Well I fell down the custom keyboard world.

TrojanWhore said:
I could get used to the horizontal enter key, but the ANSI 65 I bought was driving me a bit nutty for general use.... I regularly use the '\' key for drive/folder addresses and it was a 3 key combo on the US board.

I bought a keycap set from the main reseller of any and all things for about £23 and it has everything in correct sizes and legends (although the space bar is about 1mm too tall, there were a few others, but I haven't tried the other one the same width as I assumed it was just a different colour - only noticed the difference last week) - Sets that are 172/173 keys seem to have everything as far as I've seen.

Pred-edit: Having just looked up the differences in layouts, it appears the \ key is above enter on ANSI, I think on the board I have it was another tab key, though may have been because language was set to UK in Windows.. might have to experiment again some time! (but very happy with my ISO Monsgeek M1 75% :) ...except when I miss the numpad)
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Get a Bluetooth numpad, another rabbit hole lol
 
 
Raymond Lin said:
Anyone use syringe to inject lube into the stabs? (I never thought I would type those words in that order)...

Not sure which size to get for best.

Would these Dental syringe work?

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Yep, but I use the ones with metal tips. Not sure if those plastic tips might be too big?
 
Raymond Lin said:
Anyone use syringe to inject lube into the stabs? (I never thought I would type those words in that order)...

Not sure which size to get for best.

Would these Dental syringe work?

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Those would be overkill for the amount of lube each switch needs - are you filling them, rather than using a tiny brush to coat them?

I'd look for "1ml Luer Lock syringes" and "16G stainless luer blunt needles".

Anything with a fixed tip/nozzle will only be good for a few uses before the plunger fails, so I'd go for many small ones, than a few big ones.
 
RedMogg said:
Those would be overkill for the amount of lube each switch needs - are you filling them, rather than using a tiny brush to coat them?

I'd look for "1ml Luer Lock syringes" and "16G stainless luer blunt needles".

Anything with a fixed tip/nozzle will only be good for a few uses before the plunger fails, so I'd go for many small ones, than a few big ones.
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Can you link me? It's only for injecting into existing built boards.

I did a search and it still come up with way too many. I also don't need like 100 needles lol, half a dozen is more than enough, i don't have that much lube to use them all anyway. I only need it for my QK Alice which should arrive later this month.
 
Raymond Lin said:
Can you link me? It's only for injecting into existing built boards.

I did a search and it still come up with way too many. I also don't need like 100 needles lol, half a dozen is more than enough, i don't have that much lube to use them all anyway. I only need it for my QK Alice which should arrive later this month.
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Stainless blunt needles (variety): https://amzn.eu/d/dol3Jui

1ml Luer Locks (other volumes available): https://amzn.eu/d/1DBlloS
 
Raymond Lin said:
Get a Bluetooth numpad, another rabbit hole lol
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It's already something I'm looking at, wanting something VIA programmable and hotswap, ideally aluminium body.
I had been lookong at the Epomaker CIDOO V21 at £60, but have now also found the V33 for £75 which also has the arrow keys and ins/del/home/end/PU/PD cluster above it, so that's give me 10 extra keys on top of the numpad that I could map to otehr things, while still being able to move it out the way when I want to.
... to REALLY fall down the rabbit hole, I'd probably have to strip it down and paint/stain it to match the purple of my M1.

By far the easier alternative would be to sell the M1 and find a decent full size board, but there don't seem to be many options in the same league for build quality, maybe Keychron Q series (without spending stupid money).

BTW, why do you need to inject your stabs? With mine I just clipped the wires out and painted grease on with a small paint brush... are there another type of stabs I'm not familar with?
 
TrojanWhore said:
Nice one! Appears I may have looked at it before and then forgotten about it, as the manufacturer website link was purple when I searched for it :P
Definitely worth consideration :)
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I have the Stars75-S and have been blown away by the build quality - took a little bit of fiddling to get VIA to recognise it, but it's been otherwise faultless.

Currently using Akko Creamy Yellow Pro and the feel & sound is exactly what I was after.
 
The problem with Keychron I find is that the barebones kits I want are always out of stock and so are their keycaps :o

Just built a Leobog Hi75 Tri-mode with Akko Fairy Silent switches and GMK Nautilus keycaps. Pleased :D

Am now going to try the Leobog Reaper switches and perhaps a GMK Carbon set.
 
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Speaking of QMK/VIA, is anyone using it with more than one device (on the same system)?
I'm guessing it would be fine but it occured to me the other night that I'm not 100% sure on that and if not then I'd have to re-think the numpad idea
 
TrojanWhore said:
Speaking of QMK/VIA, is anyone using it with more than one device (on the same system)?
I'm guessing it would be fine but it occured to me the other night that I'm not 100% sure on that and if not then I'd have to re-think the numpad idea
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Yeah, I use VIA with both my Cu75 and Bakeneko60. It's no issue with the same system as it's all stored agains the profiles you save - and once you've configured everything it's all saved to the board.
 
Outside of the clickbait title aside, what do we all reckon to the below?

I still find myself swapping between both a traditional 'mechanical' board and a hall effect board for gaming. I love the HE board (using a Wooting 60HE module in a Freebird case) and it's insanely fun for playing games with - but I've never quite found it as natural to use for regular use like large volumes of typing or for use with work etc.

I think that's potentially down to switch selection - and I've just ordered a Chilkey Slice75 HE to see how it differs there compared to my Cu75.

 
I haven't watched it but honestly...I think HE is overrated (for me), I don't play FPS games and there is something nice about the tried and tested in the good old mechanical switches.

That said, I have been tempted to get one...perhaps I will next year.
 
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I have a bunch of hall effect boards as well as mech and the Ducky inductive (One X), magnetic switches are just outright better in basically every possible way bar one currently, no clicky HE switches exist for mass market yet, that's it, but that will change.

Better precision, the small improvement to latency isn't a thing to win over though despite what optimum says in his video which I left a comment on anyway, this variance boils down to the mechanical switch being compared against as you can get quick actuation quick release switches too so it all depends on the type of mech switches are being put against HE, and even then the fractional improvement isn't something the vast majority of people will notice. It's the functional featureset that makes more of a difference.

You can customise the distances across multiple profiles making one keyboard the /best/ for you at typing, then another profile for gaming and so on.

IMO Keychron currently has the best HE keyboard implementation as an overall product that looks, feels and performs great along with the browser based software to support the features. Wooting has not released its updated HE boards with better build quality for full size boards, only the small formats have better build with optional Zinc housings that cost £200 odd alone last I checked, but the Keychrons still feel more premium.

For ref though my main keyboard for everything is the Q6 Max but with the Cherry profile hacker mint keycaps from Keychron. The switches are MX Red linear and the whole thing has the creamy/thocky sound and feel. I will be getting the Q6 Max HE in though as I prefer full sized keyboards, especially for all the custom macros I assign to Fn layers.
 
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mrk said:
Magnetic switches are just outright better in basically every possible way bar one currently, no clicky HE switches exist for mass market yet, that's it, but that will change.
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I still inherently think a traditional switch sounds better, particularly when lubed/filmed/spring-swapped to individual tastes.

Magnetic switches are getting better (I swapped my 60HE to Geon Raws a few months back) and their sound profile is improving - but I still don't think, right now at least, a magnetic switch makes for a better sound than a traditional switch.
 
The sound profile ultimately comes down to the suspension system used on the board itself and the type of layering applied to dampen each slap on the bed. I've always had MX Reds in mech boards for example but only the latest models from Keychron have that sound and feel we see videos and audio clips of all the time without having to customise anything or mod etc. The weight of the board also makes a big difference, Q6 max is 2.1KG! that's a lot of heft to absorb and quieten keystrokes as well.
 
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