Finally, after waiting months and gathering a variety of parts, my KBD75 finally arrived.
In theory, it should have been built already.
But it’s not.
As it turns out, things aren’t working out the way I wanted them to, and there are issues that can only be maybe solved by throwing more money at it.
Two new caps today: my HydralESC (formerly the Zergling) from Clackeys, and my constantly out of stock D.Va aluminum keycap from HolyOOPS ordered from Geekkeys that also took forver to get here (thanks, customs).
The HyrdralESC is another intricate 3D sculpted and 3D printed keycap (mine is in the “bronze” finish), and really impresses me with the amount of detail on it. The D.Va cap is milled aluminum, and has that satisfying cold feel and weight that you would expect from something aluminum. It’s anodized, with a polished top and laser-etched front logo.
Not quite sure yet where the HydralESC is going to live, but I think for now, the D.Va cap will be on my CNC switch keychain (which lives on top of my desk as a psuedo-fidget toy).
Welp. My Holtites came in from Mehkee. I originally ordered these with the intention of using them for my KBD75. As it turns out, according to people with the prototypes ordered directly from Taobao, the through-holes are too large to use Holtites on.
I guess I’ll have to find a new project to use these on. Maybe desolder my Keycool 84? Or maybe I should build up one of Sentraq’s 60% RGB PCBs. Find a B.mini x2 clone? Who knows? I don’t want to let these things go to waste though.
Also: they are tiny! I don’t know what I was expecting, really.
Finally, my first Fugu keycap. I’ve been trying to get one of these for ages from a raffle (as their prices on r/mechmarket are kind of crazy), and my blind-bag Prismatic Fugu in “eggplant wizard” arrived today.
Time to do a purple build.
Just finished this “build” for a friend in art school that needed a fairly compact keyboard that still had a nav cluster. She was already borrowing my Keycool 84, which was how she found out she liked the 75% form factor, but that board has Kalih Brown switches, which are kind of crap. She was having the same issues that many people with Kalih switches have, that being an inconsistent feel from switch to switch, and double activations (i.e. some keys would behave as if they were pressed multiple times on a single press).
So, not wanting her to deal with that garbage, I took one of my spare 75% boards, and redid it for her.
The majority of my pictures are taken in my downstairs bathroom. It has the best light.
Now you can stop asking me.
I’ll get a lightbox eventually. Like when I stop taking pictures of everything with just my phone.
In preparation for my KBD75 to arrive any day noooowww, I’ve bought some stuff.
The main one is a new soldering iron, because I tried to be cheap, and bought an Aoyue 937+ in hopes that I wouldn’t have to plunk down for a Hakko, and I was wrong. That thing lasted about a month before it just stopped working.
Still being a cheapass, I decided to try another soldering iron (and at this point, I could have just bought a Hakko), and picked up the SainSmart Pro 32, which is a rebrand of the TS100 digital soldering iron, but comes with a power supply so I don’t have to source one on top of the initial purchase. This is also the same soldering iron as the SEEED mini soldering iron found on Massdrop, just you know… without having to wait forever for it to actually ship.
Shoutout to Labi Siffre.
Here’s an interesting one: this is KEYCAP KID‘s first foray into “artisan” keycaps. There has been some discussion as to what defines an artisan keycap, as his “Inner Key” was actually digitally sculpted, and 3D-printed. After printing, it is hand painted to it’s selected colorway. For his first cap for sale (with very limited numbers of 10 per colorway for now), he knocked it out of the park, in my opinion.
Not only is it incredibly high quality (it was printed using photopolymer resin, so no “lines” or any of the other pitfalls of traditional 3D-printing), but it’s an incredibly interesting and detailed design. I am looking forward to what he comes out with in the future if this is just a sample of what he can do.
While yet again I was unable to win a chance to buy a Suited Up Keycap Snapper keycap, I at least got my consolation today in the form of the Suited Up Keycap magnet pack. This is going to live on my mini-fridge next to my bicycles to remind me of how I never win anything.
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