#gateron blue | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

callmearcturus · 8 months

Text

Okay, I wanted to catalog all of my switches bc I just keep getting them when they go on sale so I weirdly have a lot of them and I don't wanna forget which is what. So.

What the fuck are all of these anyway?

Haimu Whisper Silent Tactile

Bought these because I realized the portable keyboard I use for writing fic on the go was just, uh, noisy! It was loud, so these were on a huge discount and I was like "silent AND tactile, okay sure" and grabbed them.

I'm typing on them now! I love these things. They are super satisfying and good! I like them more than the boutique switches I got and they're about the same as the Gateron Kangaroos but without the noise, so perfect! Would recommend!

Akko Wine Red Linears

The pre-lubed variant. I got these on sale because I wanted lubed switches but was not and will never hand-lube anything. These might be the first switches I ever bought? They're fine, good firm linears.

But I'm not a linear fan, so I don't use them anymore.

Durock Shrimp Silent Tactile Switches

I got these for my mother's keyboard for work so it would be quiet and they are amaaaaaaaaaaaazing. They are pricey so I waited and waited and waited for someone to put them on sale. Fucking worth it. They sound nice and deep but quiet and they have a good level of feedback. Maybe my third fave tactile, and a must-have for quieting down a spacebar.

Akko Lavender Purple Tactiles

Ah yes the cream of the crop for cheap switches. Honestly, god bless Akko for making really good budget switches. These were my first tactiles, and instantly I was converted to Tactile Life. Now, I find the resistence on them too low, but also I am a bit of a freak who liked a lot of resistence and feedback on the switch, so these are still very good for non-freaks.

Gateron Aliaz Silent Tactile

Andy sent me a couple of these in a trade, and they were life-changing for quieting my fucking spacebar, but wow these are tactile? I am playing with this switch in my hand right now and it doesn't feel tactile to me at all??? But it absolutely does its job. I'm of the opinion you NEED a silent for a spacebar, it's mandatory.

Akko Jelly Pink CS Linear

I think these came with my mother's keyboard when I bought it for her, but I swapped them all out for Durock Shrimps. However, these are perfect nice switches! I like them! I realized from these that I really like the box stem. Maybe I'm making it up, but they seem like they are more stable. These are perfectly fine linears. Good sound!

Gateron G Black Linear

These came on my portable keyboard and like 5 of them had bent pins, so wasn't a huge fan and have swapped them out.

I mean they aren't bad, they are SILKY smooth linears with medium-push so I did use them for a few days, but... Linear bores me. I see why its a Gamer Switch tho, it's nice and quick.

AKKO Jelly Purple Tactile

I forget why I have these, they came with something.... They're similar to the Lavs, but are firmer and have the box stem, so I kind of like them more than the Lavs? I think they would be perfect to put on your modifier keys while running linears on the alphas, which is a technique to avoid mis-hitting mods.

I have better tactiles than this but they are solid.

NK_Silk Olivia Rosette Linears

D'AWWWW MY FIRST SWITCHES. They came on my very first keeb, which I used to write the majority of KTOWL.

These are pre-lubed and are even smoother than the Gat Blacks. They are unfortunately the opposite of the touch profile I want, but they are super high quality for the linear gang.

AKKO Jelly Blue CS Tactile

what do you mean these are tactile, what

I mean, I LOVE these. I got these on an AKKO board and I fully intended to swap out the switches for my own fancier, handpicked ones, but I liked the feeling of these so much I left them on for like two months before swapping out.

I can't believe their tactile. I mean, I'm playing with one now and I guess I feel it, but it's like the most gentle, polite tactile ever.

Jwick Taro Tactile

MY FIRST REAL BELOVED. These were on sale (gosh, recurring theme here) and I love purple and taro so obvsly had to have them.

Unlubed, box stem, no wobble. The POM stem hitting the nylon housing makes for VERY good sound. I love the feel of these guys. I love the pop, I can just fidget with one of these all day. GOOD SHIT.

Gateron Kangaroo Tactiles

This and the Haimu are fist-fighting for my fave switch. I love these. They are bossy, aggressive tactiles with a solid pop. They are bouncy lil shits with a great sound. Noisy, so I would only run them under thicker keycaps like MT3 or SAs, not Cherry. But man, under the right cap they are musical.

I think I just slightly like the Haimu because my main keyboard is the portable one with XVX caps so the quiet is currently better, but I will be using the Kangaroos again in the future for sure.

Black Gazzew Boba U4T Tactile

I waited months for the Gazzews to go on sale. On the main mech keeb subreddit, people swear up and down that these are The Best Tactiles, they're life-changing, they cannot be improved, etc etc.

They're.... fine. Better than Akkos, sure, but ranked under the Shrimps, Kangaroos, and Haimu Whispers.

I don't know why but they just don't thrill me. I can feel the difference in them, how they don't require a lot of downward pressure to actuate but they have a POWERFUL feedback bump. I feel like I should like these! I want my tactiles to drag me into an alley and punch me in the face when I press them, and these have that profile.

But I just don't love them. I swapped them out for the Kangaroos and Haimu Whispers. These are all sitting in my commemorative Waypoint Radio coffee cup on my desk.

OKAY THAT'S EVERYONE. I am gonna keep this as a reference for myself so I don't pick up a switch and go "uuuuuh wtf is this again."

#mechanical keyboard #switches #note to self

20 notes · View notes

mygfmadeit · 9 months

Text

bear65 v2 keyboard with cat pbt, gateron baby racoon linears and artisan keycaps made by me

i really like the alice style layout and i think i will stick with it for keyboards :)

the artisans are of our two bunnies (latte and bunni (she is no longer alive :() and a blue totoro!

i will take some solo shots of the two new keycaps and post them too later on!

#keyboard #keyboards #keeb #artisan keycap #cat #bunny #rabbit #totoro #blue totoro

7 notes · View notes

chen-chen-chen-again-chen · 1 year

Text

15 Questions | 15 People

Rules: Answer these 15 Questions, then Tag 15 People

Hello hello! Thank you for the tags, @cutestkilla, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, @yellobb, @raenestee, @artsyunderstudy! I have loved reading what you've shared and getting these neat little glimpses into your lives (also taking notes for who I can ask when I have research questions about travel planning, designing clothes, swimming, etc... y'all are such a talented and interesting bunch!).

I'll skip on tagging this time, since I think most of the folks I would tag have been tagged already, LOL.

1. Are you named after anyone? Yes! My paternal grandfather is named Gregorio, as is my dad, and my both of my brothers' first names are Greg, so I wound up with "Gretchen."

My aunt tutted and said that people would think I was a blonde and blue-eyed Heidi of the Alps type, so my family and friends have always called me Chen, or Chen-Chen. I have a cousin who is named after me, and when I was holding her as a baby, I'd refer to us as "Chen Squared."

2. When was the last time you cried? Oh, yesterday. Writing poetry for a therapy assignment, LOL!

3. Do you have kids? Non. This was something my spouse and I debated for YEARS, and went back and forth on. We settled on not having kids, but being more involved with the little ones in our lives. The kids we are closest to are my spouse's half-brother and sister (they are nine and five), and my godchildren (who are nine and four). For Filipinos, the relationship between godparents and godchildren is really special, and I love being "Ninang" (godmother) to my beloveds.

(It will probably not be a surprise to anyone who has read "Jelly Babies" or "Baker boxer teacher grief" that my spouse's relationship with his younger sibs influenced my depiction of Baz with his sibs).

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot? LOL, more so when I was younger and more barbed! I've embraced the joy of being more maudlin and earnest as I get older.

5. What’s the first thing you notice about people? Clothes. I think it's a writer thing, where I like clocking what people are wearing so I can use the details as story fodder, haha. But as part of my job, I work with people face-to-face a lot, so I also try to gauge what mood people are in and how open they are to talking.

6. What’s your eye color? Dark brown!

7. Scary movies or happy ending? Happy endings! My best friend is a horror fiend, which is hilarious because I'm the biggest baby when it comes to scary movies.

8. Any special talents? Hmm... I can type around 100 WPM (Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing was one of the first computer programs we had in my house). I've been told I have a nice phone voice, so I used to record all the voicemail messages for our office. I've also been told that I put together kickass care packages. 👍🏽

9. Where were you born? Winnipeg, Manitoba.

10. What are your hobbies? Gardening, cross-stitch, cooking, baking, painting (poorly), video games, reading, fountain pens, anime/manga. I think like others, my gardening sort of falls off in midsummer and I just try to grab every zucchini before they grow huge. 😆 I love to sing though I'm not very good at it ("Try the Worryin' Way" by the Fabulettes is a FANTASTIC song to belt in the shower).

Oh, I also find it very soothing to clean and fiddle around with my mechanical keyboard (I used a Das keyboard with Cherry Blues for a long time, and just switched to a Nuphy Halo 75, with delightfully clicky Gateron Blues).

11. Do you have any pets? NO, SADLY! I'm allergic to cats and my spouse to cats and dogs (which is a shame, because animals adore him). I just cuddle other people's dogs and admire their cats from a distance. We have a neighbourhood cat that likes to roll in our catmint in the summer.

12. What sports do you play/have you played? Badminton, swimming, rollerblading. I am also asthmatic and uncoordinated, so organized sports were a trial growing up; in 8th grade, I skipped gym as much as possible by helping out my Art teacher after class.

13. How tall are you? 5'0" (I'm a shortie, it's just how Filipinos roll)

14. Favorite subject at school? In high school, English Lit, and in uni, Film Studies. I learned more about writing from Film Studies than I ever did in English.

15. Dream job? For the longest time, I wanted to be an English professor. Then I dropped out of grad school because of Depression, went back after a year, graduated, got a closer look at the job prospects and work culture for academics and said "No thank you."

Reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert really changed my expectations. Instead of wanting to make it as a professional writer, I switched to wanting a stable job where I would have the work-life balance and resources to pursue writing in my free time. And now I have that! So I am living the dream!

#long post!#tag game #about me #personal

17 notes · View notes

jonphaedrus · 1 year

Text

epomaker mini cat 64 build talk

ok i guess a couple people said theyd be interested so let's talk to most recent custom i did, for my friend @jowritesfantasy, of an epomaker mini cat 64.

the final build is an epomaker mini cat 64, with kailh box white v2 switches, and a great wave off of kanagawa (dark) cherry profile keycap set. total cost for what is essentially a full (budget) custom build is about $150USD without tax (off of bezoshell).

note: i am a vision-impaired hobbyist with shitty, shaky hands. i am by far not an expert. this is literally just "all the crap i've had to figure out from the ground up as a basic guide". there are more comprehensive references out there, and build guide videos for most custom kits, and do more research, not less, before building. nothing here is gospel and many people do it differently.

anyway, let's talk turkey.

BASIC GLOSSARY:

keyboard: the whole shebang. case, pcb, switch, caps, everything. the thing you type on.

case: the acrylic/aluminium/ceramic/whatever body that the pcb, switches, and keys live in.

pcb: the brain of the keyboard. you can have one where the switches must be soldered in, or you can have one where the switches can be hot swapped, which means you can change them out without any need to use a soldering iron. pcbs can be bought separately from cases.

group buy: when a bunch of people buy in to get a custom keyboard made by pooling resources up front.

switch: the mechanical switch that you solder or hot swap into a pcb to make the button press. there are thre (standard) types: linear, tactile, and clicky. switches work just fine without lubing. this is optional.

stabilizers/stabs: the support stabilizers for your wider keys that help keep them steady and don't let them wobble. there are two standard types—pcb mounted (screw-in, usually) and plate-mounted (click-in). please lube your stabs. krytox 205g0 is good. otherwise trust me, they will rattle. oh, god, will they fucking rattle.

keycaps: the thingy that goes on top of the switch that you actually press. they come in about a million profiles and in every possible permutation or color you can think of. if they're cherry/mx stem, they'll be compatible with most modern mechanical keyboard switches on the market.

QMK/VIA: software that lets you change what buttons on your keyboard do what.

keyboard %/keyboard #: how many keys are on the keyboard. the 64 mini cat has...64 keys. a 78ish key is the full f-row and most standard laptop keyboards. TKL is tenkeyless, or no numpad. 100%/180 is the entire keyboard, numpad and all. 40% is babymode aka "you like layers? i'll give you layers". each board has its use, everyone has their preferences.

ergo: a keyboard designed to be more ergonomic. ergo boards have different layouts and spacing and height. some are split, some aren't, these days one of the more standard ergo layouts is the alice/arisu. it's nice. i recommend it. (my custom is an alice)

custom: you build it, you decide everything you want on it, you buy all that shit, and you put it together.

prebuilt: open box, plug and play.

from the getgo, while epomaker does offer this for sale ready to plug and play, i knew we would not be buying this premade (both because i wanted to build it, the whole point was i wanted to build it and jo wanted it) and also, epomaker didn't offer clicky switches. jo's previous board had cherry/gateron (not clear which? one or the other) blues, which are the "standard" clicky switch: they're 65g actuation, they click, and there are better options. (note: this blog is a cherry mx hatezone. sorry.) i also knew that i was going to have to get a bit creative with VIA layers because jo works on spreadsheets and this is a 64 key board—no numpad. you kinda need a numpad for spreadsheets.

i didn't know much about clicky keys before this (i personally have sad shitty little goobaby hands that can barely even handle 43g linear switches and most people i know use tactiles), so i had to do a bit of research. you can hear (cherry only) sound profiles and comparison here, and this gives you a pretty standard idea of what mechanical switches sound like.

linear keys tend to be the lightest actuation, since they're for gaming most of the time; tactiles are all over the place and have the most options since theyre the most popular; clicky tend to be a little heavier overall. the "actuation" force in grams is how much pressure it takes to make a keypress go through, the "bottom out" is how much it takes to make the key hit the bottom of its arc. tactiles and clicky keys both make sounds/have texture bumps when the actuation of the key happens; linears you just push.

a short list selection:

cherry mx blue (the "standard" click): 60g actuation, 60g bottom out.

gateron blues (the original clone of the standard): 55g actuation.

cherry mx green/gateron green: 80g actuation, 90g bottom out

kailh box white v2: 45g actuation, 55g bottom out. (note: this is the same actuation/bottom out as the v1; the v2 has increased stability and stronger springs)

we ended up picking the kailh box white v2s because of comparative sound testing, the revision being even sturdier than the original box whites, they were on sale when we bought them and came in a closer to 64 switch pack, and they're about 65¢ a switch. not bad, all things considered. they're lighter than the standard mx blue, have a brighter, springier sound (even unlubed) and the "box" around the stem of the switch makes the connection between switch and keycap more reliable, which is a problem that happened to jo's old keyboard (the stem housing of the keycap broke; there's basically no way to get a replacement without shelling out a good bit of cash for an entire set, the box should help prevent that in the future).

the next thing was keycaps—you can do research about keycap profiles until the cows come home, but there's basically two types. "flat" keycaps are interchangeable per row (so work great if you aren't using a qwerty layout or you don't have a standard layout keyboard), "differentiated" have different heights per row (so work great if you have a hard time finding the right keys or are using a condensed keyboard model where you might get lost in the sauce if everything is the same).

the most common profile is cherry—if you want to find something super fun keycaps-wise, cherry is probably what you'll end up with. every keycap profile presents a slightly different sound because of how the plastic housing handles the noise of the switch (sa has more hollow thock; xda has a little more rumble because it's flat; cherry is a little snappier). frankly, imo, the texture/shape of the key is more the question to keep in mind (as well as the type of plastic they're made with—pbt is much, much more reliable). jo wanted dark wave with whale, we found dark wave with whale, it was cherry profile. success.

(note: knockoff keycaps can be a mixed bag—they use different fonts, the stems can be less reliable, even if they are doubleshot (two different kinds of plastic, layered on top of each other for more stability) and pbt. however, they're a lot more affordable. i like having more keycaps. im also cheap. that said, groupbuy or direct from source keycaps are also rad as hell. it's your call)

the epomaker mini cat is a hot-swap board, which means all that the switches had to do was to be popped into their housing. when popping switches into hotswap, always test the pcb beforehand. always. if you fuck up the pcb during switch installation, that is what it is, and you want to know if there's a problem before that happens. (shit can get weird. trust me. my custom pcb is currently getting replaced because of a freak usb-c daughterboard soldering incident that basically cannot be fixed, and everything worked fine in testing... but it's uncommon).

to build this board, i took it in a series of steps:

1: disassemble the entire board, flip the pcb (the "brain" of the keyboard) over, and manually test all the keys with a keyboard tester website and a paperclip. to test the diodes, you want to put your paperclip/tweezers/whatever into the outsides of the diode, not directly into the slot where your switch pins will go

you shouldn't need to shove. just set them there. your key tester should click, light up, or, if you're me, say "josh"

2: once i knew the pcb was good, it was time to disassembe the plate and the stabs. the stabs that came with the mini-cat 64 were plate-mounted and came unlubed, so i clicked them out with my tiny screwdriver, took them apart, and lubed them. if i had a buck for every stabilizer build and lube guide that actually refused to show the parts of a stabilizer, i'd have a lot of bucks, so here's some photos from me. these are akko transparent pink pcb-mounted, screw-in stabilizers. my hands are shaky as fuck so i apologize for any blurriness.

there are three basic components to the stabilizer—the bar, and the two-part housing. when you take a stabilizer apart, whether or not it's screw-in or clip-in, the bar clips and unclips, and the housing works the same.

less lube is always better (you can always add more): when lubing stabs, you want to lube the inside of the larger housing on the two wider portions and the back, where the smaller portion is levered up and down and will hit the plastic, and the part of the bar that goes into it. this is all the stuff that will click and clack if it touches each other.

sorry this is a transparent stab so it's kind of hard to see, but when reassembling your stabilizers, the smaller piece will have one side with two holes, and one side with one hole. two holes goes in the front. business in the front, party in the back, whatever. you can see here where the clicky space thing that you click the stabilizer bar into.

i apologize for my shaky ass hands. sorry. the realy nice thing about transparent stabs, otoh, is you can see where the actual bar goes—it goes into the bottom of the two holes, so that the interior part of the housing is lifted up and down when the bar moves. that's it! click it in once it's in the right hole, you're done.

3: it is time to Insert the Switch. most switches tend to be plate-mounted. the "plate" is the part of the case that goes above the pcb, and is what aligns (and holds in) the switches, so that they land in the right spot. here's an example of a pcb and a plate

the plate fits on over the stabs, and then you have your "alignment" for your switches in place. now you know where your switches go, it's time to stick them in. the smaller, metal holes on each switch location are where the pins go—this is a "south facing" rgb pcb, meaning the pins go in up top, with the smd led (the little per-switch light) facing toward, not away from, the user. north-facing switches are more common. (for anyone curious, this is a mechloving adelais en ciel rv3 pcb, akko transparent pink screw-in stabs, and a switchcouture aluminium plate)

take your switch, align your pins, push in the side with the pins first to be sure they go into their sockets straight, and then push them the rest of the way in to click. hot swap sockets can be finnicky and a little fragile, so when installing switches into a hot swap pcb, you want to push straight down into something below—i.e., take the back off of the case and put the pcb flat on a soft, but sturdy, surface, like a deskmat. then click them in.

and now you've got a keyboard! time for the fun part. put those keycaps on and give it a test.

well, now you have a working keyboard. except for one small issue... the person using this keyboard needs a numpad! okay, so that means that you need to get CREATIVE.

all our keyboards have some level of "layer mapping"—shift + a = A. that's a layer, becuse it changes the key input. on my keyboard, because i use a mac with the extended international keyboard, alt + a = ¯. that's another layer. most people are more familiar with fn + 1 = f1. that's a layer.

for this keyboard, since jo needed a numpad, the way to do that is to make use of it being via compatible and to build that in as a layer. via is a great program (wish it worked with firefox!) in that it's as close to plug and play as you can really get for something like this. it's all overlay, you just click what you need. i am stupidbad at tech, and i can figure it out. let's take a look at the layers that are mapped into this keyboard:

here we have layer 0 (the "home" layer, what the keyboard's base state is), layer 1 (the "modifier" layer), and layer 2 (the "spreadsheet") layer. i made a few changes after i took these screenshots pgup/dwn/home/end are on the modifier layer now and not just the spreadhseet layer), but this is pretty much the final version. in via, the upside-down triangle means that the button naturally defers down to the layer below it. this means, on all layers, the red circle is always the fn/modifier button. if you're on the spreadsheet layer and press fn+1, it will be f1, because that button is always fn.

the "modifier" layer came baked into the keyboard, since that's the way that the function row buttons/the keyboard light adjustment works. all i added was the blue "toggle" layer button, which, when pressed with the fn button, turns the spreadsheet layer on.

even more simply, if you push fn+ralt, it makes the keyboard be for spreadsheets.

on the spreadsheet layer, the right-hand side of the keyboard becomes a numpad, the arrows automatically work as up/down/home/end, and, most importantly, a/s/z/x/c/v are all macros. what those look like, in the via programming, is {KC_LCTL,KC_C} (that's "ctrl+c" as one button press), with the KC_[] changed out for the key you're swapping in as a shortcut. when on the spreadsheet layer, pressing "z" is the same as "ctrl/cmd+z" normally is—only now you only have to hit the button once. that's true for that entire set of macros. so, if you need to save? hit s. if you need to select all? hit a. if you need to cut? hit x. paste? hit v. there's no need to push ctrl at the same time—that's baked into the keys.

you can do this with any keyboard that is qmk/via compatible, by the way. it's fucking amazing. if you work on spreadsheets all the time? awesome. now you can numberpunch one-handed, and copy/paste/undo with the other, no need to use multiple keys.

the macro building and layering on via for this keyboard was waaaay better than what i did on my wife 1.0 (sorry, wife 1.0) and i'll be using the same setup on wife 2.0 (whenver wife 2.0 gets here). overall, this is honestly a really affordable custom board with a lot of adjustment options built in. it was a ton of fun to build, really simple and straightforward in terms of setup, and it's got bongocat on it.

also honestly if i had to get clickies, i'd do the box whites. they're really nice and dont make my fingers feel like they're about to break when typing.

#keycaps are for eating #next time whenever wife 2.0 comes in the mail i'll talk about all-custom builds i guess and more advanced via stuff #and keycap changing in and out #and what kind of screwdrivers you want #uh. and also aviator cables maybe i guess.

18 notes · View notes