Oh ok. I forgot about box gate, is that still a thing? I bought these about 2 years after Kailh announced they were going to fix their stems. But there's always a chance I got new old stock...

My objective was not the width but the overall height. I was thinking of having 1 box navy switch on my board for Caps Lock, but as you can in the pic, there is a slight height mismatch with the box navy being slightly higher than the Boba LT. So a cruciformer might fix any concerns of boxgate, but probably won't affect the height?

Oh and back to boxgate, I just checked with my cheapo digital calipers and they seem similar to my Boba stems. Unfortunately it's only precise to 0.0mm and I probably need to use something 0.00mm precise to be sure.


Edit: ah ok, I can sand it down to he height I like. Then if I'm worried that it has caused the top edge to mushroom, then I can use a cruciformer. Got it. Now to get my hands on one....

This post has been edited by niakulah: Aug 20 2022, 09:25 AM

Yes. The height is to be fixed with sanding. Sanding sometimes can make edges bigger, which some people call mushrooming. I want to sand down to a certain height, but at the same time, I don't want to crack stems because I created a mushroom edge by sanding down the height.

Sanding the box navy stem went ok. I got 1 side to be same level as a Boba LT. The difference should be barely noticeable on the board. No mushrooming as far as I could tell, just a slight burr that I cut off with a scalpel. Used a 1200 grit wet dry sandpaper with some water.


Front. Same level.


Back. Box navy slightly higher.


I also accidentally discovered an encoder hack in the Keyboard Atelier discord.


Beside the encoder is the detent ring. It has the gears that gives the encoder its errrrr.. detents. You just peel back the 4 tabs holding down the green plastic to the encoder body, peel off the green plastic (2 layers). Then you can remove the detent ring. There was also a green "cap" that keeps the detent ring in place and covers the bottom of the shaft. I put that back in before reassembling.

The experience is like going from a medium heavy tactile to a super light linear. It might be annoying to use with a cheap and light aluminium knob. But it should be a reversible mod so I'll give it a try first.

When you say poor contact, you mean loose right?

2 things you can test:

1. Remove the switch, get a multimeter. Check the resistance between the 2 pins. It should drop to zero when the switch is pressed. If it does, then the switch is electrically and mechanically fine.

2. With the switch removed, connect the keyboard to a computer. Short the 2 sockets together with something conductive (wire, paper clip, etc). This simulates a keypress from a working switch. If the key registers, then the socket/PCB is fine.

If both are fine, then the connection between the pins and the socket might be loose. Removing the switch and reinserting it might be all you need to do.

I'm bored. Here's a WIP photo.



PCB. Main 1.5mm plate. Top 2 layers. Still need to do 2nd 3mm plate (acrylic is not strong enough to stand on its own. PE foam. Bottom 2 layers.

There's also KAM and SA R3.

Or you can go for blanks, or GMK Dots or any other meaningless symbols.

Or go for the meme classic

Well, then, as you said, you need a specific kit like this or a uniform profile like KAM/SA R3/XDA/DSA.

Finally finished fabricating my new case




Hopefully can assemble and solder this weekend.

KAM Ghost (uniform profile) and KAT Napoleonic (has Colemak kit) GBs are both shipping. Maybe try to cop some extras?

Edit: If you're willing to use a Chinese shipping proxy, KAM Ghost extras are already live on ZFrontier's China only site:
https://www.zfrontier.com/app/mch/Z1nmL9Qy4rKB?from=ec_home

This post has been edited by niakulah: Sep 15 2022, 01:19 PM