This is a really annoying topic lol. I’ve seen many people encountering this issue, but as of now there isn’t a solution.
So as we all know, south facing LEDs are an unusable gimmick, if you want to actually utilize the RGB and have shine through keycaps. 2-3 years ago, the solution was the centered legends LTC Lavacaps white. But those were discontinued, no longer manufactured. Then we had Womier providing the XVX profile with centered shine through legends, but now they stopped manufacturing those as well - although they still have the same look, just opaque, non shine through keycaps of the old variant.
So this is 2024, what other solution can we use? I was thinking about Pudding ones, or transparent, or maybe having the legends on the bottom left side (although these are also quite rare), or even the super ugly side printed ones - but for those either I highly dislike their look (ehm side printed), or do not actually solve the issue. It seems like the solution must be the Lavacaps style. But I couldn’t find anyone manufacturing them.
The only readily available ones I know of are side-printed
I will say not all of those are the same, though - plenty of them have bad, inconsistent fonts or cheap production methods like laser-ablated paint, but the occasional “non-gamer” double-shot set exists, and I think those are pretty decent.
I think XVX actually makes one under their sub-brand HITIME in double-shot PBT OEM profile; normal key shape, normal letter shape, just on the front to make use of South-facing LEDs. Comes in a handful of colors and is on Amazon for about $23.
I’d love to see more bottom-centered options but they’re quite the rarity for the time being.
Thanks for the reply, I just got a message from Womier saying they’ve stopped manufacturing them due to people saying the shine through effect wasn’t great (I’m assuming it’s ppl with north facing LEDs? Idk). Kinda sucks. And yeah, I suppose the only current solution is to get side lit keycaps (not interested personally though), or pay like 100$ for Etsy custom made ones lol
I had a set of XVX, with north facing LEDs. I did send them back, because not only were they not ideal for north-facing LEDs, they were using fairly muted PBT for most of the sets and the shine-through was sort of grayish and cloudy, so legibility was a serious problem if you turned off the LEDs. If you turned north facing LEDs on, it was okay for use but obviously off center. Pretty small overlap for people into shine-through but needing south-facing.
Translucent and even transparent keycaps seem to be having a bit of a moment right now, and something like this or this might be useful.
This is my first post here, I too am looking for a good solution for my new Keychron Q5 HE with south-facing led’s. So far I got:
(can’t post links so google the below)
mintcaps I think " PBT Doubleshot Keycaps Backlit Black Keycaps Set 131 Keys Cherry Profile Custom Side Printed Shine Through"
the side-facing may work for me, seems the key below would block a lot, but it’s kind of irrelevant as the lettering is so small and thin no light seems to get through. Keycaps Do seem well made though
I currently have put my steelseries keycaps on the new keychron, the keycaps have larger lettering so Sort of work. This will keep me from staring at the horribly ugly black and white caps the q5 comes with (come On guys, really??)
I’ve Ordered:
These nuphy keycaps i found in someone’s post on reddit. They’re supposedly south-facing friendly, looking forward to seeing
NuPhy® Canopus Shine-through
(from nuphy’s webpage, can’t post links)
I’ve also ordered the keychron shine-through keycaps, doubt they’ll be great on south facing but maybe they’ll be handy to cover some keychron-specific keys.
I’m still looking, and impatient lol, but will try and come back and say how it goes. Oh, one other pair of keys, these are abs not pbt, but someone… somewhere recommended them. Expensive, especially for abs
[Arial Font South-facing Legends Backlit Keycap Set Keychron Backlit Keycap Set Backlit Keycap Set for Keyboard With South Side LED - Etsy]
(would have to search etsy for those ones)
I can’t vouch for these ones at all.
Your Q5 shouldn’t be a major headache for keycaps. Most larger sets now include what is needed for an “1800” layout like yours.When shopping, just look for a set that has the following in the big organized picture they usually have on the listing: a small “1u” numpad zero, three small “modifier” keys, a spare “Delete” key that is shown with other top row keys, at least four other random keys with the other top row keys (many keycap profiles share a shape between the “f” row and the “number” row, so look for a label like “R1” and/or a diagram of the side profile), and “1.75u” shift key, because it’s the width of 1.75 small keys.
The nuphy set should work fine, if I read the kitting image correctly.
South facing are out there, but you may have to go hunting if you don’t want them “side-printed,” where the legends are on the front face of the keycap.
One option is Custom Keycaps where they will let you design your own black keycaps with the usual translucent shinethrough. You can move the placement and even adjust the font. Their non shine-through partner site yuzukeycaps is pretty popular around here.
One final possibility is to email Keychron. Some of their European boards already have south facing shinethrough legends, and they might be able to help you, or at least take note of your preference.
Thanks for the advice!
I’m working on it now and realized it’s missing 2 important keys, insert (I linux for work, ctrl-insert is paste) and an End key (jump to end is something I use a lot). I can remap 2 macro keys for them I guess, but a bummer for sure. (yes I really should have looked before buying…)
I do have a 2U 0 on the numpad, but that’s a good point, thus far I’ve just been checking the shift key sizes, haven’t looked for the num0.
I did order the nuphy keyboard today. Yes, I tend to jump in with both feet.
I’m not sure I really need a Ton of shine-through, just enough to read in my nontraditional “lying on the sofa” position. I tend to one hand, other on the mouse, so sometimes I have to glance quickly at the board to find a key. Plus I just like somewhat lit lettering.
I’ll check out that link now, thanks for the response.
Ugh, brain fart. I was thinking of other Keychrons, but you seem to have it all under control.
Having now properly checked the page for the Q5 HE, I can be more confident in advising you to remember that it’s not just the three macro keys that are programmable. All of them should be programmable. I pretty much never use NumLock on layouts I design, and that’s prime real estate for one of them. If you use End more than Home, you can switch those out and demote the other to a layer. It is odd that End and Insert don’t seem to be on Keychron’s default keymap at all, forcing you to re-program (should be easy) or rely on deactivating the aforementioned NumLock (or shift while NumLock is on, which I normally forget about).
Yes, I’ve moved the keys around, put del/ins/home/end on the row of 4, reassigned, then put pgup pgdown on 2 of the macro keys.
of course the home key is kind of ridiculously tall, since the… curve of the keys is intended for a different placement ack, yet another thing to worry about on top of sizing and such.
I’m starting to understand why people end up with a dozen or two sets of keycaps!
After buying and returning four other boards from keychron, nuphy, glorious and a number pad, I finally got the Keychron Q5 HE.
Initially, I swapped the stock caps for black Glorious Aura V3 pudding keycaps, but the backlighting was barely visible. My use case… Once the family is asleep, I often work / comp late at night and find myself in the dark / am I need proper backlighting.
I tried Polychroma keycaps, which had great backlighting, but the height and feel weren’t right for me. Finally, I settled on a hybrid of Womier pudding and Glorious Aura V2 all-white pudding keycaps. Even with south-facing LEDs, the shine-through works well enough.
I also remapped and repositioned some keys:
Delete moved down, with Page Up/Down below it.
Calculator replaced Delete’s original spot.
Home, End, and Print Screen are now above the numpad.
A Q6 is on the way, but after some trial and error, I’m really happy with the Q5 HE.
Would love to know what keycaps you ended up with… the thought has crossed my mind just to order some custom ones.
Currently I have a gray pbt set from amazon on the main keys, then the numpad and vertical keys (del/ins/home/end) and the top 3 macros (now pgup/pgdn and a star looking thing for macro) are all from the MOA set below:
Prior to that, I’d bought a key with a skull that was about the same height as the top row, put that in for DEL, but ins/hom/end were all wonky heights. I May change out the numpad to match the rest of the keyboard, so only the vertical row and macros are purple MOA, which I think will look fine, especially how desaturated the purple is on that set.
I’ll be switching switches to try out the um, yellow softer-force magnetic switches as soon as they arrive, will swap caps then. I’m awaiting them from keychron now.
IF I were to do this all again i’d just go ten-keyless (TKL) or a full keyboard. Those vertical keys have been a major pain all to save like 1.5" lol. I don’t actually USE the dang numpad either, just One game I haven’t played in a year or so has One task for them, setting a static speed, that I don’t even really need to do…
ack, yet another thing to worry about on top of sizing and such.