Mechanical keyboards

Personally I love mechanical keyboards, could never go back to a membrane. Planning on building a new one soon, probably gonna put nk box creams or boba u4ts in a keychron q8 max. But I'm curious what boards you all are using?

I made my own board to use the Lekker switches from wooting The "case" is a random piece of wood The aluminum plate came from a random keyboard I've disassembled some years ago

Got a 60$ microsoft keyboard for offices from random dude for free. He literally just gave it away. It's good enough. Feels so much better than cheap 3$ keyboards that I feel I might get addicted.

>>80233 I'm not a linear fan whatsoever, but if that's your think, more power to you. I've been rocking an 80% for a while now, no clue what the brand is. I'm building a new board with ice kachangs soon. Ice Kachangs are freaking great -- I built a board with them a while ago but gave it to a coworker.

How would one do a DIY mech keyboard without 3d printing? I don't like 3d printing for this since maintaining the printer is way too much work, and the plastic ends up feeling super cheap. I can electrically wire and program one easily, but want some pointers on some of the external design aspects. >>80234 Poast pics

For me it's not about the board. It's the switches. It took me a long time and a ton of research to find the right switch because the space where a) people who don't want a ton of obnoxious noise overpowering their computer audio and b) people who want actual tactile feedback in their key presses overlaps is a very small niche. I'm convinced most mechanical keyboard enthusiasts at this point are just posers who like to feel superior to other computer users with an arbitrary hobby.

>>80300 Deliver a single post (that means not too long) guide for getting into mechanical keyboards. Basics like how do you even find the right board, hardware, connect switches etc

>>80303 >>80303 NTL. The traditional way if diving in feel-unfelt wasn't feasible was to order a Cherry MX switch tester and palpate nine different ones at home and figure out what switches you should order. Now there are cheap enough mech boards available that you can just try them out directly as full keyboards without risking/losing much of anything. If US-based you can find Redragon, etc. on shopgoodwill for what should be nothing significant if you have mechanical-keyboard disposable income (way less than I see them for on ebay, but their shipping costs are fake and gay -- filter for 1 cent shipping items or do your own thing, it's not the only site with chinesium mechboards). Now you know if you like linears or tactiles or clickies, and if you like them lighter or heavier. Now you have your baseline; everything in mech keyswitches is pegged to the Cherry MX. Get on geekhack and absorb anecdotes about what other kinds of switches feel like. Look for an affordable way to experience buckling springs and Alps and Topres if the descriptions appeal to you. Narrow down the ideal. By this time you are "into" mechanical keyboards. Finding the right board is an iterative process. Connecting switches is a matter for reference material for the particular stuff you have, I don't know that there's special insight to be gained on that bit.

explain for a n00b. why did the average keyboard back in the 2000s feel better than today? why did the keys feel better and more comfortable to type on? how do I replicate this for my modern setup?

>>80233 Have they come out with a keyboard yet of the microsoft natural bump/curve in the middle that uses mechanical keys? I remember a post from geekhack a long time ago where someone made one, but I would rather purchase a premade one.

>>80303 Last time I got into this there were basically only two options for full-sized "hotswap" boards with socketed MX-profile switch slots that allow you to move switches in and out at your pleasure without any soldering: Glorious keyboards and Keychron keyboards. I ended up going with a Glorious board myself but I recommended Keychron boards to some friends and they seem to have had decent experiences with them. Of course shortly after that I finally learned how to solder, and I think with the most basic kind of soldering skills you can connect all your switches yourself and won't be limited to the small niche of hotswap boards. Switches are the simplest kind of electric circuit so you don't have to worry about poor soldering technique like you might with other PCB components like capacitors or diodes. There's no such thing as too much or too little insulation or resistance with a switch circuit: the path to complete the circuit in a switch is either complete or it isn't. >>80370 >just buy a board and find out I really have to caution against this advice. It's only sound if you expect yourself to like linear switches or clicky switches. If you have a preference for sort of tactile feedback in your switches without clicking, however, there is a serious problem in the pre-assembled board industry. The problem is this little turd right here. The MX "Brown" switch standard has somehow managed to poison the entire industry into thinking this is what passes for a tactile switch. When in reality,it has almost non-existent tactility, what enthusiasts often disparagingly describe as a "scratchy linear" switch. Somehow this turd managed to become the standard among the three basic classes of switches, such that any time you're provided with options by pre-assembled boards it's invariably some kind of clicky switch, some kind of linear switch, and an awful "brown" switch in the tactile category. If one likes tactility and is presented with only these options, they will get the feeling that they have to go with a clicky switch to get good tactile feedback, even though they may prefer low noise. >just sample some Cherry switches The other issue is that Cherry themselves have become an incredibly stagnant manufacturer after all those years sitting on their switch patents. Since the patents ran out there's been a deluge of new manufacturers experimenting with new design ideas within the MX profile, and it's safe to say that there's been monumental improvements on the original designs that Cherry is still attached to. I cannot recommend enough against boxing yourself into the idea that Cherry is any kind of leader in switch manufacturing, particularly in the clicky and tactile classes of switches.

>>80422 what tactile switches do you prefer over brown?

>>80473 I generally prefer anything with a switch stem like the original Input Club Halo stem. It produces very nice tactility with a smooth force curve. There's a mountain copies made by many different manufacturers now. Their force profile generally looks something like this. There's a few other tactile switches out there with interesting force profiles like Novelkeys' Box Royal and Blueberry switches, but I generally think the Halo stem clones feel the best.

>>80233 Action for convenience. It's a lot easier to replace a membrane fault caused by a pint of cider and a cat than a short-circuit.

>>80422 Agreed, MX browns are bullshit. I honestly don't even get much out of MX clears. They just make me wish I had Topres again, lol. My favorite and best-performing switches were buckling springs, though, so it might just be that I got used to blowing right through most resistance/force curves. Everything else since then has felt pathetic, except for the Topres and the MX blacks I used a lot while doing audio transcription work a decade+ ago. I bring up the Cherry MX switch "peg" only because, at least when the Cherry clones were first coming out, that's the only way anyone really talked about them, in relation to what people knew about the qualities of MX switches (or sometimes Alps). I haven't stayed active in that scene though. So if it has evolved to where people are considering the newer switches in and of themselves, and comparison to Cherry switches isn't necessary or meaningful, then this is good news, of course. I was shopping for a new mech board recently and saw lots of interesting stuff like Gateron yellows, which seem to fill a gap between MX reds and blacks; switches that have dual actuation points and different profiles with respect to which actuation point is used, with different advantages; and even magnetic / hall-effect switches, which used to be all but a fairy tale for keyboard nerds. Still curious about those, but they seem to have been possibly overhyped?

>>80295 >How would one do a DIY mech keyboard without 3d printing? I interpret that as "...without 3d printing myself?", since you mention "maintaining the printer is way too much work". A) Buy 3D printed parts. There are many who print professional quality parts to customer spec, similar to custom PCB printing companies. B) Buy stock parts (key caps, etc.) assemble together, and make anything else using tools. Generally it's only the case for regular straight-line-row keyboards that needs to be custom built. t. different lainon engineer with 3D printers, but not built my custom mech keyboard yet.

I would be more interested in different keyboards or switches if I just had a way to try them out without paying for anything to figure out what I actually like.

I currently use Cherry MX Blue and my previous keyboard had Cherry MX Brown. I think both are great but the Blue keys are definitely a bit better. I would honestly never buy linear switches (ex: Cherry MX Red). But ultimately, even a high end membrane keyboard is good enough. >>80612 Some computer stores have demo models on display and you can try the keys. >>80381 Everything had better quality. The keys didn't lack feedback or "feel". The keys weren't too low or shallow.

>>80611 More like without 3d printed or custom fabbed parts. I like the idea of using existing common parts in interesting ways, it gives you a unique look that's born out of necessity of following this constraint. Theres something really cyberpunk about redneck engineering.

Currently using a Rainy75 with stock HMX Violet linear switches. I chose the Standard (non-Pro) variant in "white" though it's more like a nice retro beige. Still love my Keychrons especially my K2 Pro that I customized myself but this is on a whole new level, I can't believe this is a prebuilt board.