During the pandemic, watching David Lynch’s weather report (and Today’s Number) became part of my daily ritual. Every weekend, he wishes all his viewers well on their weekend projects. I seldom have a weekend project, unless you count playing video games, curling up with a book, or taking a daily nap as projects. 

Leaving fixing the keyboard until the weekend meant I finally had a weekend project. It also gave me some time to recover from the horrendousness of tiny screws, funky stabilizers, and keys that refused to play nice with their neighbours. 

I made myself a flat white, fed the cats, and started disassembling the janky keyboard. 

Off came the keycaps, out came the switches.I unscrewed the PCB from the case and started fiddling with the stabilizers. While examining the PCB, I learned that following the directions of some random person on Reddit about the orientation of the stabilizers probably hadn’t been a good idea. My PCB had some inverted sockets for switches on the top row, and some of the spacing on the board meant that two switches couldn’t sit flush between the stabilizers. Those were the ones I’d need to flip. I hoped that flipping those would also mean I could install the plate, but first things first. 

Time to unscrew the annoying little brass screws. Cue me dropping them on the carpet again because I hadn’t magically become any more dexterous in the intervening 72 hours. 

I found all but one of the screws with the help of the cats and the torch on my phone. Luckily, I had a spare. 

There followed copious amounts of what I can only describe as faffing about. I removed all the stabilizers from the board. Why, I cannot tell you. Then, I had to put them all back in again. This took some time. I tested the stabilizers again and everything seemed fine. 

There was still no way the plate was going to fit, despite much fiddling about with it. Looking at it, I should be able to file away some of the metal to make room for the stabilizers, but I don’t own a metal file and that feels like a project for a different weekend. 

Resigned to having a plateless build, I screwed the board back into the case, and added the switches back on again.  

This time, everything sat more comfortably. I also discovered that some of the switches had opened themselves which accounted for the few weirdly tall keys on the board. Snapping them shut again cleared that up nicely.  

Next, adding keycaps. Because of the broken spacebar from the original set, I broke out the Milk & Honey keycaps that I’d intended to use on the 60% keyboard I’ve ordered parts for from China. Me being me, the order from China also includes yet another keycap set, so I won’t be stuck when the new parts arrive.   

The Milk & Honey keycaps are extremely cute, have sharper lettering, and feel a lot nicer than the original set too. Lesson learned: do not cheap out on keycaps. 

Both sets of keycaps I own have an XDA profile, which means they’re less tall than OEM or Cherry keycaps. The PCB I have has south-facing LEDs and apparently using taller keys with that configuration can lead to interference, which you do not want when you’re typing. I remembered this when ordering the keycaps, but somehow entirely forgot my board had RGB on it all the time I was working on it. 

I added my keycaps, attached the cute little telephone cord USB connector, and took several deep calming breaths. I needed those deep breaths because I didn’t trust myself not to have broken or missed something really important in all of this.

Would it actually work?

Time to plug it in and find out!

It lit up, the computer didn’t yell at me that there was no keyboard attached, and I could type happily in google docs. All the keys worked. Nothing was jamming or sounding mushy. 

The last thing I had to do was install Via, upload the json for my PCB, and reconfigure some keys to match functions I use a lot.

Here’s a screengrab of how I set up the base layer (you can have multiple layers that you access by using modifier keys):  

I wanted to keep the ability to easily Alt-F4 an application to close it, and to use fullscreen if I want to. Print screen is pretty essential to me too. 

You can see a lighting menu there on the left. I spent altogether too much time playing around with the many, many options there. I settled on a fairly dim, constant, yellowy-orange colour. I didn’t want the light to be super-bright and distracting, but I did like the idea of it always being there since it’s winter and the room often gets dark without me noticing. And yes, I made a conscious decision not to buy shine-through keycaps.

So was it all worth it?

Adjusting to typing on a smaller keyboard took less time than I’d anticipated. The keys really do feel lovely, they’re buttery soft and responsive, and the sound is not at all annoying. I typed this entire series of posts on the keyboard, so it’s definitely fit for purpose. 

It also takes up significantly less desk space than my Logitech or Razer keyboards.

The typing angle is not too steep (the case has a 7 degree incline if memory serves), so it’s also easy on the wrists. 

So it’s compact, it’s cute, and it’s a joy to type on. Putting everything together was tricky and mentally taxing at times, but I also learned a lot along the way. Unboxing something that comes pre-built is fun, but building something you use every day from a bunch of parts is a whole other source of joy. This keyboard is mine in a way that no other keyboard I’ve owned has been. I made it, and I’m still a little shocked that it works so well.

I’d say all in all, it was time and money well-spent.

Good thing, too, since once the parts for the 60% keyboard arrive from China, I’ll be doing it all over again.

To close this series of posts out, here’s another photo of Smudge and Amos:

Thanks for following along on my journey.

Until next time, have a wonderful rest of your day!