Dear Sifus,

I'm aiming for a full sized keyboard for cheap purely for office use (I draft tons of commercial letters and handle numbers too, hence numpad is a must).

My current full sized keyboard at home is a Razer Blackwidow 2010 (the one with the Cherry MX Blue) and I love it (even though it has started to show it's age)

I used to type on a leopold fc660m but the layout felt awkward and now it's sitting on the ps4.

Wondering which is a better buy in terms of reliability and extended typing comfort, my budget less than rm300 and blue switches please and thank you;

1. Keychron C2 (Non-hot-swappable version, Gateron Blue)
2. Royal Kludge RK918 (RK Blue, can't seem to get RK920)

I don't care about wireless, in built software support etc etc. no rgb even better, but beggars can't be choosers

if you wanted a new mechanical keyboard with soldered clicky switches within budget, i think you should just pick the one that you prefer, especially features, then go for it.

it requires user efforts to achieve 'extended typing comfort'. if you intended to do that, a hotswap board should be more convenient.

Understood on user effort, I'm not aiming for perfection as it's just for work (can't be too efficient or else sure kena more workload from boss), but regardless, non-hot swappable switches still can be lubed right?

Kinda but not really. You'll have to stick a brush into the sides of the stem while its still mounted on the board. Why would you lube a clicky anyway? It mask all sounds. Maybe just for smoothness. I think lubing a clicky might reduce the clickiness.
Idk. No experience with clickies.
Have you looked for used Leopolds or duckys?

I have a Feker ik75 (non pro). Its fine. No gasket flex.
Off your list, going by brand, I'd pick akko. But the donkey looks interesting too.

Got it. Searched for 2nd hand in our garage sales, all moving like hot stocks, whatever left exceeds my budget. Hence me deciding on Keychron or RK.

there are people who lube their soldered switches without desoldering. don't do that. the problem with such methods is uncontrolled application of lube, that will lead to undesired side effects.

switch lubing is a practice to apply a controlled amount of lubricants at the right locations of a switch to achieve switch smoothness, to reduce spring ping, and modify sound and feel of a switch.

for clicky and tactile switches, it's better to open the switch up, then apply lube the proper way. this is to control the lube application, hence minimize side effects of lube on clicky and tactile switches (like reduced sound/tactile bumps)

Thanks much for the in depth info, appreciate it.

Hello Keyboard Sifus.

Have a question:
Has anyone bought keyboards, switches, caps from Massdrop before?
Wondering if there'll be tax because considering getting it together with friends to save on shipping.

Yes. About 10% tax.
Gtab it during black friday sales.

Thank you Sensei.
Yep planning to grab it during Black Friday.

https://shopee.com.my/New-Arrival%EF%BC%81R...ec-e85daa9dea6c Get this one. Bought for my wife. She loves it.

Lego keyboard anyone???

MelGeek



This post has been edited by cruzzmz: Nov 26 2022, 09:28 PM

i will skip this one. melgeek's works are ok. he's one of the few in cn that makes stuff with relatively better qualities.

however i mainly prefer kits with metal cases. i have collected their 60/65/75 kits so far. i hope they continue to make more good stuff.

qmk is at 0.19, and there are breaking changes. this time there is an overhaul of keycodes.

after doing git pull, you must run once of qmk setup to get new submodules. then, check your keymaps that need to be fixed, or all compiles will fail.

edit: currently, via wise:
- star75's via screen is broken by the latest qmk changes. everything in qmk is fine. hence it's not really a problem to me. just revert to 0.18.x if you need to use via for now;
- cx60 and yd60mq are fine, except for certain keycodes, e.g., MO(n).


This post has been edited by horns: Nov 29 2022, 12:56 PM

kailh cream dream is on the way. i always wonder what 600k of key strokes can do to the a pom-based linear switch hehe

we mainly do break-ins to stock cherry mx (with nylon housing), to get rid of their natural scratchiness. it's an additional step to make cherry mx relatively smoother, compared to stock. all mx style switches will get smoother when we use them more, because of natural wear-and-tear (which take a long time) break-ins at factory speed things up to achieve the same.

the same practice was later extended to other switches, for the same purpose. however, for newer switches, the outcomes are getting less obvious, because things like polishing of rails/sliders can be done at factory, to improve smoothness. (and also prelubing. tbh, prelubed switches are supposed to be cleaned up, with factory grease removed from housings and sliders, before doing break-ins)

well, let's see how it goes. i hope kailh will use this to their other linear switches haha

This post has been edited by horns: Dec 4 2022, 07:22 PM

I've been taking the lazy route lately.
Stock oil kings. Very happy with those.
Yesterday tried stock tecsee carrots. Gonna order some more.
I think smoothness really doesn't bother me and i cant hear it over the thock. As long as there's no spring ping. So im fine, but thats me.
As per usual, mod to your own liking.

yes, oil king is ok.

right, smoothness is not supposed to be the main thing to consider. basically it can be remedied by lubing alone, so it's not really a 'feature' in the first place.

due to laziness, i'm still in the process of fixing qmk codes for all my boards. there are ways to do this quickly, but this time i just use each board to fix their own qmk firmware, then apply the updates hehe

honestly, for average users, there is no need to chase after qmk changes. while there are significant changes in the background, and new features are added from time to time, chances are that you need neither of them to use your boards properly.

however, if you're into making your qmk-powered boards more personalized, with bells and whistles that you can think of, and convenience brought by qmk, it's good that you learn it. as long as you have a pcb with working source code in the official qmk repository, you just need to get the qmk environment ready to get started.

Another new comer

Oneplus Keyboard