Ikki68 Aurora R2
- Frosty clear polycarb case
- “05 Boro” 1.2mm flex-cut PCB
- Flex-cut polycarb plate & silicone gaskets
- E-white badge
- DCX BoW
- TX stabs for 1.2mm PCBs
- UPKB stem spacers
- Moyu.studio EMT v2s (Nylon Haimu long-pole linears)
More photos, commentary
Finally built this thing. I’ve got more to say about it than I do here, but that’s mostly about the build experience and some considerations about it. For now, let’s take a quick look at this as a keyboard:
I grabbed a bunch of badges, but ended up liking this one the most with this case.
Once I put stabs and switches I preferred on it, I started to really like this keyboard. After typing on the brick-solid CTRL for a few days, this pillow-y, bouncy feel is a nice change of pace.
I have the space bar mounted normally because, alas, the case tolerances are so tight around the caps that my preferred orientation strikes the case. It works, but I don’t dig the sound. That wrinkle aside, I’m enjoying the typing experience here.
My friend said this looked a bit like a jellyfish to them. I see it.
Ah, much better. This is actually the second iteration of this build - I used the recommended WS Aurora stabs for 1.2mm PCBs at first, but… well. I replaced, them, and it’s much better now.
Here it’s pretty easy to see the thin silicone mounting strips.
I do appreciate the chance to use a stepped caps lock.
In the first build I used Aurora Clears, which are also Haimu linears - but they have UHMWPE bottoms and polycarb tops - they’re a bit more harsh than these Nylon EMT v2s, and they have more metallic noise. They’re not bad by any means, but I do prefer these.
The much easier-to-deal-wth TX stabs, topped with UPKB stem spacers to prevent teetering with the long-pole switches.
See also weird sideways switches to accommodate lots of layout options. Just to be safe, I ran those two switches through the Geon Trimmer before mounting any caps on them that way.
Between a TKL and a traditional 65% (CTRL hi-pro, KBD67L)