MT3 Godspeed was my first MT3 set and kinda wasn’t too happy with the profile. Funnily it’s different now with Susuwatari, but I’m not sure why:
-
I had MT3 Godspeed mostly on 40% keyboards so far. But with MT3 the switch from downwards to upwards slant is not at row 3 (which is even with e.g. SA or IIRC also KAT, but between row 2 and 3. And since 40% keyboards usually just have rows 2 to 5, with MT3 they have 3 rows with a downwards slant and just a single row with an upstream slant. MT3 Susuwatari on a TKL is symmetrical — 3× downwards slant (R3-R5), 3x upwards slant (R0-R3) — and hence optically and may even for the fingers more pleasing.
-
MT3 Godspeed is made of PBT with dye-subbed legends and rather rough surfaces, MT3 Susuwatari is double-shot ABS and smoother surfaces. And so far I have only one PBT key cap set which I prefer over most of my ABS sets: Tai-Hao double-shot PBT OEM Orange and Black.
Regarding PBT key caps and not so thrilling:
Especially the reverse dye-sub Infinikey PBT Sanctuary Rebirth key cap set (which arrived about a month ago) was disappointing as it has a lot of red light-bleeding (sic!) under the black dye-subbed key caps of red PBT:
Shown on a Varmilo VA87M with white LEDs as backlight. Please note the second FXI (F11) key instead of the FX (F10) key. I wonder who instead got the FX key twice.
Also the one end of the spacebar worked loose within a few hits on either end — and stayed the same end of the space when I turned it around (as seen on the picture), so it’s not the stock stabs of the Varmilo board. I was though surprised to hear that I’m the only one who argued about that so far and was just offered a spacebar from a spare set — which I doubt that it will be better.
Another thing that I noticed with that key cap set is that I don’t seem to be able to type numbers blindly on at least a normal layout. Found myself way to often calculating numbers out of the roman numerals. (“Is VII now 7 or 8?”)
Oh, and one more recent-ish key cap set, arrived about 1.5 months ago: Melgeek MG Ember, shown on my “switch bitch”, a GMMK TKL barebone:
I really like that profile. It’s kinda closer to SA than KAT, but less tall than SA and also with sharper edges around to top compared to SA. Looking forward to see more key cap sets with that profile.
Maybe I should try MG Ember on the U80-A. But for now, MT3 Susuwatari will stay on it for a while to get more experience with it.
EDIT: Looking at these pictures myself, it seems as if I’m back in a TKL period of mine.
13 Likes
I got some stabs today. So now I could make some frankenstabs™ 
This color OCD is going to bankrupt me.
8 Likes
This is something I never thought of with the reverse dyesub process! That does look pretty gross with LEDs shining (I don’t use LEDs, like at all so I never noticed this), although that is a unavoidable issue with the process so we can’t blame Infinikey for that. The double F11s & warped ass spacebars on the other hand… 
I do agree though, the Sanctuary Rebirth sets could’ve been tighter, I had to order red GMK spacebars for my set cause the original & replacement 6.25u/7u spacebars were all warped for me. I gave them a second chance with Aether, but that’s was more to support Alexotos than get another Infinikey set TBH.
2 Likes
Buttered Eggs …er, Silk Yellows
Initial impressions straight from the bag are very positive. I have one in a tester next to these, all in whatever state of lube they do or don’t come with:
- Tangerine
- Tealio
- Ink Black
- Cream
- Creamy Ink
- Geekmaker
- Everglide
- Cream Sherry**
I’m not going to tell you that the Silk is flat-out the best, but it’s easily among the best.
To my senses, the smoothness of the Silk is a hair better than that of the Tealio - which is genuinely impressive considering the latter is right around twice the price. I think I might prefer the Silk’s higher-pitched but slightly more smooth / less noisy sound.
Still, I think the Creamy Ink has it beat in the sound and bottom-out feel departments - the Silk Yellows do have some spring rattle. I believe the Creamy Inks would be more consistently smooth “out of the box” as well, because their smoothness relies more on the materials vs the Silks relying on high quality, if inconsistently applied lube - above average as the factory application may be.
So far, the Silk is looking like a killer value for someone that wants a really smooth switch out of the bag. There are a handful on its level for sure, but a scant few that can compete when considering price and availability. Tangies are killer too and more are in production - but can you time your coffee break just right to get in on them before having to wait again?
So ya. Silks good, at least side-by-side on a tester - thoughts might change once on a proper board.
As far as my inner monologue is concerned, I’m calling these Buttered Eggs and nothing’s going to stop me.
** YOK Red Panda stem-swapped with a Kailh Pro Burgundy - pretty standard save for the shorter travel, which bottoms-out on the middle-post like a Holy Panda does.
6 Likes
GMK Cafe just showed up today.
I think it came out reaaaal nice. Mods are more brown than black under normal lighting.
12 Likes
That’s an Rama U80-A, too, right?
Yes and no. At least for that set it kinda fits, so I’m not too mad about that: Looks like a dark red heart is living in each key cap. 
It also depends on switch orientation. It surely is much worse if the keyboard has front-facing LEDs like this one.
Not sure if that was really avoidable.
I imagined that just putting more dye-sub color on it to get a thicker (or stronger subliminated) layer of black on them.
I often use them in the night, to be able to turn of the ceiling light and open the window without getting too many insects in. 
Ok, so others have similar issues. Now I wonder why there’s no replacement production ongoing and why I only have been offered to receive a spare spacebar (which likely is also warped).
One of the reasons why I was sure that a sole spare spacebar wouldn’t help, is, because I got a chance to test an Infinikey PBT Bred spacebar from the same production run and it had the exactly same issue.
1 Like
Yessir.
1 Like
For me, brown alps are absolutely amazing.
A cross between a lubed HP and topre is definitely a weird way to put it, but not entirely off. Brown alps are probably one of the best examples of alps tactility that we should still care to preserve.
This will certainly not be my last alps build!
4 Likes
I’ve been working on a USB-C Pro Micro. Its different than the Elite-C and so on because it is extremely low cost. The USB-C is flush with the board and reinforced.
Hoping to have two flavors of it:
- USB-C Pro Micro
- USB-C Pro Micro with TRRS input for split keyboards
10 Likes
New JWK tooling = better tolerances it would seem. My Silk yellows should be here in a couple days. They took a strange detour through Detroit. 
2 Likes
I got one of the 75% Cary cases from KBDFans. I’m happy with the quality. I haven’t used a TX case, but this seems close but not quite as nice as those.
10 Likes
Good to know! Whew, thanks for sharing that.
1 Like
Best of luck, our shipping through Detroit is sort of a shit show atm, depending on the carrier.
2 Likes