Well I fell down the custom keyboard world.

[davetherave2]

Got my pre-order in for the Zoom TKL. I've gone with Cool Grey with both Navy and Blurple gradient glass, because I was unsure which would look best.

I've got some Blue Bubblegum switches I want to try in it (although I need to lube and film them all *urgh* ...)

Now I need to try and find some keycaps that will suit!

Nice, I would have gone for the Zoom TKL (it was going to be an instant buy for me) if it supported ISO out of the box but having purchased the FROG instead I had to skip this round. That should look really nice
As for keycaps - GMK Fundamentals or nicePBT Fuji or some other cream/grey themed set? Unless you want to go a bit more colourful.

 

[davetherave2]

I've sent an email asking if/when they might have ISO support as well because I'm sure I saw something that suggested it would be a thing at some point.

I'll look at those cap suggestions, thanks!

The last I saw in the Meletrix discord was they may be releasing an ISO PCB after this first round, if they don't then it will be an option for the second round they are planning.

 

[davetherave2]

Can recommend both Patisserie and Demon Girl sets for anyone interested.

In other news FROG arrives on Tuesday (just arrived in Germany today) so fingers crossed it can leave tonight and get delivered tomorrow but I suspect it won't be until Tuesday.

But if you are after a colourful pastel set I have to say seeing Coloradas in the flesh it was cuter than I thought it was going to be, but I have to pass it up with potentially 2 more keyboards being purchased before the end of the year.

 

[davetherave2]

Well the FROG arrived and has been built. Need to take some nice photos of it. But here is the eye candy for you all.







Testing what switches I wanted to pair with it



Decided on the Auralites (dark purple bottom, lilac top, pink stem) in the end as best colour match and also they do sound and feel really nice (after a touch of lube)

With GMK Pink on Navy





With IFK Delight



Have to say I actually like it with IFK Delight. But still need to find a nice keycap set to go onto this.

Now time to wait for a couple more keyboards to arrive before the end of the year and figure out colour schemes and switches for them.

I did manage to get to go to PT HQ the other week and see some of the collection Jae has so was super happy with that and had a chat with him about all things keyboard related and I think I will be considering the J-02 Blackout Edition when it is released (although I feel it will be a showpiece for me rather than a daily driver)

 

[davetherave2]

Lovely build, good colour combo, its the same colour Frog as mine, although it seems slightly lighter purple. I went with GMK Taro on mine (well I'm using clones, my GMK are in their box), as it seemed a good match.

Waiting on a Freebird TKL i bought to build for my Mrs, her work KB is a disaster. Not sure what else I'd like ot buy next, I have a few ideas after I went to a KB meet up here just after the summer, just need to start looking, will leave it until the New Year.

Thanks super pleased with the build. I am slowly getting better with every build which is the main thing. So when I start to get to my "end game" boards I hope they will be perfect - well as perfect as I can make them.

I used the pink 70A tadpoles and FR4 plate. Yes I think depending on how the light hits it, it can look very light. I think GMK PoN will be the set that lives on this for now but I will try and get some nicer looking purple caps. I might try something like Lilac on Black but I will decide that after the new year.

Yeah I am building a freebird for a friend as their first board (which reminds me I need to start lubing switches for them)

They went with a white case so flexible enough for pretty much any set. (They have a lot of sets just no board to put them on)

 

[davetherave2]

Well thought I would just add a library of all the images I took while building the FROG. Have gone with a bold look now of using TMT Story (not decided if this will be it's final look but happy with it for now)

Some FROGE ? time

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Now to get things ready for the Freebird I have to build when it arrives and hopefully grab myself a Cloudline when extras go on sale.

 

[davetherave2]

GMMK PRO
Wuque Studio WS Quartz switches
AVX Works FR4 plate
Durock V2 stabs
KBDfans 'Chaos Origins' quartz/granite wrist rest

snip...

That is nice looking board. That wrist rest is certainly a nice looking piece. Personally in two minds if I should get a wrist rest but I don't really feel like I need one.

Has been a busy couple of days for me getting various deliveries, some more switches and a few extra goodies.

Picked up my JJW Play Trays which are just super cute and the anno finish on them is just perfect.


Then had this massive haul of stuff arrive on Friday





Which meant I could finally finish of the FROG and give her a new and hopefully her final set of key caps (nicePBT Elderberry).






So have ordered a bunch more switches including more Gateron CJ's, EV-01 Linears and AEBoards Raed V2's.

On top of that I have also ordered some custom plates to be cut for a board, I will have to wait until Feb for that but hey it is only a month really.

 

[davetherave2]

Decided to get a posh new keyboard

Ordered:-

Keychron Q3 Silver Grey ISO TKL keyboard
Keychron Hacker Mint Cherry Profile PBT keys
Akko CS Matcha Green switches
Durock V2 Screw In Stabilizers - whatever that is!
Foam Porom Switch pads
Spacebar insulation foam (in case it gets cold)
Glorious black cable
Switch lube

Looking forward to the build

Nice.

The stabilizers are what are used for the longer keys to prevent them wobbling when you press down on them. typically your spacebar, enter, backspace and longer shift keys will have them.

The insulation will go inside the spacebar (underneath) and will try to help dampen down any hollowness from it and give it a deeper, richer sound profile.

But certainly does look like a nice starter kit to build. Will be nice to see it when it is finished.

 

[davetherave2]

I realise how this is going to sound but, is anyone aware of a lubing service? How much it might be per switch and who might do it etc..?

I think there are some. Best thing to do is hit up the MKUK discord server and I am sure someone there will be able to help you out.

Edit: There is a UK vendor that offers the service but you are looking at £5.50 per 10 switches. I just googled "uk switch lubing service" (assuming you are UK based)

 

[davetherave2]

Finished my first custom keyboard.

Coming from a Ducky 1 (I think, it's quote old) the difference in noise and feel is quite surprising. I could tap away on this all day

Really nice looking. Glad you are happy with your first build. May it be the first of many.

 

[davetherave2]

So has been a while and have been waiting on parts to finally arrive but finished building my JJW Cloudline



This is built with:

JJW Cloudline (Red)
AEBoard Raeds V2 (lubed and filmed)
Copper ISO Plate (Custom made)
PBTFans Pyga

Some additional images:



The custom plates I ordered (Brass, Aluminium and Copper)


Switches in the Copper Plate.

 

[davetherave2]

Chaps I did consider starting a thread but I thought it better to post in this existing one.

I'm all set to buy a mechanical keyboard. I had initially settled on the Keychron V1 which is a 75% layout with two tone keycaps, a blue colour for the letters and a darker grey/black for the other keys. It's available in Iso UK layout and they supply extra keycaps for the windows keys and a couple of others. Gets good reviews all over the place.

However once delivery is factored in the cost is £106 and it gets shipped from China I believe so will be a couple weeks, and could make warranty returns awkward. I'm not sure if any import duty or vat will be added on to that price either.

So I looked instead at the Glorious barebones keyboards that ocuk sell. Choosing a TKL with Gateron red switches and a keycap set seems to put me in the region of £150. Downsides are that the Glorious keyboard doesn't use a usb c connection, and I'm not 100% sure the keycaps will be proper UK layout.

I'm not sure what to do.

I definitely want full UK layout, no compromises on that.

Ok, so the question is what is your max budget and I am assuming you are looking more for a pre-built custom rather than going through the build yourself process?

If you were looking at the Keychron via their website then what you pay should be it and you shouldn't get charged any additional import duties as it should include VAT in the price already.

I am also assuming a 75% board is what you are after or are you looking for something more like a 100% or any other size?

If you want a decent 65% which gives you the option to customize (it has a hotswap pcb so you change the switches if you don't like the ones it comes with)

Ducky One 3 Daybreak SF USB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard UK Layout Cherry Black

Order Ducky One 3 Daybreak SF USB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard UK Layout Cherry Black now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

But again this comes down to, do you want to build vs pre-build. I will warn you now that if you go the full custom route then have a budget in mind as keycaps can be the thing that pushes a budget over in a more budget friendly build.
The last thing you want to do is have a budget in mind and then suddenly you want a set of keycaps that cost as much as the rest of the build.

Happy to give you whatever wisdom I have in my head since starting my custom mechanical journey 18 month or so ago now.

 

[davetherave2]

Amazing! Where did you get the plates cut?

I used a company called LaserBoost.

It took just over a month to get them sorted and that was over the Christmas period. I could have had them earlier if I had paid a bit more but was happy to wait as I had to wait for the switches to arrive anyway.

Really pleased with the results from them and would recommend based on my sole experience so far.

 

[davetherave2]

Laserboost is highly recommended! Did you get a CF plate from the PT GB recently as well?

I was tempted to get a few plates done for my boards that are either here or coming but didn't manage to sort out the files in time to make sure they would work. That and the fact that December/January had been a fairly expensive couple of months keyboard related wise.

Which included a couple of artisan wins, a new cabinet to actually display my keyboards, the cloudline purchase with extras, almost 900 switches, CF plates for my Matrix 3.0's and then finally a set of MW Demon Girl for a friend as a present.

 

[davetherave2]

Oo which artisan wins did you get? My Last was a Jankycap and a Gothcap! Both shipped but still waiting on the Gothcap to come through.

So I am waiting for these ones currently:



But then these ones have arrived recently



This is Group Buy arrived (although having to sort out a replacement as was sent a double accidentally)



I have also been adding to my switch collection with the following:


DesignStudio Barista (collab with MW Barista)


Prevail Nebulas (one of the prettiest switches I have)


More Horizorza switches as love these and one of the best spring feels in a switch for me.

 

[davetherave2]

I have been considering the Keychron Q1 which including delivery costs is about £200. But I had then slightly reluctantly compromised on the V1 for half that price. So for a good quality, nice looking keyboard with the right features I could go to £200 max, this is a once in a decade purchase for me to go alongside my newly decorated home office/gaming room.

I don't mind building myself but don't want to be lubing switches or filling plastic cases with liquid silicone.



Ok thanks that's helpful. Wasn't sure it being a china import.



Either 75% or TKL. Don't really want to go smaller than that as it doesn't need to be portable and I don't want to lose too much functionality.


The Ducky keyboard you posted looks nice but I think 65% is too small. Ocuk has lots of Ducky styles but most are out of stock.

I know the keychron's a highly thought off when it comes to the start of a custom journey as they provide you all the things you need to get you started but give you that flexibility to upgrade and personalize a little more in the future.

I think now is a great time with more budget friendly "premium" feeling boards coming to the market.

The likes of Meletrix (zoom65 EE R2, ZoomTKL EE/AE), QwertyKeys (QK75/80), KBDFans (Tiger Lite), Monekei (Standard), EVO70 R2

Although many of these are/have been in group buy some are in stock right now Monekei Standard for example. (have a quick google for some of the items)
If you can wait a little bit then some of these should be coming into stock in the next couple of months, others won't be available until later in the year/early next year, and should provide a really nice feeling board and give you a lot of features for your money.

Although ocuk has a fairly well stocked collection of keyboards and some custom building it is very small compared to some of the more specialized keyboard vendors which will have a more versatile array of options for you at all budgets.

 

[davetherave2]

Ohh you got the Maestro themed one! Was so tempted cos i have the Maestro keycaps.

It was the sole reason I wanted one. I was close to using my VIP code for the instant win but I am waiting for something a little more special to burn that one. I'm hoping it should be with me in the next couple of weeks.

 

[davetherave2]

Im noticing some of those suggestions are only ANSI style though, I want full UK ISO. They also ship from the US, I'd prefer a UK retailer for ease really.

I appreciate it is difficult to give suggestions because this is OCUK's forum and its not allowed to link to other retailers. Is there a discord group or something that you know of where I can go for wider recommendations?

Although most images will show ANSI many do support an ISO version. The next version of the ZoomTKL will support ISO. They cut it out for the first round for some reason.

https://www.alexotos.com/ has some good resources for you and he is a great guy to watch for various keyboard builds. (also has some useful resources that should help you out)

Also searching for keyboard groups on discord (including the link that Jay85 provided will also help you find some friendly communities.)

 

[davetherave2]

Might be a daft question but for boards that support ANSI and ISO, when you swap out the smaller enter key for the larger one that now spans the forward slash switch on the row above what happens to that switch? Does it just get ignored in the UK layout?

No such thing as a daft question.
So when you swap between ANSI and ISO layouts typically there are a couple of switch positions that change as well as stabilizer positions change.

So for ISO the pipe/slash switch is removed and is placed by the left shift which is split to accommodate that smaller key cap.

Here is a great explanation of the difference.

ANSI vs ISO: Explained - Switch and Click

On some mechanical keyboard forums recently, I’ve noticed that some people are asking for ISO keyboards or ANSI keyboards. We did some research, and in this article, we’ll tell you

switchandclick.com

 

[davetherave2]

Thanks and that is the answer to my daft question I will have a look at the link but I have to admit my head was thinking about non hot-swap boards.....

The same principle applies to if it is a solder or hot swap.
Just the difference is that you will have hot swap sockets in the same place that you would solder.
Some boards are fixed layouts. i.e. if it is ANSI Only then that is all you get.
If it is multi layout support then you will have hot swap sockets that are empty depending on if you are using ANSI/ISO.
Think of it like having a different bottom row (simplest Winkey vs Winkeyless) where you would typically have switches for winkeys they are missing on the winkeyless version but the sockets still exist they are just empty.

I can happily share the back of a multi layout PCB and highlight where the differences would be.