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AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

KingKapalone posted:

What if I'm over 6'4”?

No matter your height you should just get an adjustable height desk. One with an electric motor and memory. Your ideal desk height will change during the day. If you're over 6'4" you'll need to make sure it goes high enough if you care about standing. Most decent places to work in the US will have labor laws that require your employer to accommodate you as well.

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AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

spasticColon posted:

Like I said I'm some kind of mutant or sperg and I made many more typing mistakes on Brown switches than even on my old rubber dome keyboards. Now that I think about it, "mushy" or "clunky" are better words to describe Browns for me anyway. They seemed to have a longer actuation travel distance too. Blue switches were better for me but kinda noisy and kinda "crunchy". Linear red switches to me though are like typing on a cloud. So light and soft. And they feel so much faster and more responsive while gaming.

Edit: Is there no one else on here that likes linear switches for typing and gaming?

I currently use Gateron Reds with VPF 1514 lube across all my keyboards. Great for typing and gaming. Browns feel very odd to me.

I like Gateron Clears as well, which are even lighter than reds (not to be confused with Cherry clears which are heaver and tactile), but they're too light to play games with. I'm currently working on building a dedicated gaming macropad so if it works out I may switch my typing keyboards over to the clears.

I actually like the feel of tactile switches too, but I don't use them for ergonomic reasons. Speed coppers and Zealio V2 62g feel great, for gaming and typing, respectively, but they fatigue my fingers too quickly.

AbsoluteLlama fucked around with this message at 00:20 on May 6, 2019

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

spasticColon posted:

Exactly how I feel. You understand. :spergin::hf::spergin:

I'm thinking about converting my 42-key redragon diti keypad that has outemu Blues to linear switches of some kind that are good for gaming. Any suggestions? If redragon were to just make the diti keypad with red switches for ~$35 I would just buy that.

Some comments on Amazon suggest it's hotswappable. AFAIK there are problem with Outemu hotswap sockets fitting other switches without modifying the pins though, so you'd probably want to find some Outemu reds. The marketing material on the Redragon site shows through hole LEDs, so that'd be weird to be hotswappable in that case. Of course that presents another problem of it taking twice as long to desolder/solder.

I don't really know anything about off-the-shelf macropads tbh, as I prefer to use QMK instead of whatever chinese crap software a keyboard comes with.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

LochNessMonster posted:

I've decided to finally start building an ergodox keyboard myself. Noticed the Zilents are discounted so I figured I'd start with ordering those. I was wondering if I need stabilizers for it and if lubing the switches is a good idea.

Have you considered any other split keyboards? The ergodox is a bit dated now and it's also really only for large hands (thumb cluster is far away from rest of keyboard).

Anything 2U and up will be a lot nicer with stabilizers. I had an ergodox ez and the non-stabilized thumb buttons were very wobbly.

mewse posted:

The OP is woefully outdated but outemu blues suck. GMMK has hot swap sockets so you can pick whatever switches you want

Be aware that the GMMK has no pcb mount holes, so you will need to clip some switches to get them to fit.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!
104-key keyboards do not seem popular with keyboard nerds at all. Everybody seems to go smaller and smaller. The only thing I can really think of is a GMMK.

Depending on how 'custom' you want the RGBs to go though, it'd have to be QMK. I don't actually know of a full size keyboard with RGB LEDs running QMK.

A 104 key RGB matrix seems like a nightmare to design. I'm not even sure how the GMMK pulls enough power over USB2.0. They must be severely limiting the brightness of the LEDs or something. A full 104 key RGB matrix would pull at least over 5 amps at full brightness which would melt USB2.0.

late edit: Did some more maths and looking at datasheets and it's actually more reasonable if you choose dimmer LEDs. I was budgeting around 50ma per LED which is very much on the high end.

AbsoluteLlama fucked around with this message at 17:39 on May 29, 2019

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!
Did you open up the switches and look inside? The switch is quite simple so pretty much the only thing going wrong could be dirty contacts on the inside. If there is nothing obviously wrong with the switch then it's going to be easiest to replace them. One downside is that switches do break in so the new ones may feel a little different for a couple of months if you're particularly sensitive.

Additionally, make sure the problem isn't with the PCB itself. If the solder joint looks bad it may just need to be resoldered. It's pretty hard to gently caress up but who knows how cheap the board is. You should close the circuit on the bad keys (with tweezers or something) and see if it registers properly as a keypress.

For a replacement keyboard: Don't be afraid of non-cherry switches. Cherry has lost their lead in the last few years and companies like Gateron and Kailh actually have better offerings depending on what you prefer.

AbsoluteLlama fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Jul 11, 2019

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

surf rock posted:

I was able to type on it accurately after ~5 minutes, but it feels like my fingers are doing 5x as much work as they do on the Thinkpad. Have other people experienced this and adapted to it?

Keep in mind that mechanical switches trigger before you have completely pressed the key down. It's at a different height depending on the switch, but ideally you can learn to type without bottoming out the key. This will reduce the noise and strain on your fingers.

The key weight and tactileness also make a difference. I use Gateron Clear switches for my typing keyboard (35g, not to be confused with Cherry Clears), which are too light to play games (just the weight of my finger resting on keyboard for WASD will actuate the key), but are a dream to type on as I barely have to move my fingers. My macbook pro requires more force to type on.

There are MX switches designed with shorter actuation distances (Kailh Speeds, for example), if you are looking to reduce travel.

You could also take a look at Kailh Choc switches. I haven't built a full keyboard with them yet, but they feel great imo and have a more laptop feel to them while still feeling good like mechanical switches.

Not mine, just an example from google image search:

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

bolind posted:

What the gently caress is it with this hobby? First I just wanted a decent, simple TKL keyboard. Then my coworkers bitched about the noise. Then I installed some o-rings and now some UNIQEY QMX clips. Then my awesome remote coworker stopped by and showed my his Happy Hacker keyboard with Topres and now I'm basically ready to drop 200 quid on this thing.

Topre is typing heaven in both feel and sound. I would pay any amount for individual Topre keyswitches. I already use custom PCBs so even non-MX footprint would be fine. As a split keyboard user I longingly eye the Realforce keyboards and wish I could use them.

Also yes, you have a chance to go insane and start designing keyboards. I'm half finished with a custom split ARM board with Fm+ i2c for faster matrix scanning. Reading datasheets has become a hobby.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

wolrah posted:

For reasons I don't understand, the custom keycap community seems to have a grudge against the gamer keyboards. It is more likely that a set of keycaps is offered with an addon pack to fit an Ergodox than for some of the most common mechanical keyboards on the market.

How are gaming keyboard caps any different than a regular keyboard? The Ergodox is probably one of the most popular splits, and lots of the keys can be used for other odd keyboards so it sort of makes sense.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

pointsofdata posted:

I'm thinking of getting an ergodox ez (I had a Microsoft Sculpt keyboard so am confident that the tenting and split parts will work for me). I'm a bit concerned about how much noise cherry silent reds will make in it though as I'll be working in a co-working space - they sound quite loud on YouTube but it's hard to tell. How do they compare to a laptop keyboard?

Noise is highly dependent on typing technique. Even with a quiet technique mechanical switches will probably always be louder than a laptop keyboard.

That said, cherry silent reds are pretty quiet and don't feel all that bad either. I would probably feel like I wasn't being an rear end in a top hat for using them in a shared workspace. You can talk with your colleagues and see if they are bothered.

Also, be aware that the ergodox is really huge, especially the thumb cluster. It's really only ideal if you have large hands. I used to use a Microsoft Sculpt (which was fine) and I couldn't use an ergodox for more than an hour or so without serious thumb pain from stretching to reach the cluster.

The ez is also a bit overpriced for the build quality imo. It's kinda plasticy and cheap, but it's fine if you can't/don't want to build your own (it is a niche product after all). The hollow plasticyness can affect the sound though. You may be able to put foam inside or something to dampen it a bit.

AbsoluteLlama fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Oct 6, 2019

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

pointsofdata posted:

Thanks, especially for the size stuff - I've been doing some research and am building a parts list for a Iris build now ...

The Iris is a really great first QMK ortho split. I very much recommend it over an ergodox especially since it's probably half the price.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

Deviant posted:

Can someone recommend me a keyboard that is:

- Availble in MX red or MX black (or similar)
- TKL design
- Easy to clean
- Stylish case
- RGB lighting not required, and probably not necessary
- Removable cable. I wouldn't want to use MX Blacks for regular typing, so i'd like to be able to swap.

Check out the GMMK boards. Despite the gamer bullshit there is no obnoxious logo on front. It's low profile, and available in a variety of configurations. Probably the cheapest board I'd recommend. I suggest getting it without keycaps and buying a set of cheap PBT caps on amazon or aliexpress. You could also save a few bucks buying it without switches and adding your own.

Note that the board doesn't support PCB mount switches so you will likely need to clip switches if you buy your own. Also, don't worry about Cherry vs Gateron or Kailh. Unless you are a switch nerd you won't notice a difference, and in some cases Gateron or Kailh are better than Cherry.

AbsoluteLlama fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Oct 15, 2019

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

SoftNum posted:

https://novelkeys.xyz/products/gateron-switches?variant=19441344839773

Basically the same as cherry (even the colors translate) with less pants-pulling-down. 90 switches is $20

Gateron Clears are not the same as Cherry Clears. That said if you order them you'll accidentally get the best switches out there. This is a very biased opinion.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

Phosphine posted:

Anyone got experience/recs re: split keyboards? I think they're cool and am definitely buying into the "better arm position" hype. Not into soldering, currently eyeing Gergo.

I haven't used one but the Gergo is pretty good as far as I can tell. I'm opinionated but here's my thoughts:

Good:
  • The thumb cluster is better than the Ergodox if you don't suffer from gigantism.
  • The creator is very active on keyboard discords and seems eager to talk about all things gergo and keyboard.
  • It's very low profile. Low profile is best profile.
  • Has room for poo poo like screens if you are into that sort of thing.

Bad:
  • Uses Mini-USB. Mini-USB has been deprecated since 2007 and I personally loathe it. Both Mini & Micro-USB suffer from strength issues and will eventually tear off after repeated plugging/unplugging. It will break even faster with any sort of angular tension. USB-C would be nice.
  • Is so low profile it doesn't have base plate. This might matter if you travel with the keyboard or use it in a place where poo poo may snag on the leads and chips on the bottom.

Ugly:
  • Uses an IO-expander on the left half. The right half is attached to computer with USB. This is nice in some ways as it means you only have to worry about flashing one side. Personally, I prefer the USB connection on the left half but this may not matter to you.
  • IO-expander means custom QMK split matrix scanning code. Will not automatically get all improvements from QMK core. So far the keyboard has been fairly regularly maintained (see https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/commits?author=germ for keyboard creator's commit history).
  • In theory, the io-expander could be slower at matrix scanning than another dedicated microcontroller. It could also be faster. No way to know without testing. I'm currently working on a test rig for split keeb testing so I'll probably have more info on this sort of thing in the future.

Note that if you get addicted to split keyboards you have a good chance of getting into soldering anyway, and you can build a gergo + buy a decent soldering setup for about the same price as a prebuilt.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

v1ld posted:

The Corne is an excellent split ortho if you are ok with a 3x6 layout. The thumb cluster in particular is well laid out.

Corne/crkbd is nice too. If you want a number row the Iris is pretty good as well. You can often find people selling built keyboards on /r/mechmarket.

AbsoluteLlama fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Oct 25, 2019

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

LionArcher posted:

As a sculpt user who wants some ergo and mechanical with low travel, I’m currently thinking of waiting on a group buy of an Alice clone, and getting testers of both mX and other switch types to see what has low travel so I can have the best of both worlds. The Alice looks closer to the sculpt to me than the ergo. Does that sound about right?

I've never used the Alice so I don't know. It'll be hard to find curved keyboard like the sculpt that takes switches, except maybe building a dactyl variant, although those are more like maltrons/kinesis.

If you want lower travel take a look at Kailh speeds. They have both lower travel and actuation distance. Something like a Kailh Choc may be closer to a sculpt, but you will more or less have to build a custom board since the switch footprint is different.

Switch testers are okay but it's very difficult to really judge a switch without actually using it on a keyboard. Most cheap hotswaps are either Outemu only, and/or don't work with pcb mount switches. If the board isn't PCB mount compatible, it means you have to clip the legs off your switches with a flush cutter before they will fit.

If you can find a UT47.2 somewhere for $40-50 it has Kailh hotswaps (should be compatible with all/most MX switches) and PCB mount holes, and it will run QMK. It's a really nice tiny keyboard that you can just throw in a small backpack.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

LionArcher posted:

Thanks for this!

To clarify: You only have to cut the legs off of PCB mount switches. Sometimes those are the only ones available.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

Phosphine posted:

Dumb poo poo achieved!


Nice caps. The Iris is such a great keyboard.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

Taima posted:

I’ve just been staring at this for like two minutes

Caps lock is still useful if you use a weird mod-tap home row modifier layout:



One of the downsides is that typing alternating caps characters is very slow. I actually use a caps lock bound to my auxiliary shift layer about once a week.

That said, I lived without caps for years. Setting caps to backspace or ctrl is way more sensible.

AbsoluteLlama fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Dec 14, 2019

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

Peanut Butler posted:

it seems like a lot of ppl prefer the silent switches (I prolly would if I were in an office setting tbh) but does anyone else love loud ones for brain problem reasons? I got real bad ADHD and something about hearing the lil "tak" when I strike a key makes me certain that it happened in a way that quiet keyboards don't (even tho I have tactile and visual feedback as well)

You can use software clicks too. QMK has a mic output soft click mode so if you wanted to use quiet switches with headphones or something to not annoy other people that'd possibly work as well.

https://beta.docs.qmk.fm/features/feature_audio#audio-click

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

FAT32 SHAMER posted:

I’m looking at getting an ErgoDox or similar keyboard, but I’m not sure if I like them compared to something like the Iris or Redox. Only thing I’m hesitant about getting one of the derivatives is my soldering isn’t great, but at least the Iris appears to just need soldering of the switches

Anyone have any experience with these ergonomic keyboards? I’m tempted to just yolo 350$ for the EZ since building it myself with my preferred Zelios purple 78g and the Falbatech bamboo would only save me about 75$ with shipping from Europe

I've had both. IMO the Iris is way better if you have normal sized hands. The ErgoDox seems to be made for giant hands. It was extremely painful to use because I had to stretch my thumbs way out to hit the thumb cluster. You may want to print out the layouts and see how your hands sit. Additionally, the ErgoDox sounds very hollow and cheap, which is not what you expect from a $350 keyboard. Personally, I also don't like the design of the io expander or that it's in the left half instead of the right. But I'm kind of particular about that stuff enough to be designing my own split. All that being said: If you have above average sized hands the ErgoDox certainly works, probably won't fall apart, and is one of the few ergo splits you can buy instead of build.

I haven't tried the latest iris rev but assuming it's as good as previous revisions you will end up with a much nicer keyboard, especially if you lube & mod the stabilizers.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

Splinter posted:

How does adding O-rings to switches compare to MX silent switches?

Volume:
MX Silents are much quieter than an O-ring. You also get dampening on the upward stroke as well since it has little 'rubbery' stops on the top side:




Video of MX Reds (top to bottom) Regular, O-Ring, Silent. First round is gentle typing with bottoming out, and then really hammering the keys the second time around:
https://streamable.com/ff1qhd

Note the meter is just there to make up for lovely vertical video. It's not the best measure. The Silents also 'feel' a lot quieter in person because of the lack of an upstroke thwack.

Feel:

This is more personal. I like the regular Red best of course, but the Silent feels much better than an O-ring. The O-ring drastically reduces the key travel (sorry no picture) and when you do bottom out feels a bit weird.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

FAT32 SHAMER posted:

Are there any keycap kits for the modifiers that have legends on them? I don’t want to have a key map hanging over my desk for the next 8 years

Maybe search around aliexpress? Signature Plastics also has a lot of specialty kits.

You may want to at least try blank keycaps at some point though. It's way easier to find, and a lot cheaper. For more advanced layered layouts you aren't going to find keycaps with the correct layered legends anyway, and the letter keys should be the easiest to memorize.

Obviously the learning time varies per person but a completely new layout only takes me maybe a month to learn without needing to reference a keymap, even with about 4 layers or so. You just sort of get used to it.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

Peanut Butler posted:

I've never tried this but I'll bet it's easier than what I did as a young adult: changing all the keycaps on my Model M to read "HANS BLIX hosed MY WORGZ"

It was fine for touch-typing but rly confusing for video games like Civilization or Dwarf Fortress where I'd glance down to hit a certain key and almost always hit the wrong one

Just wait for the keyboard bug to bite and you'll have a dedicated macropad with profiles for each game!

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!
Colemak talk:

Yes it's good. Probably the most widely supported alternative layout other than Dvorak. I've used it since about 2008 or so. I don't find it hard to go back and forth to QWERTY either other than the jarring additional amount of finger effort inherent to the layout, but I was also a touch typist in QWERTY for a long time before Colemak.

AFAIK pretty much every OS except Windows has Colemak by default. Even iOS has Colemak, although I still use QWERTY there as it's actually better for finger-tapping.

You may want to evaluate Angle Mod and Mod-DH (https://colemakmods.github.io/mod-dh/). Angle Mod will help if you later transition to a columnar keyboard, as it more properly aligns the bottom left row. Mod-DH may be worth learning, but it's only a minor improvement. I actually don't use it myself, but mostly because I'm transitioning to another layout anyway.

Also check out the punctuation and numpad layers for BEAKL15 (https://web.archive.org/web/20190909214019/http://www.shenafu.com:80/code/keyboard/beakl/index.php). I do a lot of accounting entries and the BEAKL15 numpad is an absolute lifesaver. It takes a few weeks to get used to but you will never go back to a traditional numpad.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

Artelier posted:

So I'm trying to get into Colemak and I downloaded Colemak Mod DH for Windows

But is there a way to set up my switchable keyboards to be between QWERTY and Colemak? If I press Win + Space, I get to switch languages, not keyboards:



I would like the option to be QWERTY or Colemak, instead of US or UK. Tried Googling but I might be using the wrong terms to find the option, and digging on my own isn't going great so far.

EDIT: I posted after I restarted and took the picture above, thinking I was out of the ordinary fix options. I was updating my graphics drivers, restarted and...suddenly Colemak appears as intended. Whee!

I'm pretty sure you can have multiple layouts per language. That said, I've only ever had US region on my windows installs so maybe it's buggy with multiple regions.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

FAT32 SHAMER posted:

I'm kinda miffed that the ergodox ez came with non-homerow f/j caps but failed to include t/n homerow caps

anyone know of a two-keycap set that has homerow nubs for t/n? i was thinking about starting colemak now while my typing speed is halved

ABS caps? Probably WASD printed singles. Don't know what the keycap profile on the EZ is though. Pimpmykeyboard has homing and EZ sets for some of their caps. Otherwise check massdrop, group buys, or maybe even aliexpress?

Custom keycaps are both a pain and a big hit to the wallet. You may just want to learn to touch type and save yourself a lot of money (nothing cheaper/easier than blank keycaps).

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

FAT32 SHAMER posted:

I thought type but heavily rely on the homing nubs on f/j

Unless I don’t actually know what touch typing is lol

Touch typing means typing by feel instead of looking at the board, so in that case you can just leave the homing caps in the right spot since you don't need the legends to be correct anyway.

There's pretty much no downside to this other than greatly confusing other people that try to use your keyboard.

DirtyRobot posted:

Crossposting from the Mac software thread:

You can do a lot of stuff (including indicator light manipulation... sometimes... depending on the keyboard) from the OS, but there will always be quirks and usually additional software to run. Fun edge cases like your keyboard not behaving the same on secure desktop or the login screen.

It'd be much easier to just get a board with QMK and write your own routines. Then it will 'just work' on any computer. It's really not that hard even if you don't know programming. There are ton's of examples in the qmk users directory for inspiration.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

64bit_Dophins posted:

What's the best MX Cherry keyboard to get for $100.

Is the Das Keyboard any good?

I'm looking for Cherry Brown switches.

Das is a ripoff for what you get.

A nice entry level is a GMMK Compact. You can grab some Gateron Browns for ~15USD instead of overpaying for switches pre-installed and it'll be around $100 total.

The board is hot-swap so no need to solder, but you may need flush cutters to snip the switches before installing because it does not have pcb mount holes. It has cherry-style stabilizers so you can lube/band-aid mod them.

AbsoluteLlama fucked around with this message at 22:56 on May 15, 2020

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

DirtyRobot posted:

Thanks everyone.

This is literally my first mechanical so we’ll see just how bad I care about the indicator lights specifically to go all in with QMK too.

I’m tempted to get a wasd *now* with the custom key caps I want, and then slowly over time pick away at my dream keyboard from scratch. Otherwise, I feel like I won’t have anything for months and months. :(

Nothing wrong with starting simple. I've gone through 3 or 4 WASD/CODEs over the years and they're... fine. Maybe a bit overpriced but if you don't care then you don't care.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!
Pretty much all keyboards that are heavy have weights in/on them. Even expensive boards.

You cannot judge the 'quality' based on weight.

Here's the weights in a GMMK Compact:

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

shovelbum posted:

No I mean that adding random weights is in fact functional bc a keyboard is one of the few things made better by being heavy

Yeah it's useful, but just not an indicator of quality once you get beyond cheap $15 boards where even weights are too expensive.

That said, it's somewhat of a personal taste. Personally I've never cared if a keyboard was heavy or not and the switches have a larger impact. Nothing compares to the blissful thock of a Topre, and I'm an insane person that uses 35g linears on a split with a total weight of both halves under 300g. I'd go under 35g if the springs had enough force to actually reset the switch properly.

Light splits are waaaayyy easier to travel with too. I used to carry around a tenkeyless and it was still a pain.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

GnarlyCharlie4u posted:

*Wood grain vinyl GMMK*

This is truly Glorious PC Gaming Race™

Unironically though, it's so ugly it's beautiful. I love it!

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

Khorne posted:

What experiences do people here have with making stabilizers quieter?

I have an older leopold tkl where the spacebar stab is squeaking really loud. I also have a keycool84 75% where the stab is the loudest part of it because I have orings + replaced the mx browns with gateron silent browns. Which is amazing by the way, silent switches are really quiet and the gsbs are wonderful.

My concern with lube or whatever is I am not desoldering all 84+ keys, and I want something that will take minimal maintenance. I might be willing to desolder the leopold switches and replace them with something else as they're old mx reds and actuation force is ~3/4 normal on a lot of the keys.

What kind of stabs? Cherry I'm guessing? You should be able to get some grease into the moving bits with just the keycap pulled off. It may take awhile for it to work itself in. Not that high maintenance but you'd have to be careful not to make a terrible mess.

Desoldering is probably the way to go though if you really want it to be the best. Topclack has a good stab guide: https://topclack.com/textclack/2018/4/29/the-stab-lab-a-stabilizer-modification-guide-by-quakemz. You really want to overdo the lube on the stabs. I use teflon grease on the plastic bits, then dunk the wires past the bend into a tube of dielectric grease multiple times.

You may want to test these sorts of mods on another board first though as it will change the feel and it's a matter of taste. I love modded stabs, but my wife absolutely hates them and swears by squeaky costar stabs. YMMV.

EDIT: Just saw plate mount. In that case they are either costar or cherry plates? You shouldn't need to desolder anything if costar, or just one switch if cherry. The first thing I usually do is just buy new ones and replace them. Plate mounts loosen up over time and start rattling. You can try using plumbers tape or something on the edges to tighten them up again as well.

AbsoluteLlama fucked around with this message at 00:07 on May 19, 2020

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!
Downsides to EZ:

You probably need large hands to be comfortable. My thumbs hurt so much after using an EZ and I had to give up after a week. I found other splits with closer thumb clusters were fine, and eventually just designed my own with even closer thumb keys.

It feels very cheap and plasticy. If you are expecting something that feels similar to other non-ergo keebs in that price range you will be disappointed.

Upsides:

I sold mine on mechmarket for not much loss pretty quickly.

That said, some people love the EZ and it does have a lot of keys if that's your thing.

I usually tell people to build an Iris, or try picking one up on mechmarket, if they can deal with the extra procurement complexity. It's usually going to run half the price of an EZ, and it's a much more neutral layout but it still has a number row to allow you to transition away from it. If you get Rev 4 PCBs all you need to do is solder switches, which you can do with a cheap iron without loving anything up, and you'll need anyway if you succumb to the endless addiction that is keyboards.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

SoftNum posted:

I too have smaller hands, is there a site for suggested layouts? Or a kind of howto on what I would need? I understand most of it but a guide would be nice. I bought my alt to be a portable keyboard for client sites but have since moved it to my daily driver but I find the layout a but small for coding use.

Not really. Xahlee (http://xahlee.info/kbd/diy_keyboards_index.html) has a good number of keyboards listed.

For smaller hands you may want to check out an ergotravel or corne/helidox. A corne/helidox is probably easier to buy but they're both easy to build.

EDIT: I've never used them myself but also check out the Gergo or GergoPlex boards. The designer is active on keeb Discords and the designs are very solid (and minimalist). I'd probably be using a Gergo board if I didn't already design my own.

AbsoluteLlama fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Jun 19, 2020

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

Magnetic North posted:

Two questions:

1: How do you suggest someone get an idea of what switches they might like in the world of Covid where we can't just touch keyboards in a store?
2: Is there a resource where you can go "I want a keyboard with X features, Y features, etc?" outside of asking here or Reddit? I see the mechanical keyboards vendor linked above, but they don't include things like "has a Num/scroll lock indicator light" in their search as far as I can tell.

Get a hot-swap keyboard. I use a 47-key board for my tester, so it only costs maybe $12-20 to try a set of switches. If you don't care about clipping PCB legs off of switches a GMMK compact is readily available, but you'd need to buy 8 packs of switches instead of 5 to fill it out.

A switch tester isn't all that useful, as there is a huge difference between pressing one key and typing on a full set, but it can be useful to narrow down what switches to try if you have no idea whatsoever.

Looks like you missed the recent group-buy for the UT47.2 boards. They're probably the cheapest pcb-compatible hot-swap boards (~45USD for the sandwich case). You may want to keep an eye on the group buy at keyhive as there are usually additional units available after the boards are fabricated.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

Malcolm XML posted:

The only good mini keyboard is the hhkb


Fight me

Replace the spacebar with 3-4 keys and I'll agree. A HHKB Topre with split space would be so amazing.

AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

This is almost perfect. Not sure why it has an ISO return key but not an extra 1-u next to shift for a shift-z layout.

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AbsoluteLlama
Aug 15, 2009

By the power vested in me by random musings in tmt... I proclaim you guilty of crustophilia!

Longbike posted:

I just got myself an Ergotron workfit for cheap for my WFH setup and have discovered that my old full size cherry keyboard simply cannot be made to fit comfortably on the keyboard tray. Looking to replace it with some flavor of tenkeyless mechanical.
Current keyboard has blues. I like the way they feel. My wife hates the way they sound. I hear browns still feel nice and are a bit quieter.

Considering the following boards:

https://www.amazon.com/Mechanical-Keyboard-GATERON-Magicforce-Qisan/dp/B01E57PUNA/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=Qisan&qid=1600791973&sr=8-4 - This looks fine, and the price is palatable but I've never used a 60% keyboard and am concerned that it will be too compact- I'll be doing lots of writing and some coding for work and I don't want to end up hating myself as I painfully rewire my typing neurons while learning a new job.

https://www.amazon.com/DURGOD-Mechanical-Keyboard-Switches-Interface/dp/B078H3WPHM?ref_=ast_sto_dp - This got recommended a little while ago so I assume its good and worth the money and I like the layout.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DFBKYT5?tag=pcpapi-20&linkCode=ogi&th=1 - I got recommended this as a decent cheap mechanical tenkeyless. Too cheap to be good? I have no idea.

Is the VELOCIFIRE worth a try at 1/3 the cost of the DURGOD (ugh, these names)? Are my concerns about switching to a 60% layout completely unfounded? Is there something else out there that would be better than any of these options?

Thanks for any and all help.

I used to use a Microsoft Sculpt on a Humanscale QuickStand, which looks like it may have a similar sized keyboard tray. Not much room for a mouse but it worked okay. The keyboard is actually surprisingly good, and that's coming from an insane person that builds their own split boards.

Honestly, though: The desktop stands really suck. For the same price or only a tiny bit more you can get a motorized standing desk (like a Fully). There's no way I'd use a QuickStand again. I stupidly used it because it's what work provided, but if I did it again I'd just file a labor claim and force them to get me a real standing desk.

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