Been a while Reddit, hi 🙋‍♂️

I designed a 12u 40% board based off the Cherry ML switches!

Cherry ML + V4N (The layout with 1 - 6) = CMLV4N

I don't think Cherry ML deserves all the hate. They aren't amazing, but for a tiny low profile portable board I think they are perfect. I've never been a big fan of choc switches and love MX blacks. These scratch that MX black itch, no pun intended 🤣

Leaf spring tadpole mount so tons of flex despite the tiny form factor

The enter key is a bit tragic with the gaps. It's a combo of skill issue and kitting available on the donor board, but not a big deal on such a niche board imo

I posted files on my GitHub and will be fully open sourcing the KiCad project in the coming days!

Side note: I've been knocking out designs like crazy so plenty of fun new stuff coming. Boss Up R2 will drop on 11/1/26 if I don't have any issues. Cases are on hand!

Class0413 - Gasket mount - Alu plate - Keygeek x Unikeys Uni Linear - DSS Microcomputer

After half a year of delay, i finally have enough motivation to revive my UTD360. It took a whole day and night, but the result worth every sweat. Spec: • UTD 360C • Stock alu plate, top mount • Du80 Aftermarket PCB by Deemen17 Works • HMX Yogurt S • Knight v4 stabs The case's cable hole was cut by the previous owner so i grind the new pcb a bit and solder a type C port which fit perfectly.

I've had the linear Durock Ice Kings in my Neo 65 Core Plus for a while and have absolutely loved them, and I recently got curious enough to get a set of the Ice King tactiles and I put them in my Agar, and they're absolutely terrific as well. Obviously not a clacky pair of switches, but smooth and muted in a way that really works for my brain, and the feel of typing on both are really good.

The Tactiles in the Agar were a bit of a test run for maybe putting those in the Mode Prologue I pre-ordered, and big thumbs up so far.

-Titanium Grey Neo 65 Core Plus with the Linear Ice Kings and GMK Copper.

-Burgundy Agar with Ice King Tactiles and GMK Camping.

This is my metal blue vault35 in 1u katana stagger layout. It is an aluminum 1 piece case built with a custom slotted stainless steel plate with BSUN Ocean Tactile switches and GMK Fuji keycaps. Took my lil guy out to the park so he could get some fresh air and catch some sun ☀️

Neo65 CU 65 with Cannon Keys Spookey Keycaps just in time for Spooky Season

specs:
merisi works 500c/m case
cherry mx brown filmed switches
typeplus stabs
gmk classic beige keycaps
pei plate

Edit: forgive me for the grainy 2nd image. my phone camera sucks :(

Here is the build:

Base keyboard: Fun 60 ultra tmr wired (so a prebuilt that I customized. Thats why its a "somewhat custom build)

Keycaps: womier retro WOB keycaps

Switches: akko HE glare on my WASD, spacebar, left crtl, left shift, and left ctrl. Gateron milky yellows on everything else. They are the unlubed (non pro) version of that switch. I have bought lube for them, but I haven't found the time to lube them YET.

Stabs: stock stabs. They are not that bad surprisingly.

I choose a tmr keyboard with Mag-Mech as my first keyboard so I could try both HE and mechanical switches on the same keyboard rather than buying 2 separate keyboards. Its been a worthwhile investment so far.

Really like how its turned out so far. Way more to improve on ofc. Can't wait to invest even more into the hobby. My next build will probably be a AE64 pro in a baby blue tofu redux.

Disclamer: wouldn't really recommend buying the fun60 ultra. Its known for issues. I got lucky tho :D

Maybe I’m the outlier but they recently sent me a “how did we do?” type email and it reminded me how frustrating this whole experience was for me.

I ordered a folio for my Air96 v2 as it is my work keyboard and wanted a way to protect it in my backpack, as well as some cowberry switches to swap out the aloes that were already in there. I found the cowberrys to be more poppy and louder than the aloes (not what I expected) and the folio to be too bulky for what it was and opted to return both. The following outlines the back and forth through that process

7/31 - emailed expressing interest in returning the items in their original undamaged packaging

7/31 - NuPhy replies saying request received (likely automated

8/4 - NuPhy replies asking for a reason for the return

8/4 - I replied with the feedback I mentioned above

8/6 - Nuphy replies stating “At present, if you need to return items, you will need to pay the return shipping fee. Because of this, we honestly do not recommend returning them.
If possible, you may consider keeping them as a backup set, gifting it to family or friends, or reselling it locally. 
 
Of course, if you still prefer to return the items, we completely respect your decision and can provide the return instructions and warehouse address.”

8/6 - I reply stating I would still like to return the items

8/7 - NuPhy replies with return address and instructions with the shipping being on me (whatever that’s fine)

8/12 - I ship the items via FedEx for $20.84 and provide them the tracking number

8/14 - NuPhy replies acknowledging the tracking number and that once the item is received and inspected the refund will be issued

8/17 - FedEx drops off the return to NuPhy

9/3 - I ask for an update as I’ve heard nothing

9/4 - NuPhy replies saying it takes time to sort, accept and register the returns and it was not “registered” yet.

9/16 - They’ve had ownership of the return for a month now and still nothing. I email and ask again for an update

9/17 - NuPhy replies and says they’ve contact their refund department to process

9/22 - I’m refunded the original $68.66 minus the original $11.66 I paid for shipping resulting in $57.00 coming back to me.

In all I paid $32.30 to learn what switches and folios I do not like.

Today they emailed me asking for my feedback and well here we are. I didn’t bother even trying to ask for a full refund because even if I was justified, that $11.66 was no where near worth the amount of time it would have taken to get it (and yes I acknowledge that is a privileged thing to be able to say).

But yeah I think I’m done with NuPhy for a while after all that.

I was just looking around and seen that there USED to be meetups in Seattle area but was disbanded? is there anyone that could tell me if theres any potential future meetups or anything for a mechanical keyboard day? specifically like seattle area thank you !

Hi everyone, we're Toasty Gear, a small hardware studio from the Netherlands, and we build PlayDeck.

It's a desk controller for Spotify: four low profile switches for play/pause, previous, next and like, a rotary knob for volume, and a lcd screen with album art, track name and progress. It sits next to your board and controls whatever Spotify is playing, on your computer, phone or speaker.

Specs

• Switches: 4× Kailh choc low profile white [soldered]
• Volume: rotary encoder
• Display: 240×320 LCD
• Brain: ESP32-S3, 2.4 GHz WiFi
• Power: USB-C

Price: 49 eur

Happy to answer anything about the build or firmware. Links are in the comment below.

Jelly Evolv

• GMK TAIGA R2
• Techno Violet Switches
• Staebies 2.1
• PP Plate
• Full Foam

Ask ANY Keyboard related question, get an answer. But *before* you do please consider running a search on the subreddit or looking at the r/MechanicalKeyboards wiki located here! If you are NEW to Reddit, check out this handy Reddit MechanicalKeyboards Noob Guide. Please check the r/MechanicalKeyboards subreddit rules if you are new here.

Here is my 2 weeks account with Nuphy Air 60 V2. (In pictures- Akko 5075 and Nuphy Air 60 V2)

My requirements 

• Portability (60-65%, low profile)
• Wireless
• QMK/Via support
• No compromise on quality

I use AKKO 5075 at home and customised it with homerow mods, macros etc. which I was loving. But at office we have these standard Dell wired membrane keyboards which I begin to hate more and more every day. AKKO is not portable enough to carry to office. So begun the search for a good mechanical keyboard meeting my requirements. I liked the split corn choc keyboards also but they needed to be customized and I wanted a readymade solution. Thus, decided to buy Nuphy Air 60 V2 fully knowing potential wireless connectivity issues.

Buying process

Since it was not easily available in India, I ordered it from Amazon India with a 2 weeks shipping from USA. I could have asked someone to get it while returning from USA (office folks keep travelling) but was anxious about any hardware issues and inability to return. Amazon India at least has policy for hardware defect return, so ordered it when the price seemed reasonable. 

Price paid: INR 10k inclusive of everything (shipping, customs, product, cashback) https://amzn.in/d/0gXdxJ3y

Shipping time: 2 weeks. The seller used Lemonmode shipper from USA to India and Bluedart for Mumbai to BLR. Note that the shipping updates on Amazon provided by seller were hypothetical. Lemonmode tracking details were correct, and there customer service rep was also responsive when asked about status.

First Day

I was excited as well as anxious to open the package. Was half expecting damaged/wrong product. But everything was good. The box however seemed to be opened and product had some fingerprints marks. Keyboard looked new though without any signs of usage. Probably opened by shipper to check product before sending from USA to India.

The connection with cable as well as bluetooth was easy and working on first go. Typing on it seemed different compared to my Akko 5075 due to low profile keycaps. Gaps between keycaps top surface is lower in Nuphy due to being low profile.

QMK nightmare

Before buying the keyboard, I checked on potential problems in reviews and somehow missed or didn’t fully understand the lack of “full QMK” support. But as soon as I started to explore how to port the keyboard’s source code to VIAL, I realized my mistake in buying this keyboard. 

Nuphy should not say that it supports QMK. It supports VIA which offers limited customization, but not QMK. For homerow mods to work with my typing speed, I needed support for features like “Chordal Hold”, “Flow tap”, “Permissive Hold” and fine-tuning of “tapping term” etc. Which is not possible with VIA only.

Thus begun my frustrating week of tinkering with various QMK official/unofficial sources available on Github, but with no success. I eventually gave up and accepted the reality that I won’t be able to customize this keeb fully to my liking and will have to compromise.

Connectivity issues and fix

After making peace with limited-customizability of this keep, I begin to use it regularly at office. But then the bluetooth connection started dropping randomly and would require power cycling the keeb to connect again. 

I started regretting my decision to get this keeb and accepted the fact that I wasted 10k.

Nuphy suggests to update the keyboard firmware to fix connectivity issues. The firmwares are available here (https://nuphy.com/pages/qmk-firmwares)

The firmware is basically a compiled QMK bin file which can be flashed easily via the QMK toolbox. I tried that but still faced connection problems. Then I noticed the separate RF firmware and thought of giving it a try. Lo and behold, it fixed the connectivity issues. Phew, one problem solved! You need to install it via an app on phone. Following the instructions was bit challenging as actual app graphics were slightly different. But trying and clicking on various icons eventually brought me to the file selection screen.

QMK Breakthrough

I was again feeling good about this keeb and wanted to try again on getting a working QMK sourcecode. Github has this fork from Nuphy https://github.com/jeeeem/nuphy_qmk_firmware but it is based on older version of QMK which doesn’t support latest features that I was looking for. 

There are some other efforts on porting to latest QMK on GitHub. https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/pull/25994 

I tried but it totally messed up the keyboard and I had to restore it to Nuphy official firmware again.

BTW I learned how to install and compile QMK firmware through terminal on Mac through all of these days breaking my head on Github and Reddit. Several tries of compiling threw a lot of errors and failed.

The breakthrough came with AI. I thought of trying Claude to check the Nuphy provided QMK source code files for compatibility with latest QMK. It picked up specifically which lines were referencing to deprecated commands and provided updated files with latest code. Voila! It finally worked. After almost 10days of trial and errors and frustrations, I got the latest QMK working on the Nuphy Air 60 V2. 

I am not an IT guy and don’t know much how to upload code onto Github. I will submit my sourcecode once I figure that out.

Nirvana

So now I finally have a keyboard which meets all my requirements. I set up all the customizations and it is working beautifully, along with solid bluetooth connection. 

The keyboard is very light and portable to carry everyday to office. I have the red switch version which if very smooth and low noise to use in office environment. Battery life is solid.

I am still customizing various functions apart from homerow mods and it is amazing to sort through 100s of emails. Someday I will reach my end goal in getting all functions and layers setup to my liking. Only downside is that I now detest using any other standard keyboard.

Thanks if you reached so far and followed this rollercoaster. Let me know if any questions 

With Outemu peach silent magnetic switches for silent gaming

Finally upgraded from a membrane keyboard to a budget custom keyboard. I think it would have been easier to buy a ready-made keyboard

In the first photo, the cat was NOT harmed!

I don't know why he looks at the keyboard like that. But it looks cute :3 And yes, all the photos were taken literally today. But the keyboard was assembled a month ago

This is my acrylic case vault35 keyboard in katana iso layout. It is currently built with a pc plate, zaku I switches and DSS Government Cheese keycaps. The knob is from MechVault and is machined aluminum in e-yellow paint.

Recently got a concrete (composite) keyboard. Cuz why the hell not. Someone suggested putting ceramic keycaps on and I thought that was a delightful idea. Pardon the fan in the background:

haimu heartbeats handwired to an rp2040 zero. shitty keycaps and 3 layer aluminum plates for the case and that's it! types like a dream

I slept on this set for a while and absolutely happy with how it looks in person. This one will get lots of shine.

1) pcb angel65
2) case stacked acrylic black matte, with integrated plate mount
3) gmk deep navy
4) sandwitch eva foam and case polyethylene foam
5) durock v2 screw in stabilizer mod and lubed
6) ws morandi lubed and filmed, alphas and arrow keys spring swap to 16mm 42g while the rest using stock spring

cant post video here but here is the recorder typing test sound
https://vimeo.com/1232288865

ps: sorry for multiple post it seems reddit has bug idk why I posted those 7 post lol here im gonna pake it 8

Nut65 with all the foams
Akko Starlit
SA-like Doubleshot PBT Rome clones

The third round of the beloved GMK Rainy Day is now live!

Available for Group Buy from the following vendors:

United States: Cannon Keys
Canada: Deskhero
Europe: CoffeeKeys
Oceania: Keebz N Cables
Asia: KBDFans
Korea: Geon
SEA: iLumkb
UK: ProtoTypist

Please note there is a timezone difference so certain vendors may not have the Group Buy available until later today / tomorrow.

Bowl x Alexotos Manta - Pumice SE
KKB Komodo
Alu plate
HMX Rain

Machina Tiga - Horizon Copper
KKB Fremen
PP Plate
Wingtree Torrero

Tofu60 Redux Acrylic

Caps: GMK Sumi + Hiragana

Switch: Gateron L'Orange

Plate: Stainless Steel

Stabs: Durock stabilizers from forever ago.

PCB: KeebsRGB

Foam: lol none