You need one of these:
“It’s not stupid if it works” 
2 Likes
My wrists work well enough for now but that’s really cool. As to the wrist method, finding the right size plastic tub and noise were the hardest part.
2 Likes
Beautiful build and thanks for the pictures! I was wondering if a standard 60% PCB could be used and they more or less confirm that it cannot be. Enjoy the build - that weight is beautiful!
1 Like
Didn’t know about GMK Redacted so I at first assumed it was a hacky way to learn touch typing. 
2 Likes
The ones on the right are what I was calling Danny DeVitos after his character in the movie Twins, as he was the twin of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but made up of all of the “leftovers.” 
5 Likes
IIRC I’m not the only one on here who found the clickiez intriguing but tiring to type on.
Been tinkering with the leaf spring and am pretty happy with this mod, with the caveat that it’s tough to be consistent across switches.
6 Likes
Honestly I am surprised that we have seen a lighter brown alps like variant yet. Too busy with flip-flops I guess 
4 Likes
Just watch, they’ll come out with a lighter variant just as I finish up this very slow process, having already damaged several expensive switches while I’m at it ^^
4 Likes
The GF’s Sonnet has been completed.
His: V0C1A2F3A4B5A6A7A8B9A
- Grey top, black bottom, multicolor accent, aluminum plate, plate foam.
- Durock T1s with 60g 18mm TX XL springs and a Kiwi with 67g 18mm TX XL in the spacebar. Kiwi is only there because I have one as a free sample from a vendor and its a distinct color from the T1
- PBTfans Deep Sea Predator Hoshoku base with Latin Alphas.
Hers: V0H1F2K3E4B5A6A7A8B9A
- Crema top, polycarbonate bottom, walnut accent, FR4 plate, plate foam, PE foam.
- Durock Medium Tactiles with 62g 16mm TX L springs and a 67g 16mm spring in the spacebar.
- NicePBT Soyamilk.
Both are using my self made stainless steel weights that I made earlier!
I used TX AP stabilizers and had a tough time with getting both sets to be not sluggish. I did find that the clips in the housings for the wires are a little snug so I ended up clipping both housings to the center of a spacebar wire and just slid the housings side to side on the wire until the housings spun/moved a bit more freely. Reduced the lube on the wires as well.
Also a neat tip for stab lubing - place a little coating of oil on the wire where it clips into the housing. Using that instead of grease keeps the portion of the wire that’s in contact with the housing for rotation moving nice and smoothly.
5 Likes
More work on the NightFox!!
Added some LEDs to it. Didn’t want something super bright, so I went with frosted LEDs from Flashquark. Purple is my jam, so the choice was easy.
Also, chose to swap out the plate screws with something more flashy a la @Deadeye
Really liked how it turned. Just had to watch a quick tutorial on which way the LEDs were installed (longer leg goes into the “square” hole) and I was off and running. Solder job isn’t going to win any awards, but I’m proud of it 
12 Likes
Polaris with a mixed set of switches:
- Baby Kangaroos on ERTIOASDHN w/OG spring for clacks
- Cream Soda on spacebar w/New Nixie spring
- Frankenswitch w/follow parts (leftover from making Cthulhu) on the rest for the thocks:
- Black Ink top housing
- Yellow Milky bottom
- Halo stem
- CK 58g slow spring on the rest
FYI: It’s best to get the Baby Kangaroo but I have a small pile of Halo stems from my Holy Panda days so making frankenswitch was more sensible path.If you don’t have Baby Kangaroo but have Halo stem, G-Pro housing, and long spring, all you have to do is put the parts together.
FYI2: Halo stem in non-Panda housing are not as tactile as in Holy Panda due to contact leaf not being as thick so you won’t have to buckle up while typing.
7 Likes
Not really on a physical workbench per se, but I finally managed to make and compile working firmware for a custom RP2040 handwired build, and then port it to VIAL.
It only took about 3 days of barely doing anything else, but most of that was because all of the examples and tutorials I found were out of date, and nothing would compile if I went by what they showed. I guess QMK switched up how their config files work in the past couple years? The VIAL part was weirdly easy after that.
2 Likes
Finally soldered my CW80 today.
Went with KNC Preference switches. They sound surprisingly poppy for a gasket mounted PC plate.
Apparently they have a lot of oil in them which you can see leaking out onto the plate:
Oh well… maybe oil is good for PC… keeps it moist so it doesn’t get brittle 
The 21KB caps are a great match on accent color
crappy YouTube video with soft audio as usual
10 Likes
Phew… This was an all day affair. I didn’t expect my Deskeys stuff to arrive so quickly. I wasn’t planning on jumping into a new build the day after the last one, but I was excited to see what the mod would feel like.
The housing is a stone washed titanium Norbaforce.
I modded my Realforce 87u for MX compatibility with deskey sliders, desky 2u housing assemblies, and space bar sliders.
I used v3 domes in pink and #5 silencing rings. Lubed the sliders and PCB with 205g0, while using NyoGel on the stabilizer wires to keep rattle at bay.
I hadn’t done enough research, apparently, and didn’t know about the funky left control key. My housing got a butchering from my dremel. Ooops. @insolentpotato is gonna hook me up with a new housing. It works… I just can’t really touch it or it goes all crooked.
Also, I’m waiting on a daughter board for this bad boy from @insolentpotato. Currently using it without a back and just running the stock cable out the bottom.
Overall I’m pretty pleased with it! The space bar still has a bit of sound. A small tick that I can’t quite seem to tame. I can definitely live it for now. It’s better than some of my MX boards. The 2u housings are pretty nifty. They also have a very slight amount of noise, but man, it beats having to drill out the housing!
I don’t know that I’ll keep GMK Birch on here, but it was the first set I grabbed that had a compatible space bar. Really looking forward to the walnut riser to stick on the bottom of this setup, too!
13 Likes
Swapped up some keycaps on a few boards.
Salvation with JTK Shuten-dōji by OUTVA
Arc60 with GMK Redline by Omnitype
Jris65 with DCX Deep Space by Booper
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Its a bad habit of mine, but I want to see you take a torch to the titanium housing to flame anodize it 
.
4 Likes
They all look good but that deep space looks amazing on silver/gray
2 Likes
Tried a handful of switches over the weekend - wasn’t really a fan of a couple, but I’m digging at least one of them so far.
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DK Cookie Dough silent linears: Not quite sure who makes these, but they have a silent stem design I haven’t seen before. Nothing revolutionary, but a little different in that the TPU dampener appears to be held into place by a separate, small metal retaining tab.
They seem like good switches to me, but the springs are too light for my tastes in this particular iteration. Overall they strike me as average in the current field of silents, but a few years ago I think they’d have been very competitive. I like them a lot more than Cherry or Gateron’s approach, but still might prefer TTC’s or more recent iterations from Kailh.
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Haimu Whisper silent tactiles: A Nylon-housing switch using Haimu’s silent tactile stem with in-house branding. The good: reasonably quiet, enjoyable bump and bottom-out feel. The middling: modest but extant tick sound on top-out, typical of all Haimu silents. They could use films. The bad: some of the worst pins I’ve ever seen on a switch.
I’m hoping it’s just a weird bad batch or something; the leaf pin is not only very weak, but its two layers are not held together by anything. In my 4-ish years messing around with hotswap boards I’ve bent a handful of pins; 3-4 on a single board if I’m really struggling that day - but with these? More than half of the keyboard was non-responsive. When I checked the switches, all of those had the leaf pin not just bent, but separated into two pieces. Sometimes bent together, sometimes split right apart. I was able to bend them all back to a (mostly) usable state to start testing, but at this point I was getting missed inputs and chatter on a few of them, which I do assume is related to the chewed-up pins. On one switch, one of the two layers broke off, leaving a thinner but ostensibly functional pin.
I wondered if maybe I was having an extra wonky day with the nerves, but I swapped the switches again maybe half an hour later, and all of those worked reliably first try - so it’s definitely the switches and not my senses. I’ll be posting some photos and stuff at some point - worst experience I’ve had with pins by a mile. Even the dainty ones on old Outemu switches are preferable as far as I’m concerned. Also for what its worth - I haven’t had this happen with other Haimu switches so far - and while I have seen a de-layered pin before, almost never more than one in a session. Mildly horrified
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Ajazz AS tactiles: some inexpensive switches I grabbed on Amazon quite some time ago. 3-pin, polycarb housing - nothing super remarkable here but they have a pleasant, round bump. These could also use films, and might even benefit from making sure the leaf is all the way down - seems like some of the switches sounded a little off until I pulled down on the leaf pin like I might for a frankenswitch with an un-retained leaf.
So far they seem totally respectable for the price - more thoughts after some time with them - these are at least decent enough to keep using for a while!
5 Likes
Recently picked up a double-knob macro pad from this specialty shop in japan. It’s called Yusha Kobo and I believe they have an online store.
Really excited for this thing and not sure what I’m gonna do with the second knob (first will be volume), but so far I’m leaning towards fast forward/rewinding youtube videos. Any ideas?
6 Likes