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deciding what exactly to build for this video took a lot of thought on the one

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hand we didn't want to go too overboard but since the point was for some of the

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enthusiasts here to share their passion for keyboard customization we also

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didn't want to go too basic and miss out on presenting some of the more fun

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options even if they aren't the most wallet friendly on that note when you're

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making this decision for yourself the first consideration after your budget

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set a budget should be your layout what's right for you a tiny little 40%

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board with several function layers to jot down your Memoir or maybe you want a

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fulls sized 104 keyboard for productivity and entering data and

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spreadsheets maybe you'll land in between there are Endless Options with

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new layouts coming out all the time but the most common are your 60 and 65% 75%

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tkl or 10 keyless and 1800 there are also alternate layouts

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like ortholinear and Alice and split for the ergonomic minded folks but I'm

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boring so I've gone with the new tofu 65 2.0 from kbd fans the original tofu 60

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and 65 are pretty common recommendations for an entrylevel but very Enthusiast

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tier keyboard unfortunately in the few years since their release the classic

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tray mounts that they used have fallen out of favor thankfully the new keyboard

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kit that they sent over includes three mounting options top mount silicone

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gasket or silicone Bowl which we are

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going to be trying for the first time more on that later for now all you need

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to know is that you can purchase your case PCB plate stabilizer switches and

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anything else that you would like separately and build it fully custom but

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you don't have to anymore many of them come in kits like this that include just

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about everything that you need except for you know switches and key caps I

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mean uh those are kind of critical first

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a nice thing about the tofu 65 is the fact that it is hot swap which makes

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trying out new switches or replacing defective ones much easier compared to

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if everything is soldered in place now soldering does have a few advantages

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like some added stability more layout options and no risk of your switches

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popping out when you go to change your key caps but it's so convenient to be

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able to just pop switches onto your board like this anytime you want that

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this is absolutely what we' recommend for novice to intermediate Builders

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especially those aren't 100% sure that they want to be married to the first

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switches that they choose for those of you looking for a challenge by the way

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you can convert a solder only PCB into a

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hot swappable one but that's beyond the scope of today's video today's video

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which needs a message from our sponsor build Redux build Redux builds fully

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customizable gaming PCs for any budget see how your favorite games perform with

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their online pc Builder so you dominate in war zone and not Candy Crush unless

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you you want that head to build ru.com Linus and start your new rig today our

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kit today is a bit more expensive than the 60% version but for our $190 we're

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getting a lot we've got an aluminum case with a brass weight a plate in the

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material of your choice both silicone gasket mounting options as well as

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smaller screws for top mount laser cut pour on bottom and plate foam and Eva

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switch pad a set of feet and Cherry screwing stabilizers moreon all of these

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as we go and don't worry if this guy and

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a set of switches and key caps are out of your budget don't sweat it you can

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follow along with any of the still very good options that we've got linked down

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below for as low as 40 bucks you'll probably be looking at a plastic chassis

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maybe fewer plate options and no frills like bottom weights or added foam but

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kits like these are a great way to both learn the basics and to get typing and

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feel free to spend those savings by the way on our new circuit deskpad which is

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a great fit for whatever keyboard you end up building let's start with our PCB

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these can come anywhere from completely bare in which case you'll need to solder

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on Parts like LEDs resistors or controllers yourself to fully populated

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with hot swappable sockets so there is zero soldering involved sometimes

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they're pretty rigid but it's becoming more and more common to see Flex Cuts

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not only around the frro or other modifiers but also to break up the

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alphas like this this contributes to to a less harsh bottoming out feeling but

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without the mushiness associated with membranes and it might seem like a small

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and insignificant detail partly because it is but this practically infinite

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customizability is a huge part of what draws people into this hobby whether

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it's the big factors like the actuation forces of your switches or fine ones

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like the viscosity of your Lube or PCB Flex all of it is going to make a

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difference in both sound and feel as you type or game so I guess what I'm trying

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to say is speed holes are in fashion now but if you don't like them that is

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totally 100% okay moving on failures are

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rare but you should still always do a quick test of each socket on your PCB

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before you build the fastest way to do this is to lay your PCB on something

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non-conductive I'd recommend the box that came in plug it into your computer

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open a keyboard testing site like via we're going to have a couple of those

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linked down below then using a pair of conductive tweezers or a paperclip

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Bridge each socket one by one and check to ensure that the key press registers

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now it's time to actually build and step one is adding our stabilizers now most

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of the keys on a board are a size of one U they won't need them but bigger Keys

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like shift enter and tab will typically range anywhere from 1 and 1/2 to 2 and

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1/2 u with the space bar generally being the biggest at around 6.25 U A good rule

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thumb is that anything over to you needs a stabilizer to stay well stable to see

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what what this looks like let's flip our space bar upside down here you can see

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three mounting points one in the middle for the switch and then one on either

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side for the stabilizers without these two side mounts pressing your space bar

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anywhere other than right dead center is going to result in a sort of seesaw

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lever action this will fix it but wait

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if we screwed them into our PCB without Lube Well we'd be able to hear the wire

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scratching and rattling around inside the stabs well I mean it wouldn't affect

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the functionality right no no okay right

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but but but but it would be awful right

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yes and we can fix that in about 20 minutes if we care and we do there are a

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few ways to do this but we are going to use some dialectric grease for the bars

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and krytox 25g lube for the housing then

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for bonus points we're going to be using Flush Cutters to clip off these little

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raised sections here that can poke into the PCB awkwardly when they're pressed

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down if your stabs don't have those little feet by the way don't start

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randomly cutting things off many of the newer ones are starting to come pre-

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clipped so you could end up screwing something up in either case the next

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step is to lube our housing like so applying a light layer to the inside

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once that's done you just pop the insert back in making sure to orient the side

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with the hole here with the side that's open grease up the end of the

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bar that's greased all right then insert the bar and click it into place

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stable now before we move on I just want to quickly mention that there are more

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than just Cherry screw stabilizers like we have today there are different

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mounting Styles snap in screw in or plate mounted or you might even open up

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your keyboard and find a different style of stabilizer all together co-star

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stabilizers look like this and while they can be lubed up there's not much

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else you can do with them so thankfully these are less common these days and

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Optical stabilizers like you'd find in an optical keyboard well those can't be

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modified at all at least at this time so

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Cherry screws it is for us now at this point if you still hear a little bit of

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rattle I guess I can kind of force it but this is certainly acceptable to me

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anyway there are two more steps you can take one of them is a serious pain in

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the butt it's called a holy mod and involves adding tiny strips of bandage

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or other padding material to the inside surfaces of the insert some full kit

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cases actually come with pre-cut strips like these ones but whatever you use the

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idea is the same it's to stop the wire from making contact with the plastic

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hamaji Neo actually has a great video on how to do this so feel free to go check

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that out we're going to have it linked in the video description I am not that fussy

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obviously so we're going to do the easier mod now the old way of doing this

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one also involves cutting up bits of bandages but since it's more Common

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Premium kits often come with little padded stickers either with or without

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holes in the center since some folks don't like the actual insert hitting the

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pad now our tofu kit didn't come with these but luckily we had some lying

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around from another kit now for the record not Everyone likes adding these

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and some finds that it makes certain stabilizers feel a tad mushy especially

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before they're broken in but I was told

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I had to do it so all you got to do then

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is line up the smaller side with the smaller stabilizer screw hole and The

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Wider side where the stabs hook into the PCB and stick it on some people actually

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like to add a bit of lube to these before installing their stabilizers over

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top of them but maybe you could try it without first and then see how you feel

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about it once those are on we'll install the stabilizers by hooking them onto the

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bigger opening then pushing both sides into place then you'll need the spacers

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or washers that come with your stab kit we're just going to use these washers

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that came with a different kit as long as you have a magnetic screwdriver LTD

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store.com just take the washer put it on the screw

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and screw it in from the back

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side it's it's nice good job good job L one last trick

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by the way if it's still not quiet enough for you you can take a syringe

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and squeeze a little bit more Lube into the stabilizers after you've installed

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them on the board wait why didn't we just do that in the first place that sounds way

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easier it

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doesn't we could just stick some lube at the edges here it would work its way in

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and then we could just syringe some lube into there with a needle and what like

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you just have to like type on it for a bit and then be fine but that's the

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thing is you got to type on it for a while yeah that's fine oh my God that

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would take like a tenth the amount of time any who now it's time to assemble

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our p PB and get the rest of our keyboard ready for the case remember

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those Foams that I mentioned early ah yes here they are adding any layer or

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combination of layers of these is going to dampen or otherwise affect the sound

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now some of the more popular materials include polyurethane poron that's this

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one right here neoprene sorbothane and

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Eva if your kit didn't come with foam but you want some anyway there are a few

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websites out there that will do custom laser cut foam for specific cases in key

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caps but realistically White Packing foam like this can be found for cheap or

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free and does a pretty okay job the

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question though is whether this should be done at all and that's not even just

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me being all all of this is unnecessary

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anyway many purists will argue that an expensive keyboard doesn't need foam and

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should sound fantastic without it but

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for more budget boards it can help a lot again it's all up to your personal

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preference but since it's part part of our kit we're going to use all three

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layers we're going to start with the top foam and Eva switch pad then once

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they're aligned we're going to put the plate on top to sandwich the whole thing

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together before we start popping in our switches but before we do that we have

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to talk about our plate that's a good thing we didn't forget that the plate

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stabilizes your key switches and adds some rigidity to the board but its main

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role is to keep the stress off of the PCB when you're typing now like

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everything else there are a ton of options for materials Each of which

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affects the feel and especially the sound of the typing experience kbd fans

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sent us polycarbonate aluminum and fr4

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fiberglass to choose from they've also got a carbon fiber option but they

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didn't send that over other popular choices for other boards include palm

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and Brass we're going to go with the poly carb today for a lower pitch sound

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and a little bit more flex but if you're looking for something stiffer and higher

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pitched then aluminum would be a really good way to go for our switches we've

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gone with Gaton blizzards these are five

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pin 60 G tactile switches with pre-applied Lube which is going to save

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us a couple of hours some enthusiasts would still apply their own Lube but

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Factory pre- lubing has apparently gotten a lot better over the last couple

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of years and I think it's fair to say that this is going to get us at least

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90% of the way there that's not always true though we have both unlubed and

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preed nixes from Cherry and we couldn't really feel a whole lot of difference

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but then if we compare the unlubed one to a switch we lubed ourselves it's no

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contest apparently okay I've got to feel this I assume this is the one that you

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lubed the quieter one okay all right well it is better so fine if you have to

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lube your own switches here's how you do it hop open your switch with a Handy

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Switch opener these can also be Pride open with fingernails or other tools but

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a switch opener makes it about 100 times easier then disassemble everything but

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the pins you should be left with a top housing bottom housing stem and a spring

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now don't just start start throwing Lube at it because this process can vary a

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little bit depending on whether you're lubing linear switches tactiles or

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clickies linear they're kind of hard to screw up since there's no bump there's

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no feel for you to really worry about but with tactiles and clickies you've

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got to be careful not to over Lube or you can end up removing a lot of the

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feel and sound especially for clickies

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so for linear take a small brush take your stem and brush a thin layer of

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krytox 205g along just about anywhere

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except except the stem now to be clear 205g is not the Beall and end all of

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switch Lube it's just pretty common and we happen to have some on hand once

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that's done take the bottom housing and apply another thin layer on the stem

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rails particularly with linear you can coat a bit more of the bottom housing in

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the leaves but it's not always necessary as for your Springs we're going to go

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with the lazy container Lube method where you take all your Springs Chuck

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them in a container with some krytox 105 and then shake them up until you've got

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a nice thin coating on them you can absolutely Lube your Springs

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individually for best results but wow

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does it ever take forever so we are not going to be doing that today once each

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component is lubed up just put it back together and you're done or at least

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you're probably done at this point something we haven't mentioned yet is

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switch film which is meant to fix flimsy wobbly housings by adding a small layer

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of material to fill any gaps most modern switches don't need them but if yours do

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you just add the film to the lower housing before pushing the switch back

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together great good job now repeat the process between 70 and 110 more times

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and you should be good to go can't say the same for your fingers but yeah now

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since our PCB is hot swappable you can do this last if you'd prefer but as long

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as you've got a soft surface to work on and you don't press too hard you'll be

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all right we're going to put our switches on now just take your switch

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line up the pins with the holes uh some sockets might require you to R rotate 90

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or 180° so make sure you watch for that

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then press it down one pro tip by the way is that if you do all the corners

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first it helps keep everything in place while you install the rest of the

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switches during this process it's possible that you will accidentally

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smush one of the contact pins on your switch if that happens don't worry about

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it too much first of all you can usually use some pliers to straighten them out

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and try again and second switches generally come in packs of 10 so you'll

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probably have a few extras anyway a quick visual inspection to make sure the

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pins are poking through later and I think we're almost done we're almost

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done right yeah I I swear we're almost done anyway we know we want to gasket

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Mount today but the question is how gasket mounting involves sandwiching the

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plate in between the top and bottom case with pieces of rubber or foam now for

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the traditional gasket Mount we could attach these little sockies on our PCB

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but these bowls are apparently the new hotness or something so we're going to

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try those out to be clear gasket mounts are not the only way to mount the PCB

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there's your tray Mount top mount bottom

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mount sandwich Mount integrated plate

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Mount gasket Mount Leaf Spring Mount

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that's about it now we're going to put our bottom half to the side for this

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part tweezers are your best friend you're going to take these little strips

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of foam there and insert them into these

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little recesses in the underside of the top plate

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with these in place we're going to go back to our bottom case and add the

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little bowls uh tweezers also appear to

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be my friend here we went with the middle stiffness to start cuz we've

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never really tried this Mount before but our kit came with three different

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stiffnesses 50 60 and 70 before we

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assemble we need to add our bottom foam layer an alternative to this is actually

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painters tape though if you just lay strips of it across the bottom of the

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PCB with cutouts for your reset switch uh resistors any onard board

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microcontrollers or anything like that then you can just add as many layers as

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you like as long as they still fit in the case to achieve the desired result

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usually anywhere from 2 to four is enough another cheap and cheerful mod

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that seems to work like magic is the force break mod this is kind of like

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creating a gasket for our case which should help reduce Hollow and ping

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particularly if you don't already have any other kind of foam layers installed

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to achieve this one you take some more painters tape or electrical tape and add

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tin strips on either side of the screw holes helping to reduce the metal

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on-metal sounds of your closed case now

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that that's done let's take our sandwich screw in the daughter board then lower

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it slowly onto the bowls on the bottom

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case good gravy lower it onto the

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bowls I mean that seems like it's on the

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bowls now we just put this

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on and then ever so ever so

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carefully who That's Heavy we flip the

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whole thing over and screw it back

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together now we put these on these are

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really nice this my friends is how you

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do a rubber foot okay no adhesive just a

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nice little Groove and it sticks in the screw holes so getting at the screws

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later is super easy but it still looks perfectly clean

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woo that's something we're

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done well sort of um I guess key caps

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would make things a little bit more pleasant we've got a few different

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options to show off here key caps are the most outwardly obvious way to show

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off your style so obviously personal preference plays a major role here but

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it's generally accepted that your average PBT key cap is better than your

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average ABS key cap since PBT is a more durable plastic that tends to wear out

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both more slowly and more pleasingly but

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while the average ABS key cap will quickly turn into a shiny mess that

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doesn't mean that all abs keycaps are bad gmk for instance uses higher quality

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abs for their keyc cap sets though they are known for being quite pricey on that

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note there are plenty of other materials that you could consider when you're

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choosing keycaps um rubber wood ceramic

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metal I mean people are constantly experimenting with both materials and

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profiles you're probably used to the Cherry profile but what about sa XDA Kat

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the keycaps profile is all about the shape do you want something that's more

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flat and uniform or something that's tall and sculpted differently per Row

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the only way to know what's right for you realistically is to just try them so

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we'd highly recommend experimenting with some cheap keycap sets from your

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favorite online retailer before you go with something fancy I've settled on

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these clear purple key caps these are are clear 2048 for our build today but

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there's a certain element of luck involved in picking a keycap set not

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every set is available in every layout

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is your kit NY is it ISO do you need a

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stepped key cap is your space bar long at 7uu or is it on the shorter side for

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a split or a condensed layout sometimes you can make an almost fit set work with

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your board but you might end up with some empty space that exposes the plate

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in PCB which isn't the greatest looking thing there are workarounds it's pretty

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popular to have accent keys in different colors so you could just take that one

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that doesn't fit and replace it with something else and put on some other

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accent keys or you could fill some of the odd sizes that you didn't account

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for with one of the many novelty custom key caps that come in various shapes

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colors and sizes the only drawback with these aside from the uh cost is that you

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might wait months or even a year to get them in some cases before we actually

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try it something we already touched on in the last video is adding O-rings to

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your key caps you could do every key or just your stabilizer Keys like the space

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bar and enter but this again is personal

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preference so you would just take your o-ring pop it over where the stem

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inserts on the underside of the key cap and you're good to go depending on the

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hardness and the thickness of your o-ring this could add undesirable mush

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though so it's not for everyone it's just a fast and inexpensive mod that can

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improve your sound when you're bottoming out your keys I swear to you this looks

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a a lot better in person than it does on camera that helps a little but

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um yeah really doesn't capture the right purple

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tone well let's go ahead and plug it in now

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we just fire up monkey type

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and

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oops h

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well I can't type on it but it sounds really good why don't I try that

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again all right sounds pretty good not

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bad it does sound good now you can go a

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step further and use via to map whatever function layers or key Bindings that you

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would like at least you can if your keyboard has qmk firmware via won't work

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with everything but the nice thing about 65% is that you've got basically

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everything ready to go with the use of a function key for the missing frow and

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that's it if there's anything you think we missed or didn't have time for leave

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a comment down below where we'll have links for all the items that we use

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today but we're done and all right all

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right it's pretty cool I mean well like cool and like a you know you get it uh

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the point is if you're not happy with yours you can change it an unlimited

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number of times until you get the sound and feel that you like best because at

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the end of the day it's your keyboard and at the end of the video it's my

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segue to today's sponsor pulseway don't

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below to start your free trial now and may the remote access be with you I'm

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00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:56,440
not sure if I'm allowed to say that is it trademarked if you enjoyed this video

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00:24:54,640 --> 00:25:01,320
check out our last mechanical keyboard build we don't show off all the modern

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00:24:58,559 --> 00:25:05,799
Creature Comforts and the latest mods but it was still an interesting project

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00:25:03,279 --> 00:25:08,799
it was a different time it was very peac meal