What did you order or think about ordering?

Pretty cool that they have an EC PCB made, really happy to see more Topre PCBs/projects pop up and I hope more continue too.

I hope the AEBoard switches are of/near Topre quality. It would be cool to one day have EC switch portability like MX switches in hotswap PCB’s.

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Indeed it would, that’ll (hopefully) be the day.

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Okay…I ordered a Hippo TKL, and I can’t wait, but also I thought I was done for a bit and ready to concentrate on what I already had!

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Ah yes, the “urge”. I know it well. Congrats, the Hippo looks like a really cool board. I regret passing on the Piggy when it was in GB. You’ll have to tell us how you like it once it comes in an you have it built. What color did you go with?

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Blue - it will be my first Jacky Design board and my only TKL somehow (well other than my old CTRL)…so checks a lot of boxes - at least that’s what I said to myself when I bought it!

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Guess who just learned today that Unicomp made rubber dome battlecruisers, and learned it AFTER placing what was supposed to be an unreasonable lowball bid?

Oh well, $45 shipped for a 58.003 in decent shape isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever spent money on, LOL.

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Finishing out GMK Evil Dolch with the last two kits I don’t have and…I FOUND THE DESKMAT!!!

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I’m interested in the Command 65 R2 (non-tri-mode) that Novelkeys is vendoring. I was curious to those who purchased the original (@Dave, @pixelpusher, etc), how has your general experience been? What have you liked or disliked? Did you have issues using VIA? Could you reprogram the two right most top toggle switches? Do you think that it’s a good value at $99? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

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I like mine. It sounds nice and thocky like an old board. The main issue was the way that the plate attached to the top case. There are plastic clips that hold the plate. The cuts and the plate weren’t precise enough, so you had to file the plate down a bit.

I got mine put together fine but it exerted a lot of pressure on the top tabs and some are weakened. I’m honestly afraid to do much to it in fear that they may break off.

The switches can be mapped to anything, but they don’t actually toggle. The “on” state is simply interpreted as a button press.

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I have mixed feelings about mine.

The POM plate has been a weak point for it, even after they issued a corrected version. They never made a plate file available to cut your own, and the stock and corrected versions I received were warped a bit and tend to slip out of position, making keys taller than Cherry profile rub against the top casing and stick. The spot inside where the plate rubs against the plastic clips that hold it against the casing has weakened, and I’m worried if I take it apart again the clips will snap loose.

The plate also doesn’t hold switches well, so pushing a switch into one socket can cause the one next to it to fly out, especially along the top row. Even hitting Backspace firmly while typing can cause the top switch of the macro column to pop loose.

The aesthetics are great, it just wasn’t worth the $220ish price back then. This round being much cheaper, it might be more worth it? Due to its issues, mine is mostly for display. It’s probably been my most problematic build, but I have a soft spot for anything Commodore.

In terms of the toggles, I never found a good use for them. I disconnected the daughter board they’re on, because there’s no way to tone down or disable the bright red LED also installed on it, which can light up a room on its own when the board is plugged in. The toggles aren’t recognized as toggles; you have to flip them on and off twice to really “toggle” something, and each on/off flip is read as a keypress.

The firmware is also weird; I was only ever able to get the json file they offered to work in one specific (outdated) version of VIAL.

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Oof. Somebody at 8-BitDo is really happy right now, LOL.

I personally have an NCR80 on my list way before this one, and vintage and DIY supplies above that, but sounds like this is a “wait and see” at best.

Speaking of vintage and supplies, I sprung for a cheap vac desolderer. I’m beyond stumped with my Focus board, and desoldering will let me look between the plate and PCB, or simply pitch the PCB and remake it as a fully programmable battlecruiser with no calculator.

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My work finally implemented return-to-work hybrid policy, and I wanted something I could take in and leave there, so I ordered an Iris SE from keeb.io. Back in the day I used an Ergodox EZ which I sold once I got into the hobby, and so I’ve always had a bit of fondness for the split-ortholinear layout so figured this was a good fit for the price. I decided against the tenting kit, since I can always go back and buy that if I end up deciding I need it.

Not sure which switches or caps I’ll put on it yet.

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https://www.etsy.com/listing/1752193647/lexicon-65-writing-keyboard-kit?click_key=2555e79a9b7aefbe369c7355657536410dfe3acd%3A1752193647&click_sum=98be5465&ref=items-pagination-18&frs=1

Pair the Lexicon with those red (Gateron) Type R’s, and some red keycaps, I have the red keyboard.

TL;DR; For $99 It is a good deal

For the initial GB R1 price $230 I would give it just an Okay. I do enjoy the keyboard it was on the desk for the last week taunting me for an R2 purchase (leaning towards no though for me).

Not the easiest keyboard to build, had to tweak it a few times to prevent key scraping around the backspace key (common problem from Discord)

For the toggles they are fun to flip! It is a novelty without much functional value for me, one switch have mapped to CTRL

Buzzer cute for about 2 minutes then I really wanted to turn it off and mapped it to a hot key.

Led light is bright it doesn’t bother me but you can disable it by remove the power pin from the daughterboard cable

VIA
Works but not impressed, needs to be side loaded with JSON. Intially that might have been a work around but it has been out for years that should not be required. There was a lot of issues related to being forced to use older versions of VIA. Someone ported it to the latest version that should work better Release Command 65 v1.0.0 · PEEK56321/qmk_firmware · GitHub
Disappointed this was driven from the community rather than PlayKeyboard.

VIAL
Have not tried to convert it yet… one of these days

FYI differences for R2 vs R1 (from PlayKeyboard Discord):

  • New silicone bottom dampener
  • Change middle dampener material to Poron
  • Tri-mode upgration
  • keyboard case packings

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I’m thinking on ordering these keycaps, CYL MOTIF, would you guys recommend it for a white board?

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There is a render of it on a white board, and it looks pretty good! Personally I think the beige keycaps would clash with a pure white board, so for me it would heavily depend on the white color.

I think you could make an argument that the white board in the stock photos is more off-white than white. Hmm yes, e-biege - Piggy 60% In-stock Extras: Aluminum Keyboard (2nd Batch) – JACKY DESIGN

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