Minimalist caps on a minimalist board. Came out great!
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Built my Spooder this morning, so far it’s living up to the hype surrounding it! This build consists of the FR4 HS PCB, PP plate, Maiz clip in stabs with the plastic wires, & Keygeek Blue Cheese v2 switches. I went with dual mount first since everyone has been suggesting it. Definitely has very nice feel & sound to it IMO, although it is very much a classic top mount TKL so it does have all the advantages & drawbacks of that design. Definitely on the stiffer side even using a PP plate, but there is enough give with it to make you know your using a plastic plate. Sound wise it comes out as having a little resonance, even after a force break, but it’s not a bad resonance. Now that I have some hands on experience with this board I really want to do an ALPS build in it (or maybe just toss the Gat Lanes I got in it as they are slapping in my Hiney TKL)! Overall very happy with this board so far!
Now onto the Maiz stabs & plastic wires. First thing is I am not a big fan of the way the wire clips in from the underside. It makes for a design that rattles very easily IMO, these were easily the toughest stabs to get tuned up properly I have encountered in a long while. The trick is to load the front of the slider up with lube since to allow the wire to clip in the slider has a much bigger cutout than the normal Cherry design. The plastic wires however do seem to have some benefit in making a softer sounding stab. I really need to try these plastic wires in a traditional Cherry stab design, to be sure though. Wish they sold the wires by themselves. So I don’t want to rush to judgement with the plastic wires just yet, although I’m not sure how well the plastic wires would hold up being clipped into a much harder plastic vs the rubber wire clips Maiz uses. I will say now that I got them tuned in, the Maiz stabs are performing just as good as any other stab that has a different design (Cherry, TX, Knight, etc.).
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Thanks for the wonderfully-complete description of this board!
I have yet to try PP plates, but I received one for my Cycle7 some time ago.
I’m also in the position of thinking what kind of build might be ideal for Gateron Lanes. You seem to have a thorough understanding of custom TKLs. Do you know of any that you think would be suited to tactiles?
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Thanks! As for your question I would say it kinda depends on what you’re looking to emphasize more the feel or the sound of the switches. I mentioned the Lanes specifically because they do have a slight click to them & do makes some ALPS like noises due to their design. IME a more resonant case benefits ALPS switches a ton as it gives those extra noises room to sound off & almost counter intuitively (well counter to what we think of with MX switches) makes them sound better by amplifying them. Although we’re trailing into personal preference territory there. For straight up MX tactiles I’d be most likely to recommend something gasket mounted with a little give to the typing feel. As in my mind I’d want to emphasize the tactile feel while minimizing any of the unwanted noises that come with it (leaf ping specifically). The Neo80 cu looks like a very nice upcoming TKL that will fit that bill & not break the bank or having you waiting months to get your hands on it. My top recommendation would be the F1-8X v2 hands down because the mounting system so thoroughly isolates the plate/PCB from the case, but that’s not a readily available option. I really wish more designers would give o-ring strip mount a go.
Alternatively a good top mount TKL with proper mounting points (Jane mount or similar, no mount under the spacebar being the most important thing here) using a softer plate material like PP, PC, or POM could work out well too. But it would definitely shift the emphasis more towards the sound than the feel while typing on it & could accentuate any unwanted noises unless stuffed with foam. If you go that route my main advice would be find the TKL with the least amount of open space between the PCB & case itself. Give me a little time to look around at what’s coming out soon & I can give you some more recommendations beyond the Neo80 cu. I don’t want to list a bunch of boards that already ran & are gonna be unobtainium or way more expensive than they should be.
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Thanks, what you are saying largely mirrors my own experiences.
I have found that, for light-tactiles, top-mount works well.
Top-mounting seems to increase the crispness of the switches slightly, while providing a consistent feel across the board. Paired with a soft plate material, the board provides a softer, yet crisp typing experience that feels well-made.
Additionally, I find that a little “give” in the plate, perhaps caused by too many flex cuts, actually helps emphasize the crispness of light-tactiles, while providing a softer bottom-out.
So, going on what you just wrote, I agree that gasket + “give” emphasizes maximum softness, while top-mount + “give” is a little crisper. I use gasket-mount with silent tactiles in dampened boards, which gives exceptional silencing and softness.
For example, I have a KBD8X MKII with light-tactiles and a custom polycarbonate plate. It is nice and crisp, but a little harsher than I’d like. The case is roomy, and largely empty, so I’m relying on hand-building the switches to reduce ping.
I am building primarily for light-tactile flex-PCBs these days. And yes, reducing open-space between the PCB and case might help reduce that ping.
I guess ideally, a TKL would have:
-top or serious bounce gasket-mount
-not a lot of open space between the PCB and case, to reduce noise
-a very high-quality PC or PP plate, with almost too-many flex cuts.
With enough room for plate-flex, but not a noise-machine like a NCR-80.
Conversely, something like an NCR-80 might be ideal for Gateron Lanes, based on what you wrote. Even a Neo80 might work, as the roomy metal case is a sound amplifier.
So there’s really two types of builds envisioned here: a crisp/flexy/bounce light-tactile build, with soft plate, and a roomy build for switches like the Lanes and other click-switches.
Interestingly, my two best light-tactile builds are top-mounts, with custom-built PC plates based on designs for metal plates. The best silent-tactile is using dampened gasket.
I hadn’t heard of the Neo80 cu before, but the photos are very promising. My experience with building the Neo80 has been positive. The case is great for bringing out the sound of the switches. Feel-wise, however, it is a bit harsh. So I would be looking for a more flexible and maybe dampened Neo80.
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Yeah you got it man! I wasn’t thinking, you do enjoy your tactiles on the lighter side & I agree 100% that top mount can be just as good or better than gasket with them. I was more speaking of tactiles overall which still seem to lean more towards a larger/higher mid sized bump from what I see on the market. I very rarely use tactiles anymore myself outside of ALPS so I could be wrong there. But your two ideal builds are what would fall in line with my personal preferences & what I would say are doing the best you can to mitigate any unwanted noises with the build itself (you could go farther with modding the switches to). Although again personal preference, what we enjoy might be the exact opposite of what someone else enjoys.
I didn’t realize the OG Neo 80 was a roomier case, the CU looks fairly compact but I didn’t look into any actual measurements. So I’d double check that it isn’t too roomy, but it does have the sound cuts in the bottom case which should help with the sound booming too much even if it is.
What mounts have you been using with the OG Neo80? It seems to have some options that should theoretically be soft, but I know that’s not always the case in reality. So I wouldn’t be surprised if all of them have a harsher feel for what you’d expect. That’s the big drawback to boards having a bunch of different mounting types, seems like those boards do them all decently enough but never really good.
Oh just a recommendation here, but with what you just told me I’d say giving the Spyder a shot would be well worth it. If you want something a little higher end. I’m enjoying mine more & more as I get used to it here. Granted mine is in a linear build, but I think this would apply to light tactiles as well. It really has a great top mount experience dual mounted (that sounds kinda stupid but the best I can explain it LOL), having the o-ring installed while also screwing it into the top case definitely helps with the sound while PP plate (& the PC or POM I’d say even though I haven’t tried them yet) is designed where it has little give. I think the dual mount would also help with keeping the noise down from using a tactile. From what I said about it earlier, it’s not really a extra roomy case, but to me it sounds like there is a little more oomph to sound on the deeper end. Not in a bad way though, I guess you could say it has a full sound. I need to get my mic back up & do some sounds tests. Anyways extras for that should be very soon since the 2nd batch is shipping out now.
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Yes. Very good points.
I’ve been using the regular gasket mount with the Neo80, and maybe I should be using the gasket dumbbell mounts. Or even the O-ring. (I get the sense that I have not been using the Neo80 to its fullest customization.)
Yes, when using MX-compatible switches, I prefer light-tactiles. Cherry seems to have figured out something there, even if they don’t always implement it properly. Cherry light-tactiles can offer a very good typing experience. If I want heavier tactility, I would just go to ALPS or EC.
[It’s my understanding that some ALPS linears had a tactile notch, or some minor tactility, so maybe that is the ALPS Cherry MX Brown equivalent.]
Your Spyder sounds as if it has some promising characteristics, and I will have to check out the new Neo80 cu as well. Those all seem to be changing the playing field.
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Ok, Topre Time for real this time!
Finally got my DIY EC build in a usable state.
- KBDFans KBD8X mk3 polycarbonate case (with force break, no foam)
- Hype Keyboards custom cut 1.2mm plate
- Deskeys clear housings and purple silders lubed with RO-59 and Krytox 206g2
- Deskeys T1 blue (56g) domes for 1u, coffee (63g) for 2u and grey (70g?) for spacebar
- Deskeys #10 (1mm) Poron silencing rings
- Deskeys stabilizer landing pads (non-RGB plus spacebar)
- MK 80A (purple) 1.5mm o-rings (to remove any housing/keycap collisions)
- MTNU Modern Dolch Light
As I’ve whined about elsewhere, this build definitely has been through a number of iterations, but finally seems to have come together. Turns out the gaskets I was trying to use caused almost all of the problems. This isn’t to say they’re not useful Topre tools, ofc, but they seem way more useful for old OEM boards that are getting loose rather than a brand new DIY setup.
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So it’s a bit lower effort than what I had in mind originally, but I actually think I’ve got my “Writer Deck” set up where I want it.
Lenovo 10E Chromebook tablet with Chrome OS nuked and Debian Linux installed instead. FocusWriter is the app. It’s using the same keyboard I’ve been tweaking for a while here. The “hinge” is a dual phone MagSafe rig for sticking a phone to a fridge or using two phones at once. Apparently the poor kids just out of journalism school who are doing local TV news these days (for a pittance… supply and demand and all) are often tasked with being their own camera person, so they might throw their main phone on one side with its camera pointing at them and then use a backup phone with a Teleprompter app on the other side, and then put it all on a tripod. It also works as a general stand. Kind of a nifty little device that I’m happy to have around.
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This is awesome. It has Alien (og) vibes.
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This man hates stabilizers for than I do 
That is so cool.
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