hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr3791.txt

Episode: 3791
Title: HPR3791: My Hardware Problem - Keyboards
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3791/hpr3791.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 05:24:07

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3,791 from Monday the 13th of February 2023.
Today's show is entitled, My Hardware Problem Keyboards.
It is part of the series' hardware upgrades.
It is the first show by Newhost Star Shiptux and is about 24 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is I'm always looking for new computer hardware.
This is about my keyboards.
Just a warning that this episode was recorded in traffic on a previous day, so you will
hear some background noise.
Thank you.
Good day.
My name is Star Shiptux and this is my first episode for Hacker Public Radio.
I'm going to call this my keyboard problem.
I'm a few more hardware problem episodes in the future, but there's ones about my keyboards.
Now this isn't a problem that I have bad keyboards or my keyboards don't work.
I'm always searching for the bigger, better, faster, more fit to me keyboard.
It started a long time ago.
Growing up, I was a child of the 80s and 90s, grew up on IBM PS2 computers and had those
nice clicky model in keyboards, and that's what a keyboard to me should feel like.
So in trying to replicate this later, I went through lots of cheap keyboards, whatever
came with my computer at the time, whatever was on the laptop at the time, and nothing
ever felt right.
I went through Microsoft ergonomic computers, membrane, things like that, and as I said,
nothing ever felt quite right.
A few years ago, I started getting into the tech space on YouTube and watching many videos
and starting to learn a little bit that there's actually a lot of keyboards out there that
you can make yourself, you can buy, and there are just dozens and dozens of options that
you can choose from.
So I decided I was going to buy me a very nice keyboard.
So I started with a Duckie brand, it was a Duckie one, it was RGB, and it had the Cherry
MX Blues on it.
And I actually really like this keyboard, but I've made a mistake.
So in trying to force myself to touch type more, I got a 10 keyless version of the keyboard.
This did suit my purpose for a while, it actually did force me to use the number key
row a lot more, but I did a lot of bookwork and number keypad stuff before, and I found
that this was not the proper keyboard for me.
While I love the switches, I love the quality, feel of the keyboard, I needed that 10 keypad.
And so I started looking for another keyboard.
At the time, I didn't have a lot of money, so I think I picked up like a, I was on Apex
Steel keyboard, a full size keyboard with the number pad on it, and did this for a while.
But the switches just were not the same.
They did not have those cherries, I don't know what brand was on that keyboard, but once
again, it didn't feel quite right to me.
So I bought a Razer keyboard, and I bought a Razer keyboard white keyboard with green
switches on it, and tried that for a while.
These were closer to what I wanted, but still just not quite the same feel as those cherry
MX blues.
So I gave that one to my wife, and she still uses it today, although I'm thinking about
building her another keyboard sometime.
Also I gave that Apex keyboard to my daughter.
Now I had given her my ducky keyboard, the 10 keyless one.
Now the problem about giving a keyboard to a kid is, no matter what the quality at savings,
these keyboards do not stand up to spills, and so that keyboard, while the keys still
worked, shorted out the RGB with a spill.
And only a few of the lights lit up, there's no way to control them anymore, and being a bit
OCD on things working properly, it just bugged me.
So I ended up one day down at micro-center, one about three hours from me, and we were
building my daughter a new computer, so during the time we just grabbed a keyboard part
of being a good parent is passing on your problems to your children.
So now my daughter is addicted to mechanical keyboards.
She prefers a nice clicky blue switch, similar to what I have had in the past.
So I bought her a cheap red dragon keyboard, I think it was about $40, it has otomu blue
keys on it, and while not my personal preference, I find them a bit harsh, a bit stiff, she likes
that keyboard.
Now I also, in that time, bought me another keyboard, it was a 96% keyboard from KeyCron,
and this also could be wireless, it was Bluetooth, it could connect to multiple devices, I thought
this was going to be great, and at the time I used a standing desk, but the keyboard
on my standing desk did not raise with the desk, so I would have two keyboards hooked
up, and use one as my primary, and then I would use the KeyCron as a secondary.
However, the KeyCron came with the Gatoron blue switches, and a different profile on
them, I think it's an OEM profile, and the angle just did not seem to fit my hand right,
and I found the Gatoron blues to be a bit scratchy, they just didn't have the smooth feeling
that the Cherry MX blues had had before.
So I just kind of kept trying to figure out what I wanted, I would use it occasionally,
but most of the time, after getting rid of my standing desk, it just sat in the closet
as a secondary keyboard in case I had a reason to pull it out.
So eventually I decided that I knew which brand I liked, I really liked the quality
of the Ducky keyboard, and so I decided I would buy one again, but I just noticed over
time that the blues were a little bit too heavy for what I liked the time, but I believe
a 55 Nm pressure force for actuation, and so I was talking about the Otomo blues,
or not Otomo blues, the Gatoron blues that I can't afford in the KeyCron, and this was
a soldered keyboard, so I did not have the time or the ability at the time to just desolder
and resolder in new switches, so eventually I just got rid of that keyboard.
But deciding that, I decided I liked the Ducky platform, their stuff was solidly built,
good color control, not overly wild about RGB, I don't need a unicorn, corn vomit or rainbows
coming out, but something that I can make match an overall theme to a setup I think is
very nice.
So I picked up a Ducky one too, this was a full size keyboard, it was a 108 key keyboard,
which there were 4 keys extra, there's a calculator key, mute, volume up, volume down,
and I liked that layout, and I very much was really thinking about getting cherry keys,
but the cherries were unavailable at the time I was needing to get this keyboard, or wanting
to get this keyboard would be more accurate.
So then I took and looked through and kind of saw a bunch of stuff, looked through the
different keys, and I had heard of the Cales, and they seemed to be reasonably good, they
seemed to be the same amount of key presses at the cherries at the time, I think they're
rated for 50 million, which is pretty common now, with mechanical key switches, summer
up to 100 million key presses of lifetime.
So I decided I would take the leap and go for a kale box white key in my cherry or my
Ducky keyboard.
I received this keyboard, and these keys have a 40 Newton meter actuation force on the
kale box white keys, this it still had a very nice click, it was very smooth, and it had
a little lighter press than the cherry MX keys, and with the box instead of just having
the little cross connection, such as a cherry MX key has, which is almost a standard in
the industry for any mechanical key now, not your reason, then the kale box white keys also
have a little rim around the outside, now that cross is where the stem goes, it has a
male cross on the key, whereas the key cap will have a female cross on it, and this is
how they are connected together.
So with the kale box white on the key, not only does it have the male cross, but it has
a little box around the outside edge, which also helps to grip the key cap and also provides
a stabilizing function for these keys and the key caps.
If you ever notice, you can kind of take a keyboard key and wiggle it back and forth
a little bit, and if you have the wider keys, such as a 1.25u key, which probably on the left
side of your keyboard, your control function, those keys are a 1.25u key, your regular
letter keys, those are a 1u key, the space bar is usually a 6 or a 6.25u key, and then your
shifts can be 2 to 2.5u keys.
So on some of those wider keys, such as the control key, you can kind of wiggle that,
and if it's not a very good key switch in your keyboard, you can kind of push on the
edge and it will press down, but not actuate the key.
So that's called wobble.
So if that key wobbles a bunch, it can be an issue.
Well, the box keys, you reduce a lot of that wobble.
It holds that key very rigidly many times, better than just a standard one.
And so you've got more accuracy on your key presses.
So these box white, it feels very stable in pressing the keys.
It had a lighter actuation force, and a nice RGB, very solid frame to my Ducky keyboard,
my Ducky 12, a nice USB-C connection, and this is now my favorite keyboard that is
in current daily use.
Now you'd think that would solve my keyboard issue, but of course, no.
If you're on hacker public radio, you probably have a tendency to mess with anything and
everything that you get.
So I decided I would go looking for new keycaps.
So I did.
I found some HyperX keys, they were known as a putting key cap.
They had a green top with the clear letter or number marking, symbol marking, and they
were known as putting.
So they were the top part was colored, but the rest of it was an opaque white.
So with an RGB keyboard, the lights and the colors and everything, it lit up these keys.
Very nicely kind of a neat opaque color look to them.
And I enjoyed this quite a bit for a long time.
I then, and so I have used that keyboard for several months, if not a year or more now.
But then I only had the one keyboard.
And sometimes I need a backup keyboard working on Raspberry Pi's.
If I need a graphical interface, I have an extra monitor, extra power supplies, extra
everything.
Except now I was down to one keyboard.
Now this should not have presented a problem, but you know, you can never have too much
of a good thing, right?
So this should not have presented a problem, but I decided I needed a backup keyboard.
Now since this was a backup, I didn't need anything special, but I didn't want just
a regular membrane keyboard or go buy something stock off the shelf.
And I was, I'm curious more and more about mechanical keyboards building my own.
What all it, it goes into that.
So I decided I would find a cheap keyboard that would, would allow me to customize some.
So which brings me back to my daughter's red dragon keyboard.
Now this one was simple, $40.
And in messing around with my 3D printer, I printed out her a creeper minecraft escape
key, keycap.
And well, I put it on her keyboard and she liked that.
You know, nice glow in the dark, PLA key, wasn't the greatest thing, but you know, it lit
up kind of neat with her keyboard.
Her keyboard was a backlit red, but only backlit red.
And one day my daughter came to me and said, hey, that keycap does not stay on very well.
Said, okay.
So I took in not thinking I put a little bit of superglue in it, put it on there and walked
away, forgot about it.
Came back a few days and said, hey, how's that key working?
She says it's stuck.
What?
She's like, yeah, it won't press, press anymore.
So I went in and looked at it and sure enough, it was stuck.
So I tried to wait, grab a keycap, pull her, wiggle it off and what unbeknownst to me,
this was a hot swappable keyboard.
So I went to yank it off and the whole keycap and the whole key popped out.
I was able to clean it up, get the key moving again, pop it back in, no problem.
And she had a nice stable Minecraft escape key on her red dragon keyboard.
And also in the meantime, a bunch of her lights had quite working and I didn't know what
I figured.
Once again, she spelled on it.
But when she'd reboot her computer, I would see the whole thing flash on for a moment.
And then when it loaded, it would then go back to what it where it was.
So I looked up on the internet and looked up red dragon LED blacklight no longer working.
And it said, hit this key combination.
It's a reset and it should reset your lighting settings.
And sure enough, all of the red back lights on her keyboard came back on.
Now this keyboard has been going for almost three years now.
And she has not managed to destroy this keyboard.
So that told me that the red dragon keyboard had some quality, despite being as cheap as
it was.
It resisted a kid who spills and things like that.
Also a few of their keyboards are considered as water resistant.
So this was a brand that I could look into.
And now I knew that they had hot, swappable keyboards available.
So I started researching, which brings me back to my backup keyboard.
And in looking into it, found a, what is known as a 75% keyboard.
And red dragon had one, it would turned out to be on sale for about $45 one day.
And it did have the hot swappable switches.
It is a keyboard that has no F keys.
So it does not have the top row, but it does have number keys and arrow keys in a compact
form factor.
So I decided I would try this keyboard, even though I couldn't find one with the switches
that I wanted.
And so I, we ordered this and I received it and I tried it out.
And I liked the form factor and, but it came with Otamu red keys, which were just slightly
better to me than a membrane keyboard.
There was no click to it.
You couldn't feel the actuation point.
Keys felt sloppy, a lot of wiggle to them, everything like that.
But I had planned for this.
This was going to be a mess around test that for me.
I took after about a week and ordered a set of hot swappable kale box whites, the same
as my Ducky keyboard.
And so they came and I went through and changed all those switches out.
And they seemed to snap in fine, but after a few days, a few of them kind of quit working.
So I'm just using it for a few days.
I would pop those keys back out and found out some of the pins had bent over, had temporarily
made contact with the insertion point, but had lost that connection.
But it was easy enough to take straightened out that connection, a little pin sticking
out of the back of it, pop it back in and it would function again.
And I had extra keys, fortunately I didn't have to, didn't need any of them.
So changed out all of those keys, key switches and put the key caps back on and had a nice
backup keyboard it felt good, it actually sounded quite nice.
And I decided, great, now I want to put a different key cap than the stock that they
had because it was a red and black configuration with a couple of white keys on there that
I just didn't, I didn't mind the red and black, the white keys just kind of threw off
the whole look of the keyboard in my personal opinion.
So I took off all of the key caps once again and bought a set of clear black key caps from
eBay, I believe, and it came as a massive set.
There was something like 160 to 170 keys in this, it came with extra control keys and
alt keys and page up, page down, just a whole bunch of extra keys so that it could fit
lots of different keyboards, lots of different formats.
This kind of brings me back to the Razer keyboard that I had while the control menu and alt
keys on the left were standardized, it has a, on the right side of the space bar, it has
a one unit key that's the alt and then two 1.25 unit keys and then another single one
new key.
And they're the only ones that I have seen that uses this configuration.
So that created a problem on that keyboard, we had changed out the key caps from my wife,
but there were about five or six keys on that, that a standard key cap replacement set
did not have, whereas this clear black one does have options for all those keys.
Now these clear blacks also were an ASA style key cap, there's several different ones and
maybe I'll talk about those later, I haven't used very many of them, looks like I've now
used OEM, MX and ASA style key caps, but this actually was a pretty good feel to me.
Once I took and replaced on my red dragging keyboard, I used these clear black ones and
they were, I really liked the feel of them, but without having the function keys and things
like that, I decided I didn't want that if you my daily driver, I could just stay the
backup keyboard, but I liked these clear black ASA keys so much that, well, all of the
HyperX putting key caps came off of my Ducky keyboard on when the clear black ones.
And I put the originals back on the red dragging keyboard.
So currently I am using my Ducky one too, with kale box white switches and ASA clear
black key caps.
My wife is using a razor keyboard and with razor green switches, which are similar to
a cherry MX blue, and she has a black crystal key caps on hers so you can actually see the
LEDs a little more and the back lights.
My daughter is using a red dragon with Odomu blue keys and red back light and one custom
Minecraft.
As you can see, I have a hardware problem, a keyboard problem, I'm always looking at
keyboards and seeing new stuff.
So I'm hoping this may help others to think about recording an HPR episode and reach out
and talk about what hardware do you have?
What things are you into that maybe you don't really think about?
So hopefully this will make it to you someday, and this is my first episode of Hacker Public
Radio.
Thank you, everyone, have a good day.
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