Mechanical Keyboard Guide

got my kbc poker today, typing on it right now

First thing to say, this thing is tiny and lightweight. From the looks and the weight of the packaging, you wouldnt even think that it was a keyboard. Its my first tenkeyless board (i also have a Das Ultimate with blues)

the cherry reds are absolutely odd to type on. Its wierd having absolutely no tactile response - it has none in comparison to the das or even a regular membrane keyboard. however, they are super easy to press, so much that it feels like cheating. The other advantage is that its very very quiet to type on, since im used to typing on blues, i dont bottom out too hard so the sound is mostly quiet pillowy rubbing. i like them quite a bit. I'd say they are faster to type on than the blues, but i am less confident whether or not i fully actuate them when i try to touch-type, so i do end up softly bottoming out.

The blue under the keys is very nice and soft, though its very vibrant coming out of the caps lock. I will probably be replacing them with orange.

Also, i am noticing the slight flex in the board, but only when i look at it and try to push down. If you type hard enough it feels like a sort of springiness in the centre of the keyboard. This will be foam modded and o-ring modded to make it more solid and brick like.

Another thing to note is the PBT key material. I believe that my Das is ABS, and theyr ea very smooth silty feel, perhaps a tad smoother than my steelseries SX. The PBT's on the poker are much more grainy than i am used to.

overall, very fun board to type on. im very excited to bring it to lan parties to hear the "oooohs and ahhhhs"

I highly recommend this board for lazy typers who want super soft keys, and gamers who want minimal effort pressing keys. The blues are very soft (especially in comparison to rubber domes) to press and i love them for gaming, but the reds are even softer and its a nice upgrade.

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thesecond said:
got my kbc poker today, typing on it right now
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Don't game on that board until you swap out your frequently used game keys.
My WASDEQ, SHIFT and CTRL keys were worn down in two weeks.

I sold it because it was only a matter of time for the rest of the keys to start wearing.
It a typing board not a game board. The mods will help, the o-rings are a must with this board.
 
so does anybody know the size of LED that fits in the cherry keys? LED's are the final thing i need to order for my poker mod.
 
Alright, I think I'm dropping the idea of the Topre keyboard. Too much money to spend for my first high-end keyboard.

So, Cherry MX Brown then? What are the best ones to look at? The DAS is readily available in Canada, but I think the glossy finish would drive me nuts. The Leopold is really sticking out as the one to beat for me right now. Other than that, I can also consider WASD, but I lose the option of going Tenkeyless (still not sure if I will or not). Otherwise, are there any Cherry MX Brown keyboards with PBT keys? I here these tend to be nicer.
 
ex0du5 said:
Alright, I think I'm dropping the idea of the Topre keyboard. Too much money to spend for my first high-end keyboard.

So, Cherry MX Brown then? What are the best ones to look at? The DAS is readily available in Canada, but I think the glossy finish would drive me nuts. The Leopold is really sticking out as the one to beat for me right now. Other than that, I can also consider WASD, but I lose the option of going Tenkeyless (still not sure if I will or not). Otherwise, are there any Cherry MX Brown keyboards with PBT keys? I here these tend to be nicer.
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I have a Das Ultimate with Blues, and i do not notice the glossy finish at all. But then again, i dont work in a spotlight.

However, i have pushed my das to the side for now in favor of a KBC Poker with cherry reds and pbt keys. Great little board, super easy to press the buttons, and easily modded. And i'm going to mod the crap out of mine, all of the materials are in the mail hahaha.

I got my KBC off of ebay, from "qtan" - he runs the esports gaming equipment store, and posts on geekhack. Hes not the cheapest option for the KBC poker, but he has a reliable ebay record, and was very good to me.

Now, i mainly grabbed this to reduce the noise of my typing, reduce the effort i needed to press the keys when gaming, and to get my mousing and keyboarding hand closer together for when i do game. Overall, it has made my gaming more comfortable, but my typing is less accurate than it is on the das, because i can feel the actuation on the das, but i cannot on the KBC, and so i bottom out in order to ensure the letters come up.

So id say the tactile switches (in my experience the blues), are more accurate for typing because you can feel when you can let go of the switch, and the reds are in general just more comfortable for gaming.

But yeah, back to the point, you can get a KBC poker with browns off of the bay. PBT caps cost a bit extra and feel a bit rougher than regular ABS caps, but theyre easy to get used to.
 
I know that with blacks I got used to the linear switches pretty easily so that I didn't need to bottom out. The fact that the switch gets so heavy after the actuation point may have helped though. I'm sure that you over time you'll get used to the linear keys.

You still may want to give a board with browns a shot one of these days. I haven't tried reds but of all the switches that I've tried MX browns have just been my favorite and to be honest the more that I use them the more that I like them.
 
I just got my Leopold with brown switches. I was expecting them to be a little stiffer. but I think I will be able to get used to them after some typing. The clicking sound is nice to hear again, and I am already getting better at typing and not bottoming out. The space bar feels the most strange so far, but it should grow on me.

The Blue LEDs are a nice touch as well, and they are not super bright which is nice. I am already looking at some replacement key caps to customize the board a little bit. I am thinking a black, orange and white theme would look nice.

orange for WSAD, Esc, Tab
white for shift, ctrl, 1-4
black for the rest (keyboard is already black.)
 
Yeah, mine have been "clicking" because I am used to bottoming out the membrane keys on my old keyboard. As I get better it will quite down, but the Browns are much "clickier" than any keyboard I have used in recent years.
 
They make a sound. They clearly aren't as silent as most rubber domes buy they don't click like an MX Blue, white alps, or buckling spring. Thats normally what most people refer to when they say clicky.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
I placed an order for a semi-custom on Saturday. I had never expected to receive my tracking info today, thats nuts. To be honest I'm excited. Hopefully I'll see it this week but with UPS you never know.
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Well, here it is a full week after I got my tracking info and it was showed as picked up by UPS and its still not here. This is exactly why I never use UPS by choice.
 
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Any recommendations for a cheap mech with Cherry MX Browns and... small? hopefully with still a numpad, but not sprawling like some gaming KB are. Also option of USB interface.

I think I have settled on EliteKB's tenkeyless tactile touch, is there any MX browns for cheaper (even if larger?)?

Thank you!
 
stripped down the kbc poker last night

LED mod is a no go. Most of the LED contacts on the PCB are not connected to anything. So you can only install LED's where there are already LED's connected.

Another thing thats interesting is that the resistor's on the PCB seem to be running the blue LED's at half of their rated brightness.

Also did the foam mod. I liked it in the letter rows, but if theres too much under the spacebar it makes a gross sound.
 
ex0du5 said:
Alright, I think I'm dropping the idea of the Topre keyboard. Too much money to spend for my first high-end keyboard.

So, Cherry MX Brown then? What are the best ones to look at? The DAS is readily available in Canada, but I think the glossy finish would drive me nuts. The Leopold is really sticking out as the one to beat for me right now. Other than that, I can also consider WASD, but I lose the option of going Tenkeyless (still not sure if I will or not). Otherwise, are there any Cherry MX Brown keyboards with PBT keys? I here these tend to be nicer.
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No Filco boards? Filcos are very popular at Geekhack. I personally have one myself(Filco Ninja TKL w/ MX Browns) and I love it. I owned a Das before and I sold it because it was just too big for me. I prefer having my mouse closer to my keyboard. I don't think Filco is PBT, but you can always buy custom keycaps :D
 
BababooeyHTJ - I really like how that came out. I'm not a big fan of white keys because I always seem to get them dirty super fast but I really like how it looks on your WASD.

Next month, I think I'm going to be ordering a custom WASD for my primary rig and a Filco Ninja TKL for my secondary rig. Browns on both.
 
Yeah, I'm debating selling my keycaps from the Round 3 group buy and just picking up another set of these lasered WASD keycaps for my Filco. I really do love the way that they look.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
I really like pcb mounted MX blues. They don't feel the same when plate mounted.
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++

There are so many advantages to PCB mounted switches!

pros:
Easy to mod
Quieter
Less impact on fingertips

cons:
keyboard will be more flimsy (because there's no steel plate)
more expensive to produce
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823201040&Tpk=Rosewill rk-9000

The Cherry MX blue Rosewill RK-9000 is finally back with a $20 promo card. For those of you who may not recall, this is basically a Filco with a different name on it. :)

The really good news for folks is that I just saw a Newegg add in the latest issue of Maximum PC that was a full page color ad from Rosewill for not only this MX blue keyboard but apparently it's also going to have brothers joining the RK-9000 line in red, brown, and black switches. No tenkeyless variants, though, at least not yet.

I don't see those new variants at Newegg yet but obviously they're imminent and this gives me the idea that Rosewill is serious about this product line.
 
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Q-BZ said:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823201040&Tpk=Rosewill rk-9000

The Cherry MX blue Rosewill RK-9000 is finally back with a $20 promo card. For those of you who may not recall, this is basically a Filco with a different name on it. :)

The really good news for folks is that I just saw a Newegg add in the latest issue of Maximum PC that was a full page color ad from Rosewill for not only this MX blue keyboard but apparently it's also going to have brothers joining the RK-9000 line in red, brown, and black switches. No tenkeyless variants, though, at least not yet.

I don't see those new variants at Newegg yet but obviously they're imminent and this gives me the idea that Rosewill is serious about this product line.
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The MX red and brown versions are up but the mx brown version will run you as much as a WASD keyboard. I think that you would have to be crazy to buy a Rosewill at the price of a WASD keyboard. I think that WASD is supposed to start carrying mx reds at some point soon too.

The MX blue for $100 with a $20 promo card is a killer deal though.
 
Yeah, these pretty much are Filco boards as well but they have far better lettering than the Rosewill or even a filco for that matter. I'm so impressed with my board.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
Yeah, these pretty much are Filco boards as well but they have far better lettering than the Rosewill or even a filco for that matter. I'm so impressed with my board.
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Looks like someone could get into trouble all too easily on that site of theirs with those configurators and such. ;)

I hadn't paid too close attention to this scene lately but I took a jaunt over at geekhack and saw they have their own section of the forum and saw the glowing feedback all over the place so I'm up to speed now. :)
 
Q-BZ said:
http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/

^^ I never heard of these guys until your post. *face palm*
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Yeah, I wish I would have known about them before I bought my Leopold. The semi-custom option is really cool, and their pricing is really competitive.

I did notice that they sell just the keycaps, so I may invest in some orange and white keycaps to add some spice to my all black leopold.

As an update, I am still really happy with the leopold. I am getting much better at typing on it, but still have some work to do. For the past 5+ years I have only had "laptop style" keyboards. This is a pretty big change from the laptop style keyboards.

One thing that I have noticed that still feels weird is how the keys "wobble" if you put your fingers on the keys and move them back and forth. I am still getting the hang of how hard to hit the keys to increase my speed. I can consistently hit 80wpm on the online typing tests, went over 90 once but would like to get consistent.
 
Something more solid vs me just mentioning an ad in a magazine:

http://www.rosewill.com/products/s_296/category.htm

There is the Rosewill 9000 and variants product page. I would have to believe their appearance at Newegg and the like would have to be fairly soon, especially in time for holiday shopping season and all that. At least the blue is back in stock for those interested.

That $20 gift card promo on that ends tomorrow.
 
Just pulled the trigger on a Filco tenkeyless Majestouch-2 with blue switches. >.< I wanted this keyboard in the Ninja flavor and was told by the manufacturer it wont' be out until the end of the year. Can't wait that long!

It will be my first mechanical (and expensive) keyboard purchase.

Probably gonna look at custom keycaps somewhere down the line. Thinking about WASD Keyboard's keycaps.
 
I am looking for a mech keyboard where the left alt key is between X and C, instead of Z and X where it is now. I use alt a lot, and the Z and X location is already starting to hurt.
 
Bbq said:
I am looking for a mech keyboard where the left alt key is between X and C, instead of Z and X where it is now. I use alt a lot, and the Z and X location is already starting to hurt.
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Wouldn't surprise me if you could get some config like that from one of WASD Keyboards custom jobs.
 
Bbq said:
I am looking for a mech keyboard where the left alt key is between X and C, instead of Z and X where it is now. I use alt a lot, and the Z and X location is already starting to hurt.
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That would be a custom job. I don't know why you'd need that. Just remap the alt-function or whatever function the alt key is serving to another key which is more comfortable.
 
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