Hello everyone. I’ve recently become interested in the hobby and am ready to start my own build! I have done much research and tested many switches. I’ve decided that I want a to build a 75% board as I use arrow keys often at work. I’ve put together a spreadsheet of every part I plan to buy w/ anything else I might need. My budget sits around $500 including all the tools I will have to purchase (for the first time).
It seems there might be many outliers that I might not have thought about, in turn making my parts incompatible. I would appreciate a look and confirm that everything would work together and/or suggest where I can buy similar parts elsewhere at cheaper cost/better quality.
While this is my first build, any advice/constructive criticism is welcome.
It is possible if there is some play, a small rotation can be noticable.
What kind of stabilizers does the kbd75 come with? some of the cheaper KDB ones can be questionable even when tuned well.
Possibly but not likely, you can confirm by putting keycaps on before soldering to see if any switches need a nudge. The key thing is to make sure the switch is fully seated into the plate
Your list looks pretty solid, Manofinterests’ suggestion of getting a solder sucker is actually covered in your list. The soldering iron kit you selected comes with one so no need to buy a separate one. The only changes I would make to your list is to get better stabilizers as the ones that will come with the KBD75 kit are pretty low quality like Nebulant mentioned & add an light oil to the list for lubing the springs of the switches. For the stabilizers I would suggest getting genuine GMK/Cherry screw in stabilizers since you’re going with pretty high quality parts everywhere else. Then for the light oil I would suggest getting Krytox VPF1514 or Krytox GPL 105 (not this big of a bottle though). If you can’t find either of them I’ve heard people have had good results using Victorinox multi tool oil for lubing springs also. Hope these suggestions help you out some & feel free to ask us anything if you need any help during the build!
Have you compared the layout coverage of the 9009 PBT set against the layouts supported by the kbd75v2? In particular, the right shift key needs to be 1.75u, which I don’t think the 9009 base kit contains. My guess is you will be OK with the “all-in-one” kit, which has a 1.75u R4 shift, and some options for the rightmost column of the kbd75v2.
Nice homework for your first build. You’re going to have fun.
Unfortunately not right now, I usually get my VPF1514 from Mehkee the site I linked you too. I looked at few other sites I order from but no luck on anything other than Tribosys 3203/4. Mehkee usually restocks it fairly quickly, but I bought a bunch awhile back so I’m not sure how they’ve been with it lately. If I do come across anywhere that has smaller amounts of VPF1514 or GPL104 in stock I’ll be sure to post it here for you.
Hello! I use a v1 75 as my daily at the moment, quite fond of it. Just my two cents here (not as experienced as the rest of the posters here), while the tolerance on the v2 is nice, the v1 has a bit of a nicer shape imho. I think the pcb and plate are a little "better’ too, less cutouts. Also with regards to the keycaps, Muted pbt is always a good option too, but you will have to grab the full set for compatibility. I’ve also seen a couple of 75% sets on KPRepublic like this or this, look forward to seeing the build
The kbd75v2 page doesn’t appear to have a layout diagram, so it’s hard to be sure, but if we assume that it supports at least the same layouts as the v1, then it looks like it handles the usual 2.25u left shift.
Hi, was actually thinking of attempting a similar build with the kbd75 pcb, but 3d printing or lasering a plate and case. Do any of you guys know if the file generated from swillkb will be compatible, or if I can find the specs of the kbd75 plate online? This will be my first build, thus I really want to go all in for it.
Thanks for the comment, got the same advice from chatting on kb-design on the discord. I’ll be sure to use that, though I have kind of changed my plans after acquiring an alps keyboard. Now working on a tkl case instead to transplant those juicy complicated alps.
