Custom Keyboards: Into a Rabbit Hole

I think I have more than enough expensive hobbies as it is…so what’s another one? I feel like I was already kind of walking right next this whole world of keyboards for years and didn’t realize how in depth it really was. This is mostly what I’ve learned so far than a guide to building. There’s far more educational material out there.

PC building and gaming are practically go hand in hand these days. It’s become so mainstream anyone can just follow a Youtube video and build their own setup. For years, I just used any peripherals laying around until I was immersed in competitive PVP games such as Overwatch. This rise of “gamer” culture in the mainstream really brought forth new age for “gaming” peripherals from covering everything into RGB lighting to have holes in your mouse for “cooling” and “lightness”. I say “gaming” because the market has been so diluted with subpar quality junk. It’s has become so common, it’s a meme that anything RGB is “gaming” now.

I think it was maybe half a decade or so ago, I actually went out and bought a mechanical keyboard. At the time, I didn’t really know that much about keyboards. Actually, I guess I didn’t know how much I didn’t know until recently. Then, I heard mechanical keyboards was noisy with their clickity clack, but were much more responsive in terms of gaming because of latency. Latency has always been a thing for gamers because any delay is the difference between winning and losing. For years, it was always internet speeds that were hindering and now that internet speeds has become less of an issue, its everything on the client side. You gotta have the best mouse, keyboard, computer, and monitor to be competitive. I never “bought” into that whole thing, not because I didn’t believe all those things didn’t matter, but rather because my actual skill as a gamer wasn’t high enough to really merit much of a difference. Also my internet was no bueno probably until maybe a few years ago after I moved.

I was using some Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse setup for a while until they stopped working and it just seemed like a good time to “upgrade” to a more enthusiast setup. I didn’t really have a big check list for the keyboard back then, so the Corsair had some nice features I like. It had fully programmable RGB for every key, dedicated volume and media keys, USB pass-through, and it was mechanical.

Custom keyboard enthusiasts care about two things before all else: looks and sound; even at the cost of practicality and ergonomics. Now I don’t currently think that way…yet, but I am all about the ergonomics first and foremost as I do quite a bit of work on my PC so I don’t want to get rid of things for aesthetics or whatever reason. This does hinder my options quite a bit as many of these custom keyboards are kind of….the same much like the PC building industry.

First thing you have to do is pick a layout and form factor. There’s a number of different sizes which means how many keys you have on your board. I want/need a standard full sized board which is less common as many boards are 65% to TKL (Ten Key Less). They is a few more sizes and key layouts and even some unique boards. I use the numpad often from doing finances to keybinding for MMOs.

A keyboard has many components that make up what is considered a keyboard. This leads to multiple components that can be changed and customized. At foundation of every keyboard, there’s a PCB which is essentially the electronic board that all the components are connected to. You can even choose to swap the PCB into a compatible case if you wanted. One of the things you want to factor in aside from the size and layout, is the LEDs. Whether you want them or not and if so, North or South facing LEDs. It is fairly common to see North facing LEDs in boards because it illuminates the legends more evenly, but it also may have interference with certain keycaps. Enthusiasts prefer South facing LEDs because there isn’t this interference. Then you also might not choose to use shine through keycaps. You cannot change this because of the way PCBs are designed so you should keep this in mind.

Switches.

Mechanical keyboards is not a simple subject. There was a variety of switches I was aware at the time which were essentially just the Cherry MX line up of Browns, Blues, and Reds. Blues clicked, Browns clacked, and Reds were the quieter switches. Then Silent Reds were extra quiet which is what I ended up looking for in a keyboard. The Corsair Strafe was one of the few keyboards that had them and for years I was pretty happy with that. It’s still good board for pretty much anything.

While Cherry is probably the biggest keyboard switch maker around and you can find them in most prebuilt mechanical boards, it is not that popular with enthusiasts. It is very common for them to be the standard all other switches are compared to. It would not be far off to say some of the most popular switches today came from Cherry clones. Cherry also created the color standard for the switch stem colors to identify what type of switch is what.

At its core, there’s three types of switches: clicky, tactile, and linear. Everything else is just a variation on these three types. The difference is how each switch feels upon being pressed. The most common is the linear switch which feels smooth and consistent throughout. Tactile has a bump which make a clacky sound. Clicky is right in the name, they’re loud and annoying. If you use clicky switches, everyone hates you.

There’s a number of other colors that are slightly different changes to these three types. These changes may be the spring weight that change the actuation force for lighter or heavier typing. Silent (linear) switches have a rubber padding on the stems which limits the impact of bottoming out and minimizes the vibration and thus, less sound. This changes the feel of the key press so some do not prefer it.

When it comes to custom keyboards, there’s so much that can be done for switches. Each switch is comprised of four parts, the upper housing, lower housing, spring, and stem. Along with just the endless color combinations of the switches, it is common to lube the housing, the stem, and the springs. Less friction means less noise and a cleaner sound when typing. This is a bit of a undertaking that requires time and effort. While sometimes its not as effective, some switches come prelubed or factory lubed so it’s not necessary to do it yourself anymore. While we’re on that, “stabs” short for stabilizers are also customizable along with lubing them. There’s a couple types of stabs like screw in or plate mounted, but from what I’ve learned, Durock screw in stabs are the best.

Keycaps.

I already know they were individual novelty keycaps like those found on Etsy with little terrariums made from resin. They are beautiful, but also like I didn’t really like the idea of spending a bunch of money for a single keycap. Full keycap sets widely vary in price and come in so many color ways and themes. The some prebuilt boards like Corsair do not have a standard bottom row which means either you’d have an incomplete set or somehow find a set compatible with the Corsair sizes. Recently Corsair released a nice look set of keycaps, but it was only for their smaller boards and have zero other options. This lead me to look into more boards with a standard keycap set.

Above is the ABS Double Shot SA Keycap Set – Azure by Ducky. While I did like this colorway, it was a SA profile and I didn’t like typing on it. Keycap profiles is a big thing to consider when looking at keycaps because they vary so much in size and design. I recommend looking into a chart to see how much of a difference they are. SA is the tallest profile and sculpted so it looks like it sticking out really far. I think most people are used to a Cherry or OEM profile which is about in the middle to the laptop short and flat keyboards.

Then there’s the material and the manufacturing method used for the keycaps. There’s double shot and the dye sublimation which is how the legends are made on the keycaps. Double shot method can be ABS and PBT while dye sublimation can only be used on PBT. Most people prefer PBT over ABS for the most part due ABS have a tendency to become more shiny with more use while PBT does not have this issue. Double shot tends to be known as the “higher quality” method with legends being injected and the double layer plastic so the legends are sharper and the process allows for more color choices. Dye sublimation isn’t necessary lower quality just because it’s cheaper to produce as there’s many boards such at the IBM Model M known for it’s quality. RGB and backlit boards in general tend to use double shot as dye sub only allows for legends to be printed and must be dark than the keycap. Sound is also something to factor as each produces a different sound which is purely preference. There’s a few unorthodox materials that companies have released such as metal, ceramic, and wood, but let’s not get into that.

These are the Akko World Tour Tokyo R2 Cherry Profile Dye-Sub PBT Pink Keycaps (Japanese Version).

Sound.

This is where the whole thing becomes extremely subjective. How a keyboard sounds is a big part of the whole hobby. You want get the “right” sounds and get rid of the “bad” ones. You might hear the word “thock” through around. There’s a lot of lubricating any moving parts to get rid of friction sounds from switches and stabilizers to get a more pure sound from keypresses. The other big part that contributes to the sound of a keypress is the echo from the keycaps, the board, and case.

The board and case have many different ways to muffle, diffuse, or dampen the sound. The most normal and least ghetto way is foam. There can be multiple layers of foam. Foam between the PCD and the plate. Foam between the PCB and the bottom of the case. These layers of foam are meant to minimize the hollowness inside the board. This makes perfect sense as that’s pretty much how sound works….bouncing back to your ears. “Foam” is a pretty broad term because it is and there’s so many different types or material used. There’s some experimental materials and ideas that people have use to gain the same effect, but the results are subjective. I’ve seen pillow stuffing, kinetic sand, play doh, and even hot glue. A common mod people do is “The Tape Mod” which is essentially slapping several layers of blue painters tape to the back of the PCB. It’s cheap and it does make a noticeable difference.

Let’s move on to what I ended up getting. This is the Mk Typist Night aka a Ducky One 2. I mistakenly thought this was a hot swappable board which means you can change out the switches without de-soldering and re-soldering. I ordered the board with Cherry MX Silent Reds which I already had on the Corsair Strafe MK2. I will say, it does sound fairly different even though they are the same switches so the case does make a difference. It is a traditional layout full size keyboard with dedicated volume control keys. This might not matter to everyone, but I really like having a dedicate volume control so I don’t have to press function and F keys. The lack of an wrist rest does leave something to be desired.

The Akko keycaps I picked out came with a lovely box. I do like the boxes and box art keyboard stuff comes in.

Not all keycap sets come for a full size board so that limited my selection. While, I don’t need the JP version of the keycaps, I did pick them because the Japanese characters are written in blue on the keycaps and it adds some more color to the board. It also came with this cute cat paw keycap puller.

The space is a pretty little scene of Mt. Fuji. The set had a variety of novelty keycaps I opted to switch out the normal ones for like a shiba Windows key and sushi shift.

Now, this is a bit of a cheat. O-rings, While you can put this under every key, I don’t recommend it because it changes the actuation point and makes all the keypresses mushy which makes for a unpleasant typing experience. Since I don’t have any of the fancy lubing equipment and materials, I put them on certain keys where the feeling doesn’t matter as much like the ESC, spacebar, backspace, and enter keys to make a softer bottoming out.

I already looking a stuff for the future, but I’m putting it off for now since there’s a lot other expenses coming up. I’m looking at trying out the Gateron Milky Yellow Pros.