Support for Alternative Layouts
This is a summary of how alternative layouts have been supported by kits such as Colevrak and Homing. It is not a discussion of alt layout performance and development, but if that interests you I highly recommend starting with Pascal Getreuer’s A guide to alt keyboard layouts (why, how, which one?). It’s a concise and comprehensive overview with links to some great sites that go deeper. He also has a separate Links about keyboards page. The Keyboard layouts doc he recommends explains layout goals and metrics in detail, summarizing the alt layouts discussed here as well as more than one hundred others. Sculpted-profile The majority of custom keycap sets are sculpted-profile (Cherry, SA, MT3, KAT, etc. - more on profiles generally here) so let’s start there. Because each row has a unique keycap shape, alt layouts require a unique keycap for each legend that moves off its QWERTY row. At first there were two The Dvorak layout was patented in 1936 by August Dvorak & William L....
Apr 23, 2024
I suggest putting some shelf liner in the bottom of these cases or else they sound pretty hollow
I already have a really nice RealForce (https://elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=topre_keyboards,rftenkeyless&pid=rf_se170s) and that was pretty expensive. I'm just trying to decide on whether or not to pull the trigger on this. I reaaaaaaally like your setup with the wood, white keys (topre?), and green backlighting. How much did it cost all put together sans time?
The realforce is a nice keyboard for sure, and if you like topre switches im not sure if you would want to switch to cherry switches (especially tactile switches like cherry clear, grey, and brown). Of course clicky switches like blues, whites, and greens are an option and so are linear switches like red, black, and linear grey.
Personally I really like linear switches, especially really smooth ones so I usually find some vintage cherry black switches and do spring swaps and lube them so they are smooth. Most off the shelf cherry linear switches are really scratchy. I do have to say though, gateron linear switches are insanely smooth, smoother than most vintage black switches. For these reasons I really like making custom boards, but in the end it is really just a hobby.
I started with a razer blackwidow a few years ago and never even knew about or cared for the idea of a custom keyboard or dropping hundreds on a realforce board or something. Now I probably have 12+ keyboards, most custom, and I have spent thousands on them, so it isn't exactly a cheap hobby and it is a slippery slope :/
The specs on that board were the datamancer case for 150 according to my invoice. Then gateron linear clear switches were around 30 dollars. I have 67g aftermarket springs in it which were around 10 dollars. Then green 1.8mm leds were 7 dollars. The PCB is a "satan" GH60 which cost around 40. Plate was a stock poker 2 plate that I painted with testors emerald green for like 6 dollars. Keycaps are GMK classic beige keycaps. Not sure of the cost of those keycaps, probably something like 120. So total cost you would be looking at around $350-375 dollars. Add around 20 dollars to that figure because it doesn't account for the cost of a plate I used that was sitting around from a dead poker 2 of mine.
There are ways to jazz up realforce keyboards. There were some digilog cases available on ebay not too long ago that were cnc aluminum cases with little brass feet, they made the keyboard work over micro usb so you didnt have to have that USB cable stuck to the keyboard the whole time (one thing that I do not like about my realforce) and even included three usb ports on the back of the case so the keyboard acted as a usb hub much like the stock HHKB does. They were available in silver, black, and red and cost 200 dollars. They haven't made any more and I don't know if they plan on doing so either. Only downside to those cases were they were kinda like a brick. They had no angle built into the case, but they did have feet so the keyboard did sit at an angle at least. There were also some quality problems with the USB hub they made for the keyboard and I remember people having to get digilog to send them replacement usb hubs.
There was also a KBDmod realforce cases that did have some angle to them but they were produced in very limited numbers and I haven't seen one in forever. And KBDmod has closed down now so there won't be any others made for sure.
There are also colored realforce keycap sets but they are expensive for what they are and they do not produce them anymore either so the options are limited as of now. You can find them on ebay by searching for topre pbt keycap sets. They cost 150 dollars and come in red, blue, yellow, green, and some other colors like orange and pink but I think all of the pink sets have been bought up in both printed and unprinted. There might have been some other colors, not sure.
You can also swap out the topre sliders for novatouch sliders and be able to use cherry mx keycaps but I only see people doing that with the HHKB so I am not sure if the realforce isn't as easy to do that on (bottom row is not standard) and there might be other reasons. Though the stock topre keycaps are nice and most tend to say it is kinda dumb to put cherry mx keycaps on topre boards when the stock topre keycaps are so nice anyway.
Cherry MX keyboards are a lot easier to customize since there are so many cases, pcbs, switches and keycap sets.
There are people on geekhack.org that do keyboard assembly for a fee. I haven't used any of them though and I don't know who is reliable or has fast turnaround. The thought of turning over 400-500 dollars worth of keyboard stuff to some random person (no matter how nice/legit they might appear online) doesn't seem smart to me. Plus there have been plenty of assembly people I have seen get super behind on orders and have multi-month turnarounds that the people who sent the stuff didn't anticipate. So their stuff just ends up in limbo for however long it takes the person to get around to the work.
Putting together boards is really simple though and is half the fun for me. I just use a simple 30 dollar soldering iron and have no problems.
My fiancée was in the same boat until a few months ago when I wanted to come into work on a Saturday for the Bay Area meet-up; she came to use our large format printer for our 40 or so wedding invites. Well she came over and looked at a few of the boards, now she's hooked. Built her own board, is looking at another. She texts me pictures from /r/mechanicalkeyboards all the time. Some times it's just a matter of asking questions, and thats what I love about this community, both mechanical keyboards, and Massdrop.