In my experience, none.

Never bought keyboard stuff more than RM500 at one time from Taobao, but I have bought plenty of leather and leathercraft tools that came to more than RM500 from there and have never been taxed.

Yes I can see how it would not be an issue with partially opaque bottom housings like cherry RGB switches. I'll be using Aliaz though whose transparent bottom would allow even more light diffusion.

But I guess since cherry can manage with that kind of bottom, it should be fine.

Really itching to do some keyboard mods during MCO but I'm happy with my 2 boards. So what to do? Buy more of course!

Ordered another IKBC full size. Was very happy with it before. And it took me building a custom board and fiddling with the stabs to realise that IKBC stabs out of the box are already pretty awesome!

So while waiting for the board and mod parts to arrive, I painted my old top case.

Sanded with 360 grit sandpaper

2 coats of primer. Sanded with 2000 grit sandpaper.

2 coats of paint

2 coats of clear topcoat


Turned out OK but less than perfect. At least I gained some practice and experience. If I don't like it I can do my new case as well. Maybe in a different colour and have interchangeable tops.

Thanks. The board arrived. Waiting on springs, films and a new solder sucker.





Oh and waiting for Kat Atlantis to ship in October lol. So far failed to get any artisans at raffle . Well hope my spray job is a good match. If the blue doesn't match well I'll probably spray my extra case gray, like this render.

Would love to. Full size alu custom is a rare beast though...

Clean AF.

Mini review of this desoldering iron.
https://shopee.com.my/product/40205456/1568468273?smtt=0.0.9


It works! It really does. It doesn't really get hot enough to melt lead free solder, but there are ways around that:
1. Melt/reflow the solder joint with a normal soldering iron, add some leaded solder with flux to the joint.
2. Use the desoldering iron, it should be able to melt the joint now.
3. Suck!

Once I established my technique, I had about 12 switches left to do in the numpad, so 24 pins. All but 3 I cleaned out with a single suck. Just under 90% success rate. The other 3 I just added more solder and sucked it again.


My harvest this morning.


So happy with this very cheap tool!

This post has been edited by niakulah: May 1 2020, 02:31 PM

Guys, would this neoprene sheet be suitable to be put between PCB and plate?
https://s.lazada.com.my/s.b0KK4

I measured the gap to be about 3.5mm, if the product is OK, should I go for 3mm or 4mm version?

Yeah but they sell 3mm and 4mm. I haven't found any 3.5mm.

So is it better to go too loose or too tight?

Do you leave it loose sitting on the PCB or do you glue it to the plate?

Do you have a link?

Thanks 😊

Between PCB and plate. A bit troublesome though. Need to cut holes for all the switches and stabilizers.

Well I first heard about it last year when I saw the 7V, but I think it's been around longer than that.
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=100896.0

Vibration reduction. Supposed to sound better. I want to see if I like it.

Oh OK. That's one way to do it.

How would you describe the sound before and after?

I still like the sound of my XD84PRO (stainless steel plate/sandwich mount) better than my IKBC (powder coated steel plate/tray mount).

I'm hoping to make the IKBC to have that more solid bottom out sound.

Thanks for the advice. I may just get both sizes of neoprene. If it doesn't work I can stuff it in the case.

I have plenty of sharp knives but from the small size of the squares needed, I'm thinking that wood chisels might be a better choice.

Actually, I just remembered I had a small leather skiving knife that I don't really use a lot. It's almost the perfect size.


Trace the plate holes in pen, knife straight down, strike with a rubber mallet .

I also have a small leather plane whose blade is the exact size, but I think the resulting hole might be too tight a fit for the switches.

MCO got lots of time

In a way I'm also "compensating" for my first MKB. The IKBC I accidentally killed by modding. Too rush to want to finish everything in 1 weekend so I could bring it to work on that Monday.

Its death will not be in vain!

Nice one horns. I thought with dedicated arrow keys is 65%?

So I ended up ordering this:
https://shopee.com.my/product/178155106/290...4759?smtt=0.0.9

4mm EVA foam. Medium soft. Hopefully will be able to compress it enough. I tested an item of 3.6mm thickness and it can slide through the gap with a bit of difficulty. So I only need it to compress .3mm or so. Oh god, writing this I just realised that's almost 10%. We'll see. Maybe I can iron it or something.

So I had some 2mm EVA craft foam lying around and did some experiments.








I think this is very much do-able. Worst case I have to order the 3mm and wasted a bit of cash on the 4mm.