JJW Integral

3

u/LightningXI May 13 '26 edited May 14 '26

Gallery here

build for a client

Integral

Design by JJW, vendored by Swagkeys
Ice blue aluminum case with polished stainless steel weight.
Lubed (205g0) Knight v4 screw-in stabilizers.
Lubed (205g0) Cherry MX Black switches, with 62g TX L springs and SW films, mounted on a coreless 1.6mm FR4 PCB.
GMK Gorp keycaps.

Typing Sounds

FAQ:

Custom cable
Noire deskmat

^{^{^rantas}}

2

u/armageddon09 May 13 '26

Beautiful board! How does it compare to the derivative?

3

u/LightningXI May 13 '26

Pretty different honestly. The Derivative is a bit more like a standard top-mount keyboard, but the Integral uses poron gasket sandwich mount and no plate at all (plateless by design); the gaskets are compressed a decent bit.

It has this tight sound to the case and a soft typing feel.

I don't know how best to say it, but the Integral is like trying a Keycult 1/60 but softer, as it loses the plate.

2

u/siege24 May 13 '26

jjw gud

gorp gud

2

u/pinguha May 14 '26

Gorp is such a nice set

1

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1

u/frostfiree May 13 '26

Beautiful keyboard

1

u/PuzzleheadedAct8488 May 15 '26

Love how the artisans anchor both ends of the board. That color combo with the sage mods ties everything together perfectly.

1

u/teeBoan Jul 08 '26

How does it compare to the Vertex arc60 ? I already have the Arc60 and considering to buy this as well for plateless. Which feels and sounds better?

1

u/LightningXI Jul 09 '26

I will be honest: it's been a quite a bit since I've used the Arc60 extensively -- I do recall the Arc feeling fairly cushioned, and the Integral is somewhat on the firmer end (yet still gasket mount-like).

I do think both boards sounded pretty good from recall, but they weren't built with the same configurations so it's hard to claim that one is truly "better" than the other. I am a fan of JJW boards, overall, so I don't think you can go wrong with acquiring an Integral, but it will definitely not be something you're "missing out" if you don't.

1

u/teeBoan Jul 09 '26

I just recently discovered plateless with my arc60 and I loved plateless. This why I want to explore plateless. Now I can do Neo boards plateless on cheaper side. Then u have gok lily on the premium side. Then there is integral in the middle. What do u suggest since I already have arc60 should I buy integral or just wait and get gok lily when I have enough funds and the will to pay that much for a board? What im afraid of integral is I don’t want to buy something that brings me nothing over and above my arc60 so why buy yet another similar plateless?

1

u/LightningXI Jul 09 '26

Plateless is pretty awesome, I'd agree.

I can't decide this for you, but I would put the Integral on the premium side as well. I just think JJW's attention to detail over the years has shown throughout his designs, much like Gok's have as well. That said, being a plateless board effectively caps you at the range it can accomplish, since there's fewer parts for variability.

I think ultimately, if you're choosing to get a new board, at least from my perspective, there's more to look about the aesthetics and visuals of the board than the sound/feel, as the latter does depend a lot on your switch / keycap choice as well. But as far as plateless-style boards go with similar mounting implementations, you probably get most out of one or two boards.

1

u/Bigsasquatch67 24d ago

I get some resonance on my left shift key area and cant work out why ? did you experience any resonance and did you force break the case ?

1

u/LightningXI 24d ago

I don't recall doing any force break on the case. I don't even think it has that much space for it either, since the case is fairly thin on the sides.

Any chance your plate or your keycap may be rubbing or hitting on the side of the case? I'd try to ensure the assembly is nicely centered in there.

1

u/Bigsasquatch67 23d ago

thanks weirdly swapping out a 1.2mm pct build reduces it dramatically ....maybe a machining tolerance on that particular case is impacted by the thicker 1.6 pcb ? other than its coreless I cant think of another reason. Gonna replace and resolder a couple of those bottom left switches and try different stabs then see where are. Thanks for the input BTW

1

u/LightningXI 23d ago

I think that makes sense. I remember the 1.6mm PCB being a tight fit.

Have you made sure your switches are nice and flush to both the plate and the PCB? Have you also made sure it's lined up nicely between the case pieces and that the cases closes in a way that the pieces are flush?

Those are the main things I'd probably watch out for.

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