The full @norbauer lineup
Good golly, Ninjapirate. As always, your photos amaze and intimidate.
Dats alotta pink keebs
They just released a dark color way for the hi pro
That’s really nice! How did you paint the case?
@Orrnnery told me a while back I should write down what I did because all I have for y’all is Topre cautionary tales. Here is my beleaguered project TKL which I’ve dubbed the Jank or Jank 87u.
You see, before this I was high off a reassembly of an 89u that was gutted for parts by me blithely swapping in unused sliders and bits and doodads. So when I found a naked Realforce 87u plate and pcb, I thought I could whiz bang do the same magic and I’d be riding off into the sunset with my budget tkl.
WRONG.
tl;dr just pay the 2022 price for whatever stock board you see on the road. Literally wasn’t worth the exercise I went through with mine.
Anyways let’s just get to the carnage so I can feel better about playing muhself:
home made kinesio tape mod about to be replaced by Aliexpress poron gaskets.
The Jank started out as a naked plate and pcb. Everything you see here was salvaged from my existing box of parts, purchased online, traded for, etc. Biggest takeaways: if the wires are gone, good bloody luck. At the time of writing, only 6.25 and 7u space bar wires are available after market, no 6u wire. There is yet to be a salvage-free Topre build. I’m hoping by talking about it publicly some company decides to fill the niche (an admittedly very tiny one since who would ever be missing the wires?) but nevertheless. It’s possible to find a 2u housing that doesn’t also have the wire and slider inside of it. I even learned how to bend my own 6u wire–and quite frankly–I’m not good enough like wildcat is to balance a wire after the fact. My self made wires tick and lube didn’t do much.
these did okay in a pinch but I still had a papery extra sound from typing, no matter what dome weight or keycap set i used on the board.
Plugging @Extra_Fox 's Topre modding 3d printable tools. Shown above are the switch plate support legs (yellow) that help me prop up the plate while I seat sliders and springs. The legs have a groove for the lip on the plate to help it lock in/be more stable. Sure beats the two Kaweco pen tin cans I was using.
these poron gaskets feel a lot like deskeys silencing rings and have a bit of adhesive to them. seating them went well and you can readjust position if necessary. wish there were a pre-cut solution for the 2u but i cut the 1u in half and used leftover trim to go around the 2u openings. also had to cut carefully around the LED positions since I am opting to not desolder them at this time.
Jank’s current configuration:
Realforce 87u 55g (R2 domes from @saylae) - EC Serika (89u alphas, R1 yellow printed mods)
Des #5 rings, regular Topre black sliders, 206g2 on stabbed keys, landing pads on shift keys (by using leftover gasket poron material cut up)
L Ctrl modified for non-rotated (regular) slider
USB-C daughterboard to RF JST+ground wire by Zap Cables.
If you made it this far thanks for reading. And great big thanks for the parts and online moral support from @mwb, @rooski15, @chono, and @Extra_Fox.
Your first novel and I get a mention?
Thank you for taking the time to detail it out - there are so many little details that have to come together for a salvage build, many of which you’d assume to be compatible.
We’ll need to just run a 6u wire group buy, buy 100 at 3$ each and host a webstore. I’ll co-sponsor the project, just gotta find a manufacturer.
I feel nice.
fuuuudge. that looks hot. thanks for detailing everything mwahaha.
Yui660C by SirCheddar. since switched the caps out for some NP blanks from Divinikey.
Deskey sliders and silencing rings.
Damn that’s hot
Yin & Yang - at work and at home
660c Silent in Heavy-6 UEO, Yang BLE USB-C controller, 45g OEM domes, OEM Silent housings & silencing rings, Deskey sliders, KAT Refined WOB with BOW accent
RGB TKL in Norbaforce GOFC, 45g OEM domes, OEM RGB housings & sliders, KBDfans 0.2mm rings, KAT Refined BOW with WOB accent
just bad camera/lighting
A few projects I have been working on the last few weeks:
Pro 1: Dyed Alphas and Painted Mods
Pro Classic Case: Painted
dye looks p good, any issues with evenness? also did u use stock topre caps or kbdfans blanks?