I got my Leopold 660c from Leaderskey in the Yongsan District of Seoul, South Korea.
660C from widebasket and 87U from craigslist
Havenāt gotten myself a Nopre board yet (really considering the Plum TKL on MD right now), but I agree with you 100% on BKE redux over regular Topre domes.
I DDed my 660C stock for about a month waiting on my batch of extremes & really wasnāt too impressed by stock Topre anything TBH. The stabilized keys rattled like crazy, the domes were nowhere near as tactile as I had imagined, & the weighting was much too light for me. Considering the 660C is well known to have stiffer feeling 45g domes (most say they are closer to 50g in reality) I doubt even 55g Topre would do it for me, especially after using BKE redux domes.
I will say though after I modded my 660C (domes swapped to BKE redux extremes, silencing rings installed, sliders lubed with Krytox VPF1514, & stabilizers lubed with Tribosys3204), it became the end game type Topre board I had hoped it would be. If all goes well & I can manage to grab a Heavy-6 I think it might really be endgame for me at least with Topre!
How are the sliders lubed with 1514 ? Iāve only seen people lubing them with 3204 and been trying to get some answers on how 1514 performs vs 3204.
Iāve been using BKE Heavy domes in my Realforce for quite a while and recently got my Norbaforce. And I feel like the BKEās are quite a lot better with the more sturdy case. Iām not exactly sure why, but it might be because the more solid case helps evening out the harsher/more violent upstroke of the BKEās. Maybe youāll experience the same thing with the Heavy-6.
Also, I can strongly recommend that you add some sort of dampening to the case. It makes a pretty significant difference too.
Very smooth on my particular 660C, although the sliders were like that at stock & that is what made me decide to use the VPF1514. I tried the Tribosys3204 on one slider & thought it made it feel sluggish so I opted for the VPF1514 to keep the feel as close to stock as possible. It worked out very well.
I would say if you are using stock Topre slider 1514 is the way to go as they are very smooth at stock. If you are using an aftermarket MX slider I would give tribosys a go (maybe the thinner version of it, canāt remember the numbers for it) as I have heard the aftermarket ones are not nearly as smooth as stock topre, NT, or RFrgb sliders.
That does make perfect sense considering the huge jump in tactility with BKE redux domes. Thanks for the heads up about dampening the case! Now fingers crossed I can work a way out to get a Heavy 6, LOL!
Iāve bought and traded 4 HHKBās thru /r/mm
I bought my Plum75 on nizkeyboard.com. I guess itās the best value-price ration when it comes for a keeb with BT.
I got my topre clone from massdrop. They have NIZ plum drops from time to time (I think one is going on right now in fact)
i bought my plum niz 84 directly from plumās website.
iāve noticed something about it if you flex the keyboard it spasms a bunch of keys at once.
other wise the caps fit on nicely, well not super well, the icecaps i got are kind of loose. and stabilizers are such a massive pain. but overall yeah i like it.
Ordered an HHKB yesterday at elitekeyboards.com.
I used koreanbuddy.com, a kind of korean shopping service and I gave them the link to the exact fc660c I wanted from Leopoldās korean website, https://leopold.co.kr
Koreanbuddy charges 10% of the total for their service fee but it was prompt and easy to use. First they receive the products at their warehouse in Korea and take a photo at which point you can request a return or change. If everything is ok then they ship it on to you (and you pay the shipping). If you want to get a leopold from the source for a small premium I recommend them (no affiliation).
Since this thread already got necroād and nobody mentioned Fujitsu yet, Iāll chime in to say I just got my Realforce R2 from there. Good prices, fast shipping, no proxies needed.