From: [email protected]
Date: 2016-03-11
Subject: Mechanical Keyboards

How  can a keyboard be a hobby? Let me tell you. Keyboards may be a
commodity, but that doesn't mean you can't seek  out  a  nice  one.
The  keyboard  you type on every day may have been a carefully con-
sidered purchase but, for most of us, it wasn't given much thought.
There's an explanation for this mindset. This quote from the excel-
lent Mech 101 series at Keychatter.com[1] sums it up:

    Like a mattress, a good quality keyboard is an easy thing
    to overlook. And, like it or not, many of us use our key-
    boards even more than we use our mattresses. So  is  $100
    really  unreasonable  for  a  great keyboard? Not at all.
    It's actually a bargain.

If youre still not sure, consider this quote from Eiiti Wada in  an
interview with Massdrop[2]:

    Because  keyboards are accessories to PC makers, they fo-
    cus on minimizing the manufacturing costs. But that's in-
    correct.  When  America's cowboys were in the middle of a
    trip and their horse died, they  would  leave  the  horse
    there.  But  even if they were in the middle of a desert,
    they would take their saddle with them.  The horse was  a
    consumable  good,  but  the  saddle was an interface that
    their bodies had gotten used to. In the  same  vein,  PCs
    are  consumable  goods, while keyboards are important in-
    terfaces.

If youre convinced that keyboards are worth thinking about, there a
few things to consider before you make a purchase.

Keyboard Size

Full Size

A  full-size  (or 104-key) keyboard includes the alphanumeric keys,
function keys, navigation cluster,  and  number  pad  (or  tenkey).
This  is  great for people like me who use the alphanumeric keys to
type, the nav cluster to get around documents and spreadsheets, and
the  tenkey  when  a little data entry is in order. The downside is
that it takes up a bit of space and makes you reach further for the
mouse.

80% / Tenkey-less / TKL

An  80% keyboard has all the goodness of a full-size keyboard minus
the tenkey. If you don't enter lots of numbers often enough to jus-
tify  dedicated  keys,  you  can  save some space. That's about all
youll save, by the  way.  Smaller  keyboards  are  not  necessarily
cheaper.

60%

If  you can part with the nav cluster and function keys, you can go
even smaller. There are a number of in-between sizes like  the  64%
and  68%  that  add  parts of the nav cluster back in, while others
provide you with one or more built-in layers that provide access to
navigation keys.

Others

There  are  a lot more form factors including 40%, Planck, Ergodox,
and just of ton of weird stuff that you  really  have  to  see  for
yourself.  New  things  are  being developed all the time. If youre
considering making the switch to one of these, youre already pretty
far down the rabbit hole.

Keyboard Layouts

If,  like me, you grew up in the US, you are probably familiar with
the QWERTY layout on an ANSI keyboard. The QWERTY  layout  predates
modern technology and was designed to minimize mechanical interfer-
ence in typewriters. An alternative layout, DVORAK, was created  to
maximize  the  speed  and comfort of the typist. Why were all still
using QWERTY is a very interesting topic. There are  still  others,
such as COLEMAK, which was designed primarily as a remedy for QWER-
TY typists who don't want or need to change to the  radically  dif-
ferent DVORAK layout, but would like to pick up some speed and make
typing more comfortable. *Try this:* Map  your  caps  lock  key  to
backspace.  Now,  when you make a mistake, backspace is right under
your left pinky instead of having to reach all the way to the upper
right corner.

If  you want to pick up a third-party set of keycaps, you will want
to learn to spot keyboards with non-standard layouts. There  are  a
couple  things to look out for. ANSI layouts are more common in the
US while ISO keyboards are more common in, well, the  rest  of  the
world.  You  can  tell  them apart by looking at the enter key. The
other thing to look at is the bottom row of keys. You will have  an
easier  time  finding and installing keysets if you have a standard
bottom row. If you think of any single character key like, say, the
Y  key, it has a size of one unit or 1u. Larger keys can be thought
of as multiples of 1u. In a standard bottom row, the spacebar is 6u
and  the  ctrl,  win/cmd,  alt,  and Fn keys are all the same 1.25u
size.

How I Got Started

I had been eyeing a Das Keyboard for a couple years and  figured  I
would  pay a premium for the name. After some research, I picked up
a Cooler Master XT full-size keyboard with Cherry MX Blue switches.
Blue switches are recommended for typists, so I went for them. Typ-
ing on this keyboard was much louder than typing on the  Dell  key-
board  supplied  by my office. It actually made me feel a bit self-
conscious. To try to address this, I got a second Cooler Master  XT
with Cherry MX Brown switches. Going to brown switches made a minor
improvement. The majority of the noise was produced  when  the  key
cap  would land on the top of the switch (this is called bottoming-
out). To reduce the sound, I got a set of o-rings that fit onto the
shaft under the key cap and soften the landing when the key bottoms
out. This was working pretty well on the brown switches, so  I  got
another  set  to  put on the keyboard with the blue switches. I was
really happy with how this turned out, but I still  had  the  stock
key caps.

You don't need to get after-market key caps but, with most mechani-
cal keyboards, you can. I picked up a set of Ducky  PBT  key  caps.
They  were gray with blue modifiers. The legends were engraved, not
printed so, from a distance, they looked like blank keys. I  pulled
my stock keys and moved the o-rings to the new keys. When I was all
done, it looked really good. After using it for a while, I  noticed
that  the enter key on the tenkey would stick in the down position.
I looked at it and determined that one of  the  stabilizer  inserts
was loose. I figured it was falling out and jamming between the key
and the stabilizer or the switch housing. So,  I  bought  some  new
stabilizer  inserts from WASD. I also preemptively bought a tube of
silicone grease just in case lubrication was part of the problem. I
put the new inserts in and greased the stabilizer bars and the sta-
bilizer inserts. I tested the key. It still got stuck.

_OK, Google: PBT keycap stabilizer problem_

This time, I hit gold. My Cooler Master XT keyboards came with  ABS
key  caps.  ABS  is a plastic that is cheap to produce, has a shiny
finish, and can be made pretty thin. PBT  key  caps  are  typically
thicker  than  ABS key caps. The increased thickness of the PBT key
cap reduced the clearance available to the stabilizer bar. When the
key  went  down,  the lower run of the stabilizer bar would come up
and grind against the inner wall of the key cap. If this was really
the problem, then all the keys on stabilizers should be affected. I
tested each key and, while the problem  didn't  present  itself  as
acutely  on  all of them, it was still there. On my right shift and
enter keys, it felt like a hitch in the action of the key  relative
to keys without stabilizers.

The  cure for this is to create clearance by removing material from
the inside wall of the key cap. This can be done with sandpaper,  a
rotary  tool,  or  a hobby knife. I looked over some of my ABS caps
and I could actually see where the inner wall of the key  had  been
beveled to create extra clearance for the stabilizer bar. Those ge-
niuses knew what they were doing! I sanded down the inside  of  the
key caps with some 200 grit sandpaper wrapped around a bamboo skew-
er. Now they work flawlessly.

I Wish I Knew

 * Get a couple keyboards that you will probably like.
    * I like full-size keyboards, but there are other sizes
    * Learn about switch options. If you want a variety of key cap
 options, get switches with Cherry MX compatible stems.
 * Learn to spot ANSI and ISO layouts and non-standard key layouts
 * Just buy a bunch of supplies from WASD.
    * key pullers, at least two
    * O-rings, at least two sets
    * stabilizer inserts (for Costar stabs)
    * silicone grease
    * maybe sandpaper

The Rabbit Hole

 1. Purchase and use an entry-level mechanical keyboard
 2. Purchase and use an imported or top-shelf mechanical keyboard
 3. Purchase and install a set of key caps, o-rings optional
 4. Customize a programmable keyboard
 5. Commission a custom keyboard build
 6. Build your own keyboard
 7. Make your own key caps

Resources

[1]: https://www.keychatter.com/mech-101/
[2]: https://www.massdrop.com/article/eiiti-wada-interview
[3]: http://reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards
[4]: http://geekhack.org/
[5]: http://deskthority.net/
[6]: http://keychatter.com/

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