Figure 1: I couldn't think of a more literal way to represent this article if I tried...
Looking back just a few years ago, there’s no doubt that the huge influx of people that joined the hobby at the peak of the COVID pandemic were drawn to keyboards by way of YouTube, TikTok, and other audio-visual content platforms. Even as the output from these content creators has waned in recent months, their collective impact and legacy on the keyboard hobby is rather firmly etched in the history books. As a result of all of their sound tests, build logs, and opinion videos, the message is clear to any new person joining the hobby: mechanical keyboards are all about the sound. Thock this, clack that. Whether it’s keyboards, keycaps, or even singular switches, seemingly everyone new to the hobby meticulously pores over each component of their keyboard not in an attempt to figure out how it will feel in hand, but how it will sound as they’re furiously grinding their way out from...
A brief reflection and look at how far our community has come since joining.
I’ve been in the mechanical keyboard hobby for a very long time. It started as a high school student’s search for a keyboard for writing novels back in the 2008-2009 school year. I thought I wanted to be an author and I felt I needed a keyboard that I could sit down to at my desk and just write. After researching, joining forums, and saving money, I made my first purchase in the hobby, a blank black Happy Hacking Keyboard Professional 2. I still own this keyboard and while it is heavily modded now, it remains one of my all-time favorites.
My HHKB Pro2 with MitchCapped Accents
Many people would have stopped there, but keyboards became a hobby. I enjoyed learning about them, and early on, I enjoyed hunting for them in thrift shops. I would dig through bins at Goodwill and Salvation Army while popping keycaps off with paperclips looking for mechanical switches. I searched for a birthday Model M...
The SpaceFN concept - setting up your space key as a layer switch when held - is probably one of the most useful tweaks in the keyboard hobby. Let me explain how it works.
My SpaceFN article on kbd.news made some rounds recently - quite surprisingly given the age of this concept. This piece you're reading is a condensed version of the full post. If you're left with unanswered questions, you'll most likely find the info you're looking for in the original write-up.
On my imaginary top list of the most useful keyboard features, tweaks and hacks, SpaceFN would deserve a podium finish for sure. But what makes it so special?
In short: SpaceFN is easy to implement, easy to learn, costs nothing, can be used with any keyboard, and can improve your productivity instantly.
I will list its benefits below, but can state right at this point that the SpaceFN concept, setting up your space key as a layer switch when held, is clearly one of the most useful tweaks in the keyboard hobby....
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....
As we publish more articles in the "Mech Keys How-To" series currently ongoing, navigating the various topics and finding previous articles will only become more difficult. This thread will serve as a table of contents to help add some structure to the whole project.
Feel free to also suggest future topics in this thread, as it will surely be easier to identify gaps and opportunities for further exploration when viewing everything as a whole.
Mechanical Keyboards
Introductory Topics
Mechanical vs Membrane
Sizes and Layouts of Mechanical Keyboards
Short Intro Into Split Keyboards (dovenyi)
Staggered and Ortholinear Layouts
Support for Alternate Layouts (dvorcol)
Low-Profile vs High-Profile Keyboard Designs
Build Materials and Other Case Design Considerations
Selecting Your First Mechanical Keyboard (The_Manic_Geek)
Keycaps
Keycap Materials
Keycap Profiles
DCX vs DCD vs DCL
In Defense of MT3 (StoryBoardTech)
How To Design a GMK Keycap Set (GMK_Andy)
The GMK Color...
DCX vs DCD vs DCL - Drop’s Keycap Profiles Explained
We’ve covered the basics of keycap profiles before—spherical/cylindrical, sculpted/uniform, etc. One thing that has come up more and more over the years as we’ve expanded our portfolio of offerings here at Drop is the distinction between some of our similar profiles. Specifically, what is the actual difference between DCX, DCD, and DCL?
Cylindrical Profiles
To recap the previous article on the topic, one of the most basic ways to separate various keycap profiles is by shape (cylindrical, spherical, or flat). DCX, DCD, and DCL are all cylindrical profiles.
The most famous cylindrical profile is Cherry profile, as defined by the original manufacturer of the keycaps—Cherry. GMK now owns those tools, and as such, only they can technically claim to produce “Cherry” profile keycaps. Similar keycap profiles are often called Cherry profile colloquially, but are in actuality slightly different. For the sake of not splitting hairs, all of the cylindrical profiles discussed here are...
3 or 5? How many pins does your switch really need?
One of the oldest questions, albeit one you don’t see very often anymore, is about 3-pin and 5-pin MX switches. Early in the custom switch scene, budding enthusiasts would need to determine whether their keyboard needs 3-pin or 5-pin switches. Today, the question doesn’t appear as often as it used to, but it is still important to know the difference and when one is a better choice.
The difference between these two types of switches is in the name, the number of pins. As seen in the pictures below, 3-pin switches have two metal legs for the contact leaves and registering of switch presses as well as the stem pole. These switches were traditionally called plate mount switches, as they relied on the plate to align the switches on the PCB. 5-pin switches have the same contact pins and stem pole but are also accompanied by two additional alignment pins on the left and right of the stem pole. These were called PCB mount switches, as they could be used without plates as the PCBs would...
Figure 1: Sometime around here is a good time to ask that question...
If you’re new to the mechanical keyboard hobby, I have no doubt that planning your first keyboard build is a bit of a daunting task. To be entirely honest with you, it’s only a tiny bit less daunting for your second or even third keyboard builds should you stay around a little while longer. You’ve got the keyboard itself to worry about, stabilizers, keycaps, and even switches on top of all of the intangible marks you want your dream keyboard to hit. Switches are especially daunting right out of the gate as there’s just so many options out there to pick from – each with their own unique specifications, manufacturers, and more. Yet, in spite of all of these differences between switches, time and time again I find people always asking about lubing switches as one of their chief concerns when it comes to picking some up. With countless numbers of content creators talking about lubing switches, its no...
Keyboards at work: A rationale for returning mechanical keyboards to the office environment.
As I walk down the hall to my office each morning, I hear the discordant clattering of keys coming from my coworker’s office. In the hall… several doors down… I hear them. Like the loose teeth in my grandma’s poodle, barely hanging on, they rattle and heave. If anyone’s ever told you that mechanical keyboards are too loud, it’s simply because that person has become completely desensitized to the garbage-bomb that is the standard office computer keyboard.
In the 1980’s and 90’s, it was common to hear the sound of unmitigated excellence when you walked into an office building. The rapid gunfire-like precision of a room full of high-quality computer keyboards firing in unison. Even in the early 2000’s when I worked in a south-side Chicago newspaper newsroom, it was still filled with such keyboards. Ten to fifteen years into their professional daily use, they were still magnificent in sound and feel. Punctual, clean, decisive. In those days, professional keyboards didn’t come...
If you haven't seen the first part of our interview series with Mr. Bingo, be sure to check that out for an introduction to the designer himself. We're picking things up here with part two, where Mr. Bingo shares some of his design process and how he draws inspiration for his designs!
Before we dive in—we want to express another huge thank you to Mr. Bingo for taking the time to answer all of our questions here. It's always fascinating to get a peek behind the curtain and we're very appreciative for the opportunity.
Do you have a process for gathering your potential ideas, and culling down to workable concepts that you select designs to move forward with and take to the community? Would you be able to share a bit about what goes into those decisions?
I feel that I am a designer who likes to have physical things and not digital. So when it comes to making a set and already have the idea, I look for things physically, for example, in the matcha set, I did a lot of...
Before launching any product, there are many designs, concepts, and ideas that pass between teams before arriving at a final design which makes its way to your computer screen and, eventually, desk. This is no more true than when considering possibly the most "art"-forward aspect of the mechanical keyboard hobby—artisan keycaps. It should be obvious that a lot of planning and artistry goes into crafting these literal pieces of art. We don't often get a chance to see behind the curtain, though. So, let's take a closer look at the upcoming Drop + Dwarf Factory Lord of the Rings Rohan Artisan Keycaps.
Before any resin is spilled, Middle Earth (the entity that licenses the Lord of the Rings IP) needs to approve the concepts based on concept art provided by Dwarf Factory. We connect with DF to coordinate on the topic and subject matter—in this particular case, additional Rohan-themed designs—to be sure that the concepts match with overall direction, whether that be pairing up with a...
When considering which aftermarket keycap set to get, there can be many different factors to consider. We’ve already discussed the different materials that keycaps can be made from, and of course there is the obvious colorway consideration, but what about the shape of the individual keycaps themselves?
In the early days of the enthusiast keyboard hobby, there were extremely limited options available for aftermarket keycap sets. Unicomp was making replacement keycap sets for buckling spring keyboards and Signature Plastics was making keycap sets compatible with MX switches (GMK had not yet become an option to the enthusiast market - that would come a couple years later).
Now, though? You’d be easily forgiven for being overwhelmed by the number of options available on the market at this point.
Let’s walk through the characteristics that define the various profiles, and cover some of the major profiles you’ll come across.
▪️ Keycap Shape (Spherical, Cylindrical, Flat)
▪️ Sculpted...
It is with great pleasure that we are able to formally introduce Mr. Bingo by way of an interview! Thank you so much for taking the time to answer all of our questions and allow us to peer inside your process a bit.
For those of you who aren't familiar with Mr. Bingo's past work yet, he's the brains behind GMK Cream Matcha and GMK Cubed, as well as many renders in support of other projects across the hobby.
He is of course also the designer behind DCD WLK-MN, his latest project inspired by a love of retro gadgets. So, without further ado, let's get to know Mr. Bingo!
We’d love to hear a little bit about yourself and your history - relevant to mech keys or not. Where are you from, what is your “day job”, what are your other hobbies and interests aside from keyboards?
Hey, well my day job is to design and do renders for a company that makes keyboards and gaming products. So I live from this hobby everyday! I also have other small hobbies that I'm just starting right...
I don’t like the phrase “it should go without saying”; if that were the case, there would be so many things that never got mentioned, and a lot of things we’d get wrong because of it. This is also true when building your custom mechanical keyboard: there’s a multitude of best practices out there that can, and will, help guide you towards a cleanly built, good-sounding board and an overall positive experience, provided someone *tells* you what those are. Here are some that “should go without saying”, but will be said anyway for those who are new to the hobby, or just getting back in after some time away!
We’ll be focusing on hotswap mechanical keyboards, as those are by and large the most popular kind of PCB for newcomers and veterans alike, though many of our practices will still apply to soldered builds as well. As always, if there’s anything you feel we missed and would like to add, or need further clarification on, feel free to leave a comment below!
Check All Parts Before...
Creating a flexible novelty tool for DCX keycap sets
Before we can talk about the nuances of different novelty tool designs, it’s important to discuss how DCX keycaps are produced to begin with. DCX tooling is all designed to use a doubleshot injection molding process, which first injects the inner legend shot, then flips the entire metal slab of tooling to another portion of the machine, where the outer shot of plastic is injected to complete the keycap. In contrast, an alternative method would be to use a process called “insert molding”, which creates many of the inner legend shots in a row before—you guessed it—inserting those back into a different machine for the outer shot to be molded around. Each process has its pros and cons. Most important to the topic at hand, the doubleshot process is very efficient and designed to produce an entire keycap set’s worth of keys at once. However, this comes at the cost of rigidity, requiring an entire new tool to be produced if you want to...
Introducing the latest keycap set designed by MrBingo—inspired by a retro classic.
DCD WLK-MN takes cues from an iconic device from the past, combining the nostalgia of yesteryear with the modern functionality of mechanical keyboards. Featuring a sleek color scheme of blue, gray, and orange, these keycaps will bring a pop of personality to any custom keyboard setup. Made with high-quality PBT material, they are built to last and provide a comfortable typing experience.
This is MrBingo's first collaboration with Drop, but he's no stranger to keycap design. Stay tuned for a future Story featuring an interview with MrBingo discussing his history, inspirations, and designs.
"I am a very nostalgic person; I love to look back and see how things have evolved by leaps and bounds. That's why I view the things of the past with both joy and a hint of sadness. What seemed so advanced at the time now appears quite simple. I'm not saying I feel like I was born in the wrong...
Figure 1: A fantastic Kailh switch photo from Blitzenx51!
There’s any number of different details people look into when they’re trying to pick out switches for their next keyboard build. However, arguably none of them are as vague and mysterious as the materials used to make housings and stems. Yes, even as manufacturers are iffy about their spring weights and newer brands are sketchy about who actually made their switches, differentiating POM from Nylon from Polycarbonate remains to this day the least understood parts of mechanical keyboard switches. For what it’s worth, I don’t have a fix for that either. As someone who has completed a master’s degree in chemical engineering focusing on polymer science, I understand full well that attempting to reverse engineer the formulas of even the most simple keyboard switch materials would take months on end and nearly free-range access to numerous analytical instruments that companies simply won’t hand over to you. However, that...
Figure 1: What could be so confusing about some pretty NOS Alps SKCL Greens?
Having thoroughly beaten my opinions to death on well over a hundred different modern, MX-style switches over the past few years, one of the most common questions I get revolves around why I hardly use and/or review vintage, non-MX style switches at all. After all, the wide world of vintage mechanical keyboard switches is full of unique, odd mechanisms and “all modern switches are just recolors of each other.” While I take personal issue with that incredibly misguided second claim, I can totally understand how people can look at the wide swathes of variation in vintage switches and naturally think that that would be something I’d gravitate towards. And for what it’s worth, vintage switches are both incredibly interesting and something that I have quite a lot of hiding away in boxes. Some of my favorite brands and styles include RAFI Hall Effect switches, Hi-Tek 725s of all forms, SMK Inverse...
SA in 2024: Where does the high-profile king stand in the modern keyboard hobby?
In early 2021, I only had eyes for SA Godspeed.
Raised in Florida across the bay from Cape Canaveral, I grew up watching space shuttle launches, and my dad’s life-long obsession with NASA, space and sci-fi quickly spread to me. At 27, I was introduced to Neil Armstrong, a personal hero, and was able to tell him the impact he had on me and my family. So on that fateful spring day when I walked into my IT department and told my coworkers that I was thinking of getting into mechanical keyboards, the first set I wanted to own was Godspeed. It took awhile, and I mean awhile for me to accumulate all the different versions of that set. It has three alphas (Solar, Lunar and Supernova), a few full alternates (Mito & Genespeed) and several alternate modifier sets including the transcendent Ares colorway. But several hundred dollars, and many months later, I had constructed a few keyboards all equipped with different versions of SA Godspeed. I made an Earth keyboard, a Mars, an Asteroid, a...
Among the seemingly countless number of switch options out there, you’ll be surprised to know that the vast majority of them fit cleanly into one of three different categories known as ‘linear’, ‘tactile’, or ‘clicky’. I promise that I am not deceiving you here. Even with all of the different variations in weightings, color schemes, and manufacturing brand names that you see among switch options out there, most of them are one of these three main types. (Hint: That’s why DROP breaks down their switch options into those three categories.)
As to what the distinguishing features of each of the three main types of switches are, simply know that these are used to differentiate the sound and/or feeling between each switch. Additionally, some of the variations that you’ll see within each of these three main types may further provide some context as to how these switches are different from normal linears, tactiles, or clickies. So, without much more delay, let’s go ahead and walk through...
One of the most time-honored traditions of the mechanical keyboard community are the in-person meetups hosted all over the world each year. Unlike video game communities or trading card games, there’s neither a regular weekly meeting schedule nor a large, once-per-year type convention hall that packs every keyboard enthusiast together under one roof. Instead, usually once per year people at a state, regional, or even country-wide level gather for a grassroots organized keyboard meetup bringing keyboards, artisans, and nearly everything they have keyboard related to show off and share with other people in the hobby. Whether its organized by a few outstanding, well known community members or put on by a keyboard vendor, these meetups are almost always an amazing opportunity to get to meet other people you only know from behind a screen and to try out a bunch of keyboards, keycaps, and switches you’d otherwise have to sink money into trying out. And for those of you who have never made...
DCL (Drop Cylindrical Lumen) is our latest keycap profile added to the portfolio here at Drop. You’ve seen these keycaps already—they are included with the CSTM80 and CSTM65, our most recent keyboard launches.
Overview
The goal with DCL keycaps is to offer a high-quality shine-through-compatible keycap profile that is fully compatible with south-facing switches. Not only for the sake of physical interference, but perhaps more importantly, the functionality of shine-through.
In addition to a premium look and feel, we also wanted to ensure that the sound of the keycaps is not negatively affected by any design choices. The end result is a thick ABS keycap coated in an opaque outer layer which is then laser-ablated to remove the top layer, creating front-facing legends for optimal shine-through.
Comparison
To help illustrate the importance of properly-oriented shine-through keycaps and show the full range of offerings, here is a quick family photo of all of Drop’s...
Stabilizer Shake Down - A breakdown of modern MX-style stabilizers
One of the best parts of custom keyboards is the sound they make. It’s clean, crisp, and free from any chatter or rattles. On a well-built custom keyboard, each keystroke is solid and definitive. On the smaller keys on your keyboard, keys 1.75 units or less, you can attribute that feeling to the switches themselves. However, on larger keys, keys that are 2 units and larger, stabilizers can make or break that feeling. Today, there are a plethora of different stabilizer options available for purchase. It can be confusing trying to navigate the different brands and configurations of stabilizers. Hopefully, after reading this, you’ll have the confidence to purchase the stabilizer that fits both your budget and your needs.
Before laying out the stabilizer options, it is important to understand their function within a keyboard. Stabilizers serve two main purposes. The first is to ensure that when pressing a larger key (2 units or larger) there is consistency in the keycap press. This...
Admittedly, I’ve not covered much in the way of ‘frankenswitches’ either here on Drop or over on my own website where I do full length switch reviews. While part of this is because there’s already way too much variety in factory-made switches out there that I still need to cover, a much larger part of this is due to the fact that the number of frankenswitches is borderline endless at this point. Frankenswitching, for those of you who don’t know, is the act of mixing and matching parts between various types of switches in order to provide a unique combination of aesthetics, performance, or a bit of both that you simply couldn’t get elsewhere in a stock switch. Combine this idea with the fact that there are well over a thousand different MX-style switches which in theory have interchangeable parts, and you can see why I refer to this list as practically endless.
Figure 1: Not quite the monster movie that goes with 'frankenswitch', but ol' Dracula and his frankenswitches just...
Figure 1: My Imada force gauge machine gifted to me by Drop mid-collection of a Drop Holy Panda X force curve.
Over the course of the last year or so of writing switch reviews of my own, I’ve been integrating more and more data into my descriptions and comparisons of switches. This is seen no more clearly than in the dozens of wiggly-lined graphs, known as ‘Force Curves’, that now sprout up in the dozens on each of my latest reviews. While I’ve managed to avoid dragging the discussion of force curves into any of my short articles on Drop thus far, the increasing use of them throughout my work means I should probably get around to discussing them sometime soon. After all, while I live and die by this kind of information for switches, I fully well understand that I am more obsessed about switches than the vast majority of (admittedly kind of already weird) mechanical keyboard enthusiasts. However, I think that knowing a thing or two about force curves could make a big...
In defense of MT3, the most misunderstood and possibly greatest keycap profile.
Offices are tense spaces, there’s no way around it. Whether they’re silent, museum-like tombs or raucous zoos filled with energy. In this place of distraction, and often discomfort, it’s important to have tools that make you more efficient, comfortable and focused. Personally, I am lucky to work in a happy, healthy work environment with amazing coworkers, but my office is filled with distraction and on my best days it’s a challenging ecosystem in which to create.
I’ll be honest, I’m no gamer, and it wasn’t the speedy, silent linear switches or 8000Hz polling rates of gaming boards that drew me to this hobby. It was the spirit of clickety-clackety typewriters of the past and a desire to craft my words on a surface that deserved them… one that amplified my ideas and provided a comfy ambience that encouraged creativity.
I don’t feel old, and certainly don’t act old, but I’ve been a designer for 25 of my 43 years and in that whole time I’ve hated the keyboards I’ve used. With the...
By now, we’ve all seen those technology column articles from various news outlets discussing all of the best new mechanical keyboards out there for you to “upgrade your productivity” and “customize your workplace setup.” While some of these articles look at different pre-built options and every so often a truly customizable one, all of these articles fall short on one specific thing: the switch options.
Championed as productivity improvers, strain reducers, and the ultimate personalized touch for your desk at work or at home, these websites unfortunately limit their discussion of mechanical keyboard switches simply to ‘Red’, ‘Blue’, and ‘Brown’ ones. Knowing that there are thousands of more interesting, uniquely designed, and fancifully colored options out there, I can’t help but feel a little sad that first-time buyers think that that is all there is out there for them. Keeping in mind how many new keyboard enthusiasts are sold short on the switch options out there, the team at...
The secret bedrock of any technology-heavy hobby is a whole bunch of slang and jargon that makes it feel borderline like a second language to outsiders listening in on discussions about the hobby. Mechanical keyboards are, much to your surprise I’m sure, no exception to that rule. Unfortunately, having been around for as long as I have been, I’ve become a bit of the problem and have found myself casually shooting acronyms and concepts way above my friends and coworkers heads as I talk to them about keyboards. Equally as disappointing of me is that this has also seeped into my content, as well. In fact, as I was looking through some of my old writing the other day, I realized that I have eternally used one phrase - “OEM” - without ever actually elaborating on what explicitly I mean by such in the broader context of mechanical keyboard switches. While I get that it feels really basic and easy for many people who have been deep in the hobby for some time to kind of understand...
If you’re in this hobby long enough, you’ll eventually encounter a set of stabilizers (stabs) that, for reasons you can’t quite explain, will not stop rattling or ticking! Even if you followed all of the best practices we previously outlined, and memorized our stabilizer tuning guide, you may still run into a set of stabilizers that doesn’t seem to want to behave. Today, we’re going to clarify the specific functionality of a stabilizer, and demystify what can cause stabilizer issues, split into the three main things that can cause them: the keycap, the switch, or the stabilizer, itself. Bear in mind that while many of these things CAN cause an issue, not all of them are curable through traditional means, so stay with us as we walk you through what can cause stabilizer tuning issues! If some of these don’t seem to be happening with your keyboard, or you’ve encountered SEVERAL ISSUES AT ONCE, we’ll cover that at the end as well.
As always, if you have anything...
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How much of your day is spent typing on a keyboard? Discover the endless ways you can make this desk centerpiece a true expression of yourself.