Old pic…
Arisu 75
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Wow! Sick board, are those LEDs at the top?
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Wouaouh!
I’d happily type on this 
Yep. Those are holes for LEDs to shine through
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To be honest the one on the pic is just a test fit. I haven’t really built this yet lol
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this spring clone is really pretty and super “affordable” at just about $100 from Aliexpress: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805164071282.html
I don’t really need it, but I want it because of the unique RGB strip on the left, the leaf springs, and the great photos. The reviews on Aliexpress make it sound less than great to build:
Nice sounding keyboard but the build process is difficult. The light diffuser and o gaskets do not have adhesive so every time you open the board, it gets moved around and the o gaskets fly around and gets easily lost. Kit does not come with stabs. Only some stabilizers fit with this PC plate!! Akko stabs fit fine. TX stabs are way too tight, making the key feel mushy. Durock V2 are even tighter/incompatible for the PC plate to the point where the stabilizer does not work properly. I had to sand the PC plate to accommodate the stabs. I would not recommend this board for newbies because of the frustrating build experience.
I’m also not sure why many of the reviews mention a speaker? It’d be great if this thing had qmk audio support but it seems unlikely. Owllab/qwertykeys still sells parts for the real deal spring through Qwertykeys, so maybe it’d be good to get a legit PCB and plate from there if it makes the process any easier: https://www.qwertykeys.com
It’d also be great to have a wrist rest, which are often difficult to come by for alice layouts since they almost always have a different shape.
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Building it was a bit of a pain because the bottom case doesn’t have the guide bump things for the leafsprings. You kind of have to guess if they are in the right spot. I also just picked up one of those Record Alice Spring clones and the case was much better to work with. The PCB however is garbage. The qmk/via support is broken for a lot of the “special” keys. I ordered an actual Spring PCB to replace it as it should be compatible. But at like, $60USD it’s a great deal.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that the acrylic alice does come with a speaker. You can toggle the speaker on and off to either be extremely annoying, or, off. I didn’t bother installing it.
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I gotta try that topre Alice…
This Praxis IM in transparent blue or transparent purple injection molded plastic is on sale from Keyboard Treehouse in Australia for $62 without a PCB but it does include staebies. I’ve heard good things:
The same vendor sells a compatible PCB for $31 in either hotswap or solder editions: Praxis PCB - "Valor" USB-C (Compatible with Alice) – Keyboard Treehouse
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How is that board now that you’ve had the time to try it out a bit? do you recommend it or is it a hard pass?
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what’s the verdict?
this and Type K EC kit dropping this week…
I have one. Can confirm good things.
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smith and rune (always wonder what kinda rune…) have a super overpriced ($600-$650) alice in-stock now: IRON Alice – Smith and Rune
at least it has a different look on the back edge than I’ve seen before.
They also have a $100 wrist-rest GB: IRON Alice Wrist Rest – Smith and Rune
I’d just recommend a sneakbox over this IRON alice unless you find the look super appealing.
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How do you like the Iron Alice from Smith and Rune? Mine arrives with wrist rest this week. With the heavy copper weight, I understand the board weighs around 6 pounds. I elected to not get the copper rest, which is another 6 lbs, and got aluminum instead.
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New tented Alice with wireless options from Qwertykeys at a reasonable price, looks nice! No per key RGB but there is some “decorative LED” and LEDs referred to in the accessory kit.
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Definitely thinking about picking up the Neo Ergo, but trying to figure out if the layout options shown here are possible on the hotswap PCB, particularly in the arrows/right shift area:
Both the wired hotswap and tri-mode hotswap seem to have this configuration, which seems like it has two layout options for both the shift row and the bottom row:
Am I reading this correctly?
Yes, so the regular split r-shift would be north facing for both Fn and shift key while with arrows, the shift and up arrow key would be south facing.
If you’re going 1.5u bottom row, the super key would be north facing while control key is south facing. Left and down arrows are south facing while right arrow is north.
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Extremely helpful! Thank you!
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