Drop K-type Keyboard 5-year follow up and mods

With how much more time I've been spending at my desk since COVID started I started investing more into peripherals. Had a Ducky One 2 SF for a good long while and while there were quite a few issues experienced with it (chattering keys, having to RMA a few boards because of cracks in the steel plates) it nonetheless managed to serve me well for a good few years.

Stock sound was far from grand, but I did tape mod the PCB and stuffed the board with some leftover Dynamat Xtreme scraps I'd gotten off @bengo several years ago now. Still wasn't a big fan of how it sounded, but it was an appreciable improvement over stock: https://on.soundcloud.com/xX1eg

... No "before" samples taken, I'm afraid.

Then one of the cats knocked it off my desk while zooming about and the key chatter got even worse. I feasibly could have just busted out the soldering iron and replaced what bits needed replacing, but I've not soldered anything in a few years now and when I tested it out my old iron seemed to have given up the ghost. I have it stowed away in my bag now as a travel board to plug into my phone when I wanna do stuff on the go (I can live with some chattering, just means I'll be making extensive use of backspace).

Luckily enough there's an active keyboard community hereabouts and someone was letting go of their old Keychron Q1 that'd been previously modded for a relative pittance a few months ago (about $80 if memory serves?). They'd also tape-modded it and used some masking tape to run a "force break" mod, not to mention covered the top of the PCB with a random sheet of PE foam. On top of having access to an f-row again, this sounded and felt MUCH nicer to me: https://on.soundcloud.com/tSps5

Looking inside the board, though, the way the mods were executed wasn't very... neat, so I made a bit of busywork for myself and redid the force break mod with thicker silicone tape and also just removed all the masking tape covering the back of the PCB to shape the sound more to my liking (I seem to prefer medium tones, not super deep thock but more pebbles clattering against each other?). Found some cheap Akko ASA profile keycaps that claim to be PBT but started shining after just four or so days of use; they turned out to sound nicer to me than the stock OSA profile keycaps did: https://on.soundcloud.com/BHnki

It's fun using what little I know about acoustics to be able to shape a keyboard's sound profile (there's a dude on YouTube called Keybored who makes spectacular content: https://www.youtube.com/@Keybored), but I emphatically refuse to make this another hobby even IF some local friends have let me try out headphone rig-priced keyboards that do sound and feel rather nice.

It just gets silly much faster here than in the headphone hobby, IMO.

 

I dig Holy Pandas, think for almost a year they were my goto switches. Would rec hand lubing them if you had a few hours. Is it a pain in the ass, yes but the stock lube from factory is thin and weak. Lubing switches for me nowadays are rather cathartic and I usually pop on a movie or show while I do it.

For the spacebar, if you had some foam around you could try cutting some out and fitting them in like this:
https://kbdfans.com/products/spacebar-foam?_pos=1&_sid=f657d091e&_ss=r

I bought a few set when I made KBDfans orders in the past since they were pretty inexpensive and easy to apply/change if I didn't like them.

 

Haha, the first keyboard vids I got tossed my way were Switch & Click and Hipyo Tech, and THEN Taeha Types, Andy V Nguyen, and some others-- it wasn't until I LOOKED into figuring out the rationale of this force break mod specifically that I stumbled across Keybored!

To say that this all only added to my confusion at first would be somewhat of an understatement, but I do guess that more entertainment-oriented approaches to certain videos will indeed tend to outperform others in terms of reach and retention.

What I meant about this hobby getting sillier than others is the value proposition. I've said this a few times but I can be alarmingly persnickety about some things that eventually contribute to me getting stressed out at random intervals, so keycaps of all things are a particular sort of pain point here with how the ones with very good legending tend to be hoarded and resold at scalper pricing down the line, like the nice GMK or PBTFans stuff.

It's like how there's a dearth of "good value and high performance" amps in the $1-2k range; that no-man's-land kicks in pretty early on at maybe a TENTH of that, but with the second wind of "oh this is appreciably better" coming back in around $500 or so and ramping up greatly. I got to try some REALLY neat boards courtesy of the one friend I keep referencing lurks here (sup) and I hate him for spoiling cheap membranes for me.​

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Not sure how well this will pick up on camera, but the line weights on this board aren't consistent, e.g. the "S" and "N" are significantly thicker than others. I can't stand to look at this board from up close now, haha. Also that shine is from just a month and a half of use.

You get what you pay for, I suppose, but it's hard to be nitpicky and cheap when it comes to keyboards. The fact that this has a white chassis is VERY out of character for me, I actually dislike it, but again it was a steal of a deal and I could always just spray paint it down the line if I get annoyed enough.

And yes, my unending goth kid phase is showing again with the keycap theme. Shh.


ADDENDUM:

Forgot to mention that I got a decentish mic for use with work and random projects (an sE Electronics V7). For calibration, the above soundcloud samples were all recorded using that mic being fed into an Arturia Minifuse 2. The gain was maxed out, grille was about 8 inches from the board, aimed at the G and H keys.

 

After years of using Filco boards with Cherry Brown or Blue switches, I started to develop moderate and continuing wrist pain (like many I spend a large part of my time typing). Recently I picked up a Keychron Q8 Pro with Gateron Reds and hey presto, complete recovery and no more wrist pain. I find them so much more pleasant and easier to type on. It's remarkable to me that people talk about accidentally activating keys on red switches just by resting their fingers on them, I can't even imagine that happening. I'm considering trying something lighter still than Gateron Red, but the choice is quite limited (it seems most people really like slamming the keys). Any other extremely light typers have any reccos?

 

Have you tried optical switches? I much prefer tactile feel but I do appreciate how those lighter weight switches are for longer typing sessions. I'm a Cherry and Gateron Brown dude (though I do sometimes wish they snapped back a bit faster while keeping the same spring weight) and found a lot of the Razer optical stuff to be a bit too light for me even relative to Cherry Red switches, so perhaps that could work for you?

There's also this really interesting newish toy called the Wooting 60HE that allows you to set your own actuation points and when the switch "resets".

https://next.wooting.io/wooting-60he

Not tried it myself so cannot comment on the feel, but I presume that being able to adjust the actuation point to be as shallow as you want it to be could help ameliorate pressure on your wrists. It's only a 60% board though, but hoping they'll come out with a TKL or similar soon.

 

The Wooting board uses hall effect switches. The board might be difficult to get though since Osu! players discovered the board could give them very high tap rates. (Edit: Looks like Wooting is releasing a macropad specifically for Osu! which should mean the full layout will be less demanded)

There’s a kickstarter by Input Club (which made the K-type) for a hall-effect board as well

https://kono.store/products/keystone-analog-mechanical-keyboard

I’m pretty excited about the metal beam-spring switches. Though the kickstarter page indicates there’s been a lot of issues with production due to Covid.

A lot of people consider IBM magnetic beam springs to be the holy grail of keyboards.

https://deskthority.net/wiki/Micro_Switch_SW_Series

This was peak keyboard engineering when a gigantic firm used their resources to make the best possible keyboards. Similar to audio engineers at RCA in the 50s. Enthusiasts spend a lot of money buying a used one and then another few hundred to restore the switches and installing a control board to use with modern computers. The newer projects allow users to get a similar experience without all the hassle.

I have a sampler pack and my spouse preferred the Zealios Roselios specifically because they were the lightest ones

something else you might want to consider is a split keyboard. I know one keycap designer that was hospitalized for wrist issues and eventually switched to a ergodox with a Dvorak layout to deal with it