Irresponsible spending club, what what! 
Seriously though I feel your statement.
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I learned that not all 60% plates are the same thanks to that damn DZ60 hotswap layout with arrow keys. I now have two 2U right shift carbon Fiber plates that are useless to me and I’m unable to complete a build until new ones arrive.
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I’m constantly battling film crunch when actuating switches with aggressively protruding stem legs. Problem solved.
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Interesting! I noticed that TX’s revised design is something like that.
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Aha! Thanks for the info. I guess I learned two things today 
TIL to solder! Feels like this has taken a while - researching tools, ordering them, learning, and finally trying it. And realizing I’m totally a beginner at this. I had some great joints and some pretty bad joints. Definitely glad I used the practice kit first, and not any of my keyboards pcbs. I need a LOT more practice. Learned a lot tho trying it for real. Starting to get a feel for it.
Shout out to @CosmicKira for the video series in this post:
Soldering Video Series From PACE
I learned so much from these. Still a couple to finish on the repair/damage video list. But it was awesome. That narration… The diagrams… The intro beats… I feel so educated.
I was actually better at soldering than desoldering. I had a solder sucker for this and the snap back was so sharp I had trouble keeping it in place while trying to heat the spot. It was a disaster. Anyone have advice for desoldering cleanly? Do I just need more practice? I suppose I could invest in one of those high end extractors, but that seems a like a lot to spend on. (Need to save that for more boards lol)
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I don’t know what sucker u have but the engineer SS-02 really is worth the money.
As for technique, just make sure the solder-tip is steady,. Not the whole world if the sucker jump around.
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@skepp That’s the one I got. I only managed to cleanly desolder 1 out of 4 attempts. So… I probably just need more practice. Thanks for the second opinion. It helps.
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The Engineer SS-02 is a really top tier manual solder sucker, but for my money you can’t beat one of these desoldering irons. They do run hot, so i wouldn’t recommend these for anyone who is not fairly experienced at soldering/desoldering. Although for me it has worked perfectly on boards I’ve soldered with leaded solder (have to work quick here tho to avoid PCB damage) & prebuilt boards using lead free solder. The only complaint I’d have with it, is that it blows through tips fairly quick. They’re replaceable & cheap though so a fair trade off for the price/performance of the iron IMHO.
That said I still do plan on getting a good desoldering gun sooner than later since I do a fair of desoldering. Despite the high prices on the guns, they are undeniably the fastest, easiest, & safest way to desolder TBH.
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Yeah. It makes [sense] the manual method would probably still require some technique and skill. I just need to ‘suck it up’ and put in the practice time. Lol
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My silicone nosel have got a slit in it so I put the tip in the slit and the rest straight on top of the solder, works well 8/10 times. (excuse my English)
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Brilliant tip! Thanks. Does that affect the vacuum action at all? Or it still works fine?
It probably affects the vacuum, but not by much I’d guess. The slit occurred by ware and tear / accident but I use it to my advantage.
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I can type competently but my pinky likes to flirt with the caps lock key… Today I learned I don’t have to deal with this insubordination any longer and removed the switch leaf in that key. I am looking at you next [Ins]! 
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I hope you don’t have a qmk/via compatible keyboard. 
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More expensive than removing a switch leaf and probably not as elegant looking since no keycap, but this exists an an option too
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lol no just a Leopold now. I didn’t like the dip switch options. I am patiently waiting for an 1800 style to come up for group buy.
Neat I haven’t seen those. Thank you
Today I learned how to do port scanning on a keyboard.
what is port scanning you ask?
a keyboard matrix works like this: you have rows and columns. each row is activated (set low) in turn. then each column is read and state is updated. so the firmware will loop over each row and then loop over each column.
when you read a pin you actually can read all the pins on that port at the same time. so if we put all of our columns on the same port (b0, b1, b2, b3, b4…) we can completely eliminate the inner loop and instead just write the port value to the current row in our state matrix.
I have implemented the code is a custom matrix.c and tested it today with great success.
what is the benefit of port scanning? It is more efficient which is important for wireless applications or situations where we want to run more feature code during each scan cycle.
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By in large if you have a problem ask someone for help, the community, vendor and/or designer will genuinely try help. They want to see their products used/appreciated. Its really nice to see that passion in the community!
(sorry I know this sounds over the top and cheesy but I really mean it)
This week I had 3 really positive experiences reaching out to vendors and designers which I didn’t expect, shout out to keeb.io customer service, their discord and The Board Podcast. Each thing I was asking for was regarding an item that either was opensourced or cost less than $18. I was surprised at how quickly people responded (also very grateful because I was totally lost on something “simple” in QMK). I am not saying I have a strong personal relationship with all these people (though I am sure many people do and I can see why).
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