there are literally thousands of imperfect choices for mechanical
keyboards out there and you can customize them a little add some o-rings
here change some key caps there Luke actually did a guy welcome to the
ultimate mechanical keyboard guy but unless you have the know-how to actually
build one yourself you're at the mercy of those that do or are you what if I
told you it didn't have to be like that what if I told you that there are more
options out there than you might have realized what if I told you that today's
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could be all right so let's go over what we set
out to accomplish here because when Anthony first came to me with this idea
he had like these grand visions of programming microcontrollers and
soldering diodes using 3d printed or
laser-cut chassis and a bunch of other things that are really cool but
this is our first rodeo so we decided to
focus on getting one working first so
with that in mind then we narrowed our search to parts that can bolt together
relatively easily meaning though that we
can expect to pay a premium looking at what's available there's a lot of ten
keyless components out there but then even more options for the smaller and
simpler 60% layout so we settled on that
starting at mechanical keyboards comm for some essential supplies Cherry MX
brown RGB key switches three choices of
beautiful anodized aluminum cases to put
everything into and then a selection of Springs that we can use to actually
customize the feel of our switches so
this way we could make the caps lock key or the function key more difficult to
press accidentally and then we could even reduce the actuation force of keys
like lwas or even the whole alphanumeric set to
improve our speed while maintaining that satisfying tactile bump of the Cherry MX
brown like the beauty here whoop is that
the sky's the limit for
customizability but while it's really
fun to play around with a bag full of cherry MX is a chassis and a bag of key
switches a keyboard does not make so we
are going to need to wire them up now some folks do this manually but a PCB
preferably one that is well documented is much easier not to mention a lot
tinier now there are lots of options out
there but for our project we turned to banggood where we found not only this
nice wooden case actually this thing's really nice and wrist rest but also
Satan no seriously we found the satan GH
60 a fully programmable keyboard PCB that seems to check all the essential
boxes it's got macro support and RGB
variant and it is widely used in the DIY community as a budget option so with the
power of satan and a plate to go over it we started to write I
said no soldering for this video so we
just really wanted to make that Satan joke so maybe we'll do a follow up later
with the Dark Prince G h-60 anyway after some more digging for a plug-and-play
option we found this on a store called kbd fans the geek customized GK 64 from
semi tech this PCB is pre-built with hot
swap terminals so not only will we not need to solder anything ourselves we can
much more easily pull our key switches if you want to adjust the springs or
replace them altogether and it gets bonus points for using a detachable USB
type-c connection and having multiple RGB modes including check this out you
guys this lit AF sound activated mode
courtesy of a little microphone built into the keyboard
before you ask that microphone can't be
used for sound input and for good reason I mean imagine your clanmates if you put
your headset microphone right next to
your cheerio next blues right anyway so while we were talking to way over at KBT
fans we also requested his stylish Tina
chassis a full set of key caps and
stabilizers and another plate to fit our
GK 64 which finally completes then our
component checklist oh and we also got these which I caught
Anthony working on and he assured me was
productive but I will let you guys be the judge all this left now is to put it
together and see how well it works um okay so let's assemble this thing
so we start with what screwing down the PCB yes that was relatively
straightforward so spacebar
where's the hole I can't do this so that
seems to go on that way mm-hmm what'd they do that on the doodad cool
this is fun
all good in hood but it doesn't even sit like evenly like it's bowed up in the
middle so you're sure it wouldn't be faster to clip these into here and then
put the whole thing down hmm yeah it's probably better to do that okay wait but
there's to know there's some wiggle room yeah exactly
yeah yeah here can let's grab let's grab
the stiffer one for the spacebar yeah like a much stiffer one okay 100 meter
grams cool oh okay cool yeah let's try it
oh wow it's like it's like yeah it feels
like it's pushing you away from the table okay progress let's do a quick
light up test hey not bad
huh alright so now we can put all the
key caps on all these aren't labeled are they
well backspace isn't working oh is it working
how concerned out of ten should be
beyond that about that here we go and that is one vent a spin
right there vent right over yeah I would recommend
buying some extras if you're gonna undertake a project like this so
everything is tested all in all I'd say that 60%
it's gonna take some getting used to you got a super short shift over here your
delete key is way down here you don't have function keys obviously
but overall pretty pleased with the with
the end product here it's compact its programmable it's super portable we
don't have the ability to RGB sync it with you know ASUS IRA or Razer synapse
or anything but we could change out its
case anytime we wanted we can make adjustments to the force of the
individual keys I mean it's fantastic so
you might be sitting there thinking gee that sounds great like this does that
mean I should do it too well that really
depends on how much you value your time and how much you value your money not
only did this involve about an hour's worth of work not counting all the
researcher finding all the parts and ordering them our bulk together approach
means that our total topped
350 US dollars before shipping or taxes
I mean many people already bulk at the
idea of a hundred dollar keyboard so this is clearly a deep rabbit hole for
the amateur the more adventurous among us could salvage from old keyboards or
even build or 3d print their own cases but there will always be caveats no
matter who you are you won't get a warranty by going totally custom so if
you care about that so in the end then while this may not be
hands-down the best mechanical keyboard
ever certainly not for the price nor was
it quite as down and dirty DIY as it
could have been its uniquely ours and for some people that's gonna be worth it
so let us know would you build your own keyboard in the comments below and let
us know if you'd like to see more DIY keyboard stuff in the future maybe
next time I'll even let Anthony at the soldering iron blue apron is perfect for
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