Can You Build Your OWN Mechanical Keyboard??
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
1,707 words · ~8 min read
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there are literally thousands of imperfect choices for mechanical
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keyboards out there and you can customize them a little add some o-rings
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here change some key caps there Luke actually did a guy welcome to the
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ultimate mechanical keyboard guy but unless you have the know-how to actually
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build one yourself you're at the mercy of those that do or are you what if I
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told you it didn't have to be like that what if I told you that there are more
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options out there than you might have realized what if I told you that today's
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tools you need to tackle any electronics repair challenge visit ifixit.com
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forward slash line is at the link below and get yours today do you want to keep
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or use any switches that you like it
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could be all right so let's go over what we set
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out to accomplish here because when Anthony first came to me with this idea
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he had like these grand visions of programming microcontrollers and
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soldering diodes using 3d printed or
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laser-cut chassis and a bunch of other things that are really cool but
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this is our first rodeo so we decided to
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focus on getting one working first so
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with that in mind then we narrowed our search to parts that can bolt together
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relatively easily meaning though that we
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can expect to pay a premium looking at what's available there's a lot of ten
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keyless components out there but then even more options for the smaller and
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simpler 60% layout so we settled on that
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starting at mechanical keyboards comm for some essential supplies Cherry MX
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brown RGB key switches three choices of
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beautiful anodized aluminum cases to put
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everything into and then a selection of Springs that we can use to actually
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customize the feel of our switches so
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this way we could make the caps lock key or the function key more difficult to
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press accidentally and then we could even reduce the actuation force of keys
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like lwas or even the whole alphanumeric set to
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improve our speed while maintaining that satisfying tactile bump of the Cherry MX
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brown like the beauty here whoop is that
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the sky's the limit for
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customizability but while it's really
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fun to play around with a bag full of cherry MX is a chassis and a bag of key
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switches a keyboard does not make so we
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are going to need to wire them up now some folks do this manually but a PCB
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preferably one that is well documented is much easier not to mention a lot
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tinier now there are lots of options out
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there but for our project we turned to banggood where we found not only this
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nice wooden case actually this thing's really nice and wrist rest but also
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Satan no seriously we found the satan GH
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60 a fully programmable keyboard PCB that seems to check all the essential
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boxes it's got macro support and RGB
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variant and it is widely used in the DIY community as a budget option so with the
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power of satan and a plate to go over it we started to write I
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said no soldering for this video so we
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just really wanted to make that Satan joke so maybe we'll do a follow up later
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with the Dark Prince G h-60 anyway after some more digging for a plug-and-play
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option we found this on a store called kbd fans the geek customized GK 64 from
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semi tech this PCB is pre-built with hot
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swap terminals so not only will we not need to solder anything ourselves we can
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much more easily pull our key switches if you want to adjust the springs or
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replace them altogether and it gets bonus points for using a detachable USB
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type-c connection and having multiple RGB modes including check this out you
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guys this lit AF sound activated mode
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courtesy of a little microphone built into the keyboard
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before you ask that microphone can't be
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used for sound input and for good reason I mean imagine your clanmates if you put
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your headset microphone right next to
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your cheerio next blues right anyway so while we were talking to way over at KBT
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fans we also requested his stylish Tina
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chassis a full set of key caps and
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stabilizers and another plate to fit our
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GK 64 which finally completes then our
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component checklist oh and we also got these which I caught
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Anthony working on and he assured me was
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productive but I will let you guys be the judge all this left now is to put it
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together and see how well it works um okay so let's assemble this thing
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so we start with what screwing down the PCB yes that was relatively
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straightforward so spacebar
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where's the hole I can't do this so that
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seems to go on that way mm-hmm what'd they do that on the doodad cool
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this is fun
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all good in hood but it doesn't even sit like evenly like it's bowed up in the
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middle so you're sure it wouldn't be faster to clip these into here and then
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put the whole thing down hmm yeah it's probably better to do that okay wait but
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there's to know there's some wiggle room yeah exactly
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yeah yeah here can let's grab let's grab
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the stiffer one for the spacebar yeah like a much stiffer one okay 100 meter
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grams cool oh okay cool yeah let's try it
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oh wow it's like it's like yeah it feels
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like it's pushing you away from the table okay progress let's do a quick
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light up test hey not bad
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huh alright so now we can put all the
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key caps on all these aren't labeled are they
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well backspace isn't working oh is it working
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how concerned out of ten should be
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beyond that about that here we go and that is one vent a spin
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right there vent right over yeah I would recommend
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buying some extras if you're gonna undertake a project like this so
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everything is tested all in all I'd say that 60%
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it's gonna take some getting used to you got a super short shift over here your
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delete key is way down here you don't have function keys obviously
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but overall pretty pleased with the with
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the end product here it's compact its programmable it's super portable we
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don't have the ability to RGB sync it with you know ASUS IRA or Razer synapse
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or anything but we could change out its
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case anytime we wanted we can make adjustments to the force of the
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individual keys I mean it's fantastic so
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you might be sitting there thinking gee that sounds great like this does that
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mean I should do it too well that really
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depends on how much you value your time and how much you value your money not
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only did this involve about an hour's worth of work not counting all the
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researcher finding all the parts and ordering them our bulk together approach
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means that our total topped
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350 US dollars before shipping or taxes
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I mean many people already bulk at the
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idea of a hundred dollar keyboard so this is clearly a deep rabbit hole for
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the amateur the more adventurous among us could salvage from old keyboards or
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even build or 3d print their own cases but there will always be caveats no
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matter who you are you won't get a warranty by going totally custom so if
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you care about that so in the end then while this may not be
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hands-down the best mechanical keyboard
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ever certainly not for the price nor was
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it quite as down and dirty DIY as it
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could have been its uniquely ours and for some people that's gonna be worth it
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so let us know would you build your own keyboard in the comments below and let
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us know if you'd like to see more DIY keyboard stuff in the future maybe
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