Busted out the laser and the “infusible ink” markers for the DFW mini-meet coming up this Sunday. I won’t be sad when I move on from this batch of XDA blanks – sooo variable – but for giveaway novelties I think most of them came out okay.
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Those came out great!!!
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I just finished my Agar EC today and you’re 100% right about quiet stabs being vital. I just used the Typeplus that came with the EC barebones kit, and did the minimal lubing job that I normally do on those, but they are noticeably clicking on the down-stroke. Big fan of the Typeplus stabs, just not for the EC PCB.
The nice and quiet EC switches really show off any extra noises form the stabs so I’ll rebuild it tomorrow with different stabs. I’ve got some of the same ones you used actually so I’ll give them a go.
I bought the EC PCB kit, so bought the Abeboards Naevies switches which are made by Tecsee, so are probably just re-coloured, not sure tbh. Regardless, I really like them and they are so much easier to use than the domes I’ve used in the past.
Love the board in MX config, and love it in EC too. Really glad I grabbed one, and the wait for the EC kit was worth the wait.
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And I already ordered these “Tecsee”
I took the tactile EC.
And I took the linear magnetic ones.
Sometimes the choice of stabilizer is not what I want))) And what will the weather allow me to do. And the weather this year…
Abnormally cold May with snow and minus below zero.
Then floods of rain and some kind of heat at the level of the Pacific Ocean islands. Which has been going on for so long. And the rains do not cool.
The grease that is inside the stabilizer simply flows from this.
Therefore, these stabilizers inside the stem by their design hold the wire. Even without grease. This is also a reason for the choice.)
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I managed to get some of both and I honestly cannot tell the difference beyond the colors. So, yeah, probably just recolors.
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Doing some initial renders for a project that’ll likely be 2-3 ICs down the line, but I think it’s gonna be a pretty set.
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What is the name of the keyboard you are using in this render? It looks great.
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It’s a Uhkb…it’s a WIP from another designer, Rhadamanthus.
So, I’m cheating a bit, because what’s actually taking up the most space on my workbench today is an early-90s Wyse clone full of scratchy-ass simplified black Alps that I’m tediously brushing out and linearizing, with an eye towards converting to MX caps via low-pro XVX and some sort of yet-to-be-designed case riser.
I realized, though, that I’ve never put anything except heavy clickies into my DIY Masonite plates, and I received my 80g springs and first tub-let of proper 205g0 lube. After the faux Wyse (maybe I’ll call it the Sophomore? Linguistics jokes FTW!), I think I’ll frankenswitch a bunch of Jerrzi reds from my cheapo 75% and use them on one of the spare FRL compact 1800 PCBs I had made for the walnut Alps board. I screwed those up somewhat, but in MX layout they should work fine with two bodge wires, and the VIAL firmware should already be good to go. Just need to learn myself up on lubing switches and then design a case, plate, and mounting system. I’ve never worried about the latter too much because the plates themselves are pretty forgiving, but I like to try something new with each build. This will also be the first project to really stretch the capabilities of my new, larger 3D printer. I did the plate from the Alps build in one piece, and I think I can get the right case design on there diagonally without splitting it into two parts; we’ll see.
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I posted about my swap to Twilights earlier but I was never fully satisfied with the sound, I always found it a little bit too thin. I originally used stems from the 67g Durock Medium Tactiles (the darker stem on the right) and had a batch of 65g ones that I kept intact. The sound from the 65g ones were what I really liked, relatively muted sounding collisions but poppy on the upstroke and “full” sounding. The Twilights I had always sounded a little too light, airy and thin. I was curious to see why this was the case and noticed a difference in the thickness of the stems.The light purple 65g one measured at 5.64mm and the dark purple 67g stem measured around 5.59-5.60mm in the length (Y) dimension.
Doesn’t seem like a big difference, but this also reduced the amount of stem wobble I was facing. I think this difference is why the 65g stems I had were stuck in some top housings but not the others.
I did manage to record two sound tests before I completed the swap on my board. To me, the 65g stem version sounds noticeably fuller and less thin sounding. The pitch also seems lowered quite a bit.
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Ugh. Haven’t had a fail like this one in a while. I have been tediously linearizing the simplified black Alps in my Costar-made OEM Wyse clone, and I finally finished that part of it, and I added 3D printed Alps-MX adapters, and was researching stab adapters. Quite a few of the printed adapters snapped along their layer lines, but I knew that was a possibility as I’d thrown caution to the wind and printed them vertically; replacements would be printed horizontally and post-processed. So far, everything to come felt like it was within my skillset. The low profile placeholder keycaps even sat at just the right height with the top case resting on its clips instead of snapping into them.
What was NOT in my skillset was properly reassembling the switches. Probably 30% or 40% are internally shorting, and they overwhelm the Soarer’s converter so much I had to dive into the QMK toolbox to make sure I hadn’t fried the keyboard itself. I badgered a couple of switches pretty bad in the early going, replacing them with linearized complicated whites, but I thought I was in a groove. Apparently not. The simplified alps do not have the plastic core separating the contact leaves, so they are fragile and prone to bending when clumsily reassembled, and I can’t even really see the difference between a good and bad one.
I do not like simplified Alps. 
Anyway, here’s about as far as this project is going to get. I may stash the board itself and save it for some other project, but the poor quality caps it came with and the lack of options for Alps make a simple switch replacement more of a pain than simply bodge-wiring one of the FRL 1800 PCBs I used for my recent walnut build. Worst part of it is that while the sound left a lot to be desired, the feel of the linearized switches was much, much better than before.
Oh well. Projects have been kind of piling up anyway.
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Rebuilding a Keychron Q0 Max w/ an aftermarket PC plate from KeyboardKustoms and some better stabs.
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That sucks after all that work, but yeah the mantis style leaves in simplified ALPS are a pita to work with. Somehow even more sensitive to the switch being opened than complicated ALPS even though there is less pieces. Honestly that board looks like a good candidate to get some complicated ALPS swapped in. While everyone is chasing the more rare variants getting your hands on a batch of SKCM blacks, damped creams, or damped whites in good shape is fairly easy & cheaply. In fact I got a few batches of damped creams & damped whites that really just need cleaned up. I’d let you have them for the cost of shipping if you want.
It’s been a couple of weeks since I replaced the switches one the Monsgeek M3 and so far, no key-bounce issues so looks like the old switches were to blame (gateron baby kangaroos)
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I desoldered my TX-84 today. It had snow crash linears. I loved the way it felt and sounded, but I just got zero feels out of it when actually typing. It felt dead and boring. I think it had a lot to do with plate foam and the shorted travel distance of the switch.
So now it has MX2A cherry browns without plate foam. I’m in heaven. It’s 1000% better. It’s perfect 
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I thought Snow Crashes were 3.9mm travel & rail bottom out? I still haven’t used my batch so I can’t remember for sure. The plate foam will for sure make for a deader sounding board though. Anyways glad to hear you got it to a place you’re happy with bud! Should post some pics of that beauty up when you have a chance, been awhile since I seen a TX 84 & I always loved their minimal aesthetics plus the way the top looks like it fits down into the bottom housing instead of linin up for a seam!
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The hardware side is still simmering, but my next project will be a “writer deck.” I imagine most of us around here are familiar with the Freewrite or unkyulee’s gorgeous Micro Journal line but if not, they’re small computers mercilessly optimized for writing and intentionally hobbled for anything else, like the analogue of an e-reader.
This one is a Raspberry Pi Zero running their stock “Legacy” OS. I hedged my bets a little and still let the entire desktop environment load, but it (eventually) autostarts “WordGrinder” fullscreen with the colors edited to look like Microsoft’s later DOS offerings like Word, Edit, and QBasic. I also added a simple screen lock app (i3lock) and made a keyboard shortcut to it, to make it easier to live with the thing without constantly rebooting. The screen is a 9” touchscreen that should be okay for the limited mouse use.
I haven’t decided if I am going to make the case a mini-luggable like an OG Compaq or Dolch PAC, a retro laptop, or something entirely different, but I would like it to be portable.
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I use Wordgrinder too! I recognized it immediately.
I was really surprised recently when I was setting up a new MacOS instal and found that it was available on Homebrew.
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