I built a keyboard I like the other day. You can build your own custom keyboard like this if you want to. It's more approachable than you might think!
Parts list:
- KBDFans Holy 60 case. It comes with screws, standoffs, and a torx driver for its screws.
- Silicone standoff covers, to prevent accidental shorts from the board touching the metal standoffs.
- A PCB that can be mounted in this case. Any 60% PCB that can go into the KBDFans Tofu60 original flavor can go into the Holy 60, which is a wide range of boards. I chose the DZ60 RGB with the arrow keys, because I use the arrow keys a lot. Another popular choice is the Wooting HE 60 board to use with magnetic Hall Effect switches.
- Case and PCB foam matching your pcb if you like muted sounds. If you don't know what you like, get some foam. You can try it with and without and find out which you prefer.
- A plate to match whichever PCB you pick. POM, FR4, polycarbonate, carbon fiber, aluminum, and brass are the usual options. If you don't know which material to choose, choose FR4 as a good starting point. Or listen to some sound tests.
- Screw-in stabilizers with at least 3 2U stabs and a 6.25U spacebar option. Most stabilizer kits come with 4 2Us and both 6.25 and 7U spacebar options, so this is easy. If you are offered a choice of board thickness, 1.6mm is the most common.
- Switches for your board that feel & sound good to you. If you're really stuck, pick one of these five. (Remember that if you are going with a Hall Effect board, you need magnetic switches. Pick the Gaterons, probably.) You'll want extras, so get 70.
- Keycaps you like that work with your switches. Almost everything uses the standards established by Cherry MX. You'll know if you're buying something that isn't this.
- A very small precision Phillips screwdriver for the stabilizers.
- Optional: dielectric grease & Krytox to lube the stabilizers if they don't come pre-lubed.
Alternatively, if you don't want to worry about which PCB to pick:
- Holy60 keyboard kit
- silicone standoff covers
- switches
- keycaps
About vendors: it's fine to buy the case from KBDFans directly if you're in the US or anywhere they have reasonable shipping. Double-check before buying because returns are difficult. If you're in the EU, you probably want to find a closer vendor. For switches and keycaps you have a lot of vendor choices. PCB options were harder for me. I had to frankenstein the DZ60 with foams from StupidFish and a plate from KeebsForAll. I got the PCB from Drop, which doesn't ship outside North America as far as I know.
Once all your packages have arrived from the bewildering variety of vendors you've purchased from, you're ready to build. Find a nice flat clean surface to work on.
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Unpack everything and make sure you have everything on your checklist. Set aside the packaging.
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Screw the standoffs into the obvious spots in the case. Put the little silicone socks onto both the screw-in standoffs and the built-in ones. Set the case aside for the moment.
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Plug in the bare board and make sure it powers on. You might need a USB-A connector at the end opposite the USB-C connector. (Why? I dunno.) If not, return it. If yes, unplug and continue.
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Stabilizer time! You can lube them if you want to. Even if you don't, please watch this Taeha video to learn how to assemble and install them onto your board: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usNx1_d0HbQ
The video is helpful even if you're not normally a video learner, because stabilizers are easy to get slightly wrong. Make sure the pairs of stems on each stabilizer move freely together before you move on. You want to discover mistakes now when they're easy to fix.
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Now you can start layering components into the case and screwing them into place. Make sure everything lines up correctly! The USB C connector needs to line up with the opening in the back of the case. The screw holes need to line up with the standoffs. The PCB, PCB foam, and plate need to line up with each other. To help with lining up the sandwich, install two switches at diagonally opposite corners and a third one somewhere else.
The final layers are:
plate ----------
PCB foam ==========
PCB ----------
case foam ==========
case bottom ----------
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You can screw the PCB into place now. Don't over-tighten.
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Install all the switches. The PCB is almost all south-facing RGB; that is, the leds are on the side of the switch closest to the typist. The gap in your switch (which lets light shine through) or the LED light diffusor goes on THAT side, and the double copper pins on the other. The exceptions are the ESC key and the 1 key next to it, which are both north-facing. You can plug in the board and make sure each switch successfully generates a keypress while you're doing this.
Be firm but don't force the switches. You can accidentally bend pins so they fail to make contact with the sockets. This is easily fixed: pull the switch out and either use another one or use tweezers to straighten out the pin.
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Re-test all the switches when you're done. The Via config software has a handy test mode, as does the fork Vial.
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Install keycaps! There is no wrong way to do this if you're happy with the result.
Congrats! You're done. Plug your keyboard in and go! PCBs come pre-flashed with Via-compatible firmware these days. Once you assemble everything, it should work out of the box, and you should be able to change which keys do which with either Via or Vial. If you're using a Mac, I recommend Karabiner to rewrite keyboard events on the way in, and even disable the built-in keyboard. I do this to turn off my laptop keyboard and rest a mechanical one on top of it.
Here's a demo video of what the whole process looks like with a Wooting board: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLAjP2zXT-M
- white Holy60
- DZ60-RGB-v2 (with the arrow cluster)
- POM plate
- StupidFish case and PCB foams
- HMX Xinhai switches (high pitched, clacky)
- Osume Red Panda keycaps