/mkg/ - Nasty Caps Firmware Hacking Edition
>Buyer's template:
pastebin.com
>Where to Buy:
pastebin.com
>FAQs:
pastebin.com
>Use the buyer's template
pastebin.com
>Group Buys
Deskthority, Geekhack, Massdrop
>Keyboard wiki
deskthority.net
Previous Thread:
Got this guy to DFU mode, had to get switches off a old shitbox Razer board and couldn't be assed to identify the rows of the keys.
Good enough for getting the firmware worked on! Next step is to bodge in the trackball on a breakout until my China supplier comes in clutch
OP, delet and start over. The bar codes ID you.
If you can pull info off that blurry ass image I will be impressed. Also it's not like my name isn't on gboards.ca :P
And if you do dox me, come by and bring coffees. We'll hack some darts and talk shit
4th for Unicomp Classic
the best mechanical keyboard you can buy
no frills
But I have bitch fingers user and think Gat Clears are a little stiff.
>bought black blank caps
>can't decide the color of the picrelated case and plate
>should i go all black or would silver or grey look better?
Any advice?
It's hard to find good reference photos to get an idea how the whole thing would look like.
um ok.. thanks for letting us know
Jesus, I added a discount code POUTINEMEBRO and some fuckin' guy actually used it. Now I get to ship his ass a keyboard, gravy mix, cheese curds and a box of KD.
2018 is fucking nuts
pink
Wait so are you making a low cost 40% split ortho - with an integrated trackball?
Yeah! And it's low profile af, I'm working on support for Choc/MX/Alps and it's all SMD!
UwU
That would look so clean with blanks man!
>and it's all SMD!
Maybe I'm retarded, but what do you mean? As opposed to having all the diodes in the matrix being through-hole? Or are you somehow soldering the switches surface-mount?
just bought this
what you guys think?
If I could I would, but the switches and trackball standoffs are the only through hole components
I really want to strangle whoever came up with this front and convinced the chinks it's literally the best possible font for keycaps
Maybe I'm still being retarded but how is that notable? I'd even get mentioning this if you were making your own PCB by hand, but from what I gather you're ordering from the chinks, aren't SMD components completely standard for any factory produced board?
I share your sentiment, but this is technically the second best possible font. It's a similar looking font to the one that everyone hates (notice no all-caps on control, alt, caps keys).
It actually looks not as bad as the classic chink one.
Where's your dildo?
Considering people are still making boards that strap pro micros to them it's semi notable. Nothing new or crazy for keyboards, but take a look at the Iris and top portion of the Ergodox, then look at these.
And it has a fuckin' mouse in a 1u key. Can't say I've seen a keyboard do that.
Iris for comparison. The promicro s tucked underneath
Ergodox with it on top.
Are box switches worth the hype?
Yes.
I plan to get blanks some time in the future, but I'm not confident enough with US international layout now
Yes
I miss Tim Hortons so much
It's shit though, Robins is where it's at my dude. But Timmy Ho's are open 24/7 so there's that.
Take the plunge! I believe in you aesthetic user!
Never heard of Robin's. I lived in NY and Tim Hortons moved in to save us from Dunkin mediocrity but then moved out because all the NPCs actually like Dunkin.
Ah damn, it's a smaller (but still a chain) Canadian coffee house. Tims pissed us all off by hiring Temporary Foreign Workers over locals everywhere and switching from baking their doughnuts in house, to somewhere in Ontario and flashfreezing them to be thawed. They also fucked up by optimizing for drive through times so you end up with shit like people frisbeeing your bagels into a toaster so they come out faster and not heating sandwiches enough. Tims has turned into ass with crap coffee and cold sandwiches.
Robins on the otherhand actually employes locals and makes great food. Doesn't have the brand recognition that Timmy Ho's does. Fun fact the company that now owns Timmy Ho's also owns Burger King.
>pro micro
Ooooh of course. I knew I was being retarded.
No worries. I said it in the other thread but that little bit of kit holds back a lot of boards that would otherwise be dirt cheap. Here's a PCB now go strap 20$ in standalones to it. A Atmega32u4 costs 4$, the STM line that QMK is getting support for run a cool 1.50$.
That and it's huge as fuck.
Where can I get those key
china
anybody want to buy a rosewill rk9000-v2 blue cherry switches from the uk used? name your price
>cherry switches
I'll give you 2 bucks for that trash
>Anything but buckling springs
Short of the unicomp guys, has anyone tried bringing back BS in a cherry mount? Because that would be rad
To the user who asked me last thread what I consider high end, Id say things like Kustoms (otd, tx, duck, LZ, KMAC etc.), well built stuff like TGR and Singa, and also a lot of the group buy customs, assuming they're made by a good maker
There was a crowdfunding campaign to do this a while ago. I haven’t heard anything about it since.
Yeah, completely forgot keyboards have this little thing called a controller.
Anyway, on paper this all sounds awesome. Add a sturdy case to allow me to chuck it in my bag without any worries and it'll be pretty much my perfect travel keyboard, provided the trackball is good.
Built this for my fiancé for Xmas. I still have to 3D print the case.
I mean you're not going to be gaming with it, but we'll see how bad it actually is. It's meant to augment keyboard based workflows! At the moment I touch my mouse about every 10 minutes and it kills me on the inside. Hence Gergo.
I haven't designed a case yet, but it shouldn't be too bad. Caseless is actually pretty okay, the little rubbers make a keyboard sandwich! I've been doing a caseless ergodox with this for the past few months to no ill effect.
Embrace the sandwich.
>you're not going to be gaming with it
What's that supposed to mean? If it's small or isn't smooth preventing small precise movements, then it's just not good in general. If the ball rolls well and smoothly and tracking is good then don't tell me what to do
>Caseless is actually pretty okay
Yes but if I put that in my bag it's gonna shift around, put strain on all the keys, and suffer every time my bag either bumps against something or has to be squeezed somewhere. It might be fine at first but it won't last; maybe the soldering could fail on a key due to stress, maybe a keycap or switch might crack, or worst case if the sandwhich gets dislodged a PCB could end up cracked.
Even if you don't design a case I might take a crack at it and print one myself once you put out the actual board; printed PLA is no machined aluminium but being orders of magnitude cheaper means that even if it were to end up cracking, I'd just print a new one. Biggest problem will be actually getting around to it since I excel at putting things off forever.
By the way, do you plan on doing a group buy, or selling it in batches, or setting up a continuous stock?
I'm doing continuous stock. I got a few other boards in mind that will follow a similar model and hardware so that's small potatoes. The only thing that's iffy with that is the Gergo: Final as I need to keep a decent stock of caps and switches.
There was a guy that made adapters for artisan keycaps, but he left after the whole community became infested with scalpers.
Sorry about the case though. I've got a ton of stuff to deal with first before I get there :P It might come, but I have a tendancy to run after stupid projects
You can buy cases from them, or at least you could. Send them an email if they still have some.
Sounds good, I'll be lurking to wait until you put it out
Oh yeah also: how hard would it be to modify it to be bluetooth compatible? As far as I'm aware you'd basically need a way to break out power lines to connect them to a battery, then some power control to manage charging and running off a cable and discharging intelligently (presumably using the main controller), and then a bluetooth chip. Do you think this is feasible?
If you don't have the time or just don't want to add it, but think it's not too complicated, that might be a good excuse for me to learn PCB design
Purple mothafucka
What's the state of the switch brands, what's good these days?
I don't want anything clicky and I'm not into expensive memes. Will I regret getting Gateron blacks?
Gaterons are among the smoothest linears you can get these days, if a little wobbly. Cheap too.
It's possible and not too hard but I'm taking it bit by bit over here. The main thing is finding a non janky way to integrate the batteries/charging circut. Little coin cells work, but they get burned through fairly quick.
What's an "upgrade" from Gateron browns? Looking for something a bit more tactile, but still similar in regards to how light it is and as quiet as possible. Are Outemu Skies any good or do I need to go for Zilents?
thank you, friends, very helpful
is the feeling of oneness with cup rubber a good feeling or a bad feeling
It's banned in Canada and in some parts of Europe, so you take a guess.
Kbdfans
hey guys lookin for a new keyboard
1) Budget
$160 or less
2) Location
USA
3) Preffered switch type
cherry MX blue(?) / tactile and clicky
4) Layout
ANSI
5) Form factor
100%, i use all the keys
6) Backlight
backlit is a must RGB doesnt matter
7) Previous/current keyboard
Razer blackwidow chroma 2013 (dont hate me i got it for free) / i like the switches but its getting old
looking for some direct reccomedations thanks for the help
Ducky One 2 with white LEDs
Personally I'd get a Leopold, but they both have doubleshot PBT keycaps so it's not like your making a terrible choice.
>Budget
around $100 (could be a bit more)
>Location (continent at least)
Israel. Anything with international shipping at a sane price will do.
>Preferred switch type
Cherry MX Brown
>Layout
Preferably ANSI
>Form factor
Prefer TKL, could also be full size if there is a major price difference
>Backlight
No need
>Previous/current keyboards
Never had a mechanical keyboard
Does anyone have any suggestions? I've looked at ducky one 2 and that seems like the type of keyboard that I want but due to shipping costs I would like to see more options (that perhaps some are present in my country/in sites with better shipping policies)
Does anyone have any suggestions for keyboards that might be of interest to me?
Get a switch sample pack from novelkey, and a GMMK with whatever switch you ended up liking.
The most important part of a mechanical keyboard is the switches. If you've never tried one I'd suggest you get a switch tester instead of dealing with returns after finding out a switch you thought was good on paper turned out to be garbage.
>he prefers chinkshit switches
thanks for the suggestion, but may ask why? It costs about $120 and for that price and based on the reviews I've seen I prefer to add a bit more and get the ducky (I think?).
I forgot to add that I did try the brown switches and found them good but didn't have a keyboard with them (only tried them). I may need to try the other ones though.
>he thinks the only alternative is chink shit
Someone has been brainwashed by the communist.
It's hotswap meaning you can change the switches without the need to desolder the entire keyboard. The extra convenience is worth the price incase you end up not liking what you got. If build quality is what you want then Leopold is the way to go. Ducky is close, but they Leopold is just better.
getting another switch set would be like 50% of the keyboard cost at that price (more if you include shipping), so I think it would be better for me to buy the keyboard (and as I've said in another comment, I know that I like typing with browns) and if I want to switch switches just sell it second-hand and buy a new keyboard.
What's the recommended leopold at this price range?
what do you mean? people reselling his shit for profit?
holy panda
Yes, but what got him pissed was that someone made a bunch of dummy accounts and bought most of his shit for 30 bucks and then resold it for 100.
Or you can buy a GMMK and just swap out the switches. No one really buys used mechanical keyboards unless they're rare or collectible. There are other hotswap keyboards that the chinks make like Zhuque
If you need a backlight, yea get the Ducky One 2 with the white backlight - Blue Switches. I had one with browns, but sent it back because I wasn't a huge fan of the switches. It'd be great with Blues.
thanks for the reccomendations, any reason for the white backlight? i might go with the RGB for the customization
the fact that you even want cherry mx browns shows how much you really need the switch tester
>No one really buys used mechanical keyboards unless they're rare or collectible
alright, I guess I might get the gmmk then\
thanks for the help
why?
If you want RGB, go for it. I personally prefer no backlight at all.
Costs more and this general isn't too big on rainbow puke.
grain of sand
cost isnt an issue for me, just wanted to know if there was something that made the RGB version less desireable, thanks for the info guys. this one looks nice
do enlighten me, then, by listing some other ones that are not completely different switch types, like BS or Topre. gotta compare apples to apples, after all
Lol but then how do you type in the dark XD
>why?
Not him, but because the tactility of mx brown is very weak.
Don't know if the GMMK has an option for Gateron browns, but if it does I'd recommend getting that over Cherry. They're much smoother and should even knock the price down a bit as well.
The only cherries that should be considered over gateron and kailh are retooled blacks, vintage blacks and some frankenswitch combos like holy chickies.
I use a lamp on my desk. And usually keyboards with no backlights have brighter lettering.
my tracking number from some 17 something site isnt working. what do?
use the light from your monitor
>gateron
>kailh
>not chinkshit
still waiting
>It costs about $120
You can buy it without switches and keycaps from their site for half that.
im fuckin cumming please tell me everything you did to get that
alright, sounds good, but I have 2 questions:
1) how can I find keycaps that would fit? (what are the creteria?)
2) on their site it says about that zealios works but it writes the following:
>Zealios (plate mounted, or legs cut off on PCB mounted version)
what does that mean?
thanks
The keycaps just have to be MX compatible (the vast majority of keycap sets you can buy are). PCB mount switches just have two extra plastic legs on the bottom of the switch. Not every PCB has holes for these PCB mount legs.
>1) how can I find keycaps that would fit? (what are the creteria?)
TKL is easy. Any 87/104(+) key set will work. I've been happy with Tai-Hao for an inexpensive one.
>2) on their site it says about that zealios works but it writes the following:
>>Zealios (plate mounted, or legs cut off on PCB mounted version)
>what does that mean?
If you have a choice, pick plate mounted switches. You need to clip 2 small plastic pieces off of PCB mount, leaving just the central post and the 2 pins. Should be easy.
>buy hhkb pro2
>key alignment is awful
>case is horrible quality
>topre's don't feel like the sex i was promised
>two hundred us dollars
at least the layout is kinda novel..?
They're better though
I didn't do much to be honest: it's just a TOFU aluminium case + PBT dye-sub keycaps. PCB is dz60 and switches are BOX Jades.
Should have mentioned keycap profiles. Stock is OEM. Tai-Hao is mostly OEM but also Cubic, which is a similar height. Cherry is lower but sculpted like those two. I don't think you'll need to consider any other profiles.
>fell for the hhkb meme
>he didn't get a realforce r2 55g instead
ehehe
imagine getting memed this hard