The Vega is a foam strip mount 65% from Ai03 and Kevinplus that belongs to the Reference
series with the Polaris.
Its clean design and forward thinking construction was a giant hit with one of the biggest in-stock
sales I’ve seen selling out within a minute, and an even larger group buy performing admirably.
At a price comparable to other customs, you’re getting a great finish, good feel, and a good
design, but the complexity of the internals might be a bit annoying for not much benefit.
As always, I bought this with my own money on my own time without any special treatment...
ahem, anyway
The Vega was the first item to be sold through Kevinplus’s Typeplus storefront.
I wasn’t really worried because Kevinplus also runs Deskeys, but nevertheless the execution
of the buy was very good.
Even with a whopping 1000 units, the in-stock buy sold out within the minute, but the salt
that usually follows was significantly lessened by the even bigger group buy.
My order shipped out in a couple days and the expensive FedEx service delivered in a
couple more days after that.
This approach of combining in-stock sales and group buys is something that we’ve been
seeing with other large vendors like KBDFans and I’m a big fan.
From the consumer’s point of view, you’re able to get the product quickly without worrying
about logistical hiccups and it also gives reviewers like me a chance to take a look,
without having to resort to special treatment or review units.
The exact cap on the group buy was not announced, but it must have been giant because it didn’t
sell out for several days.
I’m guessing everyone who wanted one got one.
Vega’s design is nearly identical to the KBD8X MKII and the Polaris.
If you were to put them side by side, you might have a hard time telling them apart.
The bezels are thin on the sides, and a bit thicker on the front and the rear in order
to accommodate the foam strips.
The shallow bevel around the edges catch the light in a way that gives the profile a subtle
outline.
Every Vega has an arrow key blocker, and while I don’t hate it, I prefer going without
it because it feels like an out-of-place interruption of the compact layout.
I think these work best when accompanied by other empty space like on the Xeno.
I’ve always been a fan of seamless designs since they tend to look more purposeful when
compared to the too-often mismatched top and bottom.
While I prefer ones where the top completely envelopes the bottom like with the Kei or
the M60-A, this version has a slightly aggressive feel that a lot of people like.
On the bottom of the board we see the large stainless steel weight in a matte black finish
with Ai03’s logo.
Curiously, no screws here, and they’re not hidden underneath the feet either.
We’ll get more into that later.
This weight is actually depressed a little bit in relation to the case.
I think it’s intentional because the rear edge lines up perfectly.
This combined with the bevels on both the case and the weight makes the seam a nice
little accent.
The rear is my favorite part.
Like the Polaris, the weight is still visible from this angle, and this time, the USB port
cutout is half top and half weight.
I like it on the Iron165 and I really like it here.
The rear seam of the weight is only exposed in this section for the port, and its precision
just screams attention to detail.
When viewed from the top, the double recess, once from the case, and again from the port,
means that you’re not going to see large slivers of the connector shielding like you
do on some other keyboards.
Other than that, it’s not really a keyboard that focuses on the exterior.
I think it looks pretty good but it’s not something where I take one look and think
“I’ve got to have that”.
Like the Polaris, the finish on the Vega is exceptional.
The texture is one of the smoothest I’ve felt, and this green is a tasteful shade,
though I’m told it looks a lot like Five Gum.
Though it’s not a big deal, you can see some horizontal lines on the interior at certain
angles, which exists on the Kei as well.
Maybe these are made in the same factory.
The matte black PVD on the weight is an absolute fingerprint magnet, so don’t expect that
to stay looking pristine for more than a couple minutes out of the box.
Wiping it with a dry towel does nothing, a wet towel just kind of pushes the grime around,
and a light alcohol solution, as suggested in the manual, works a bit but I didn’t
try too hard because there was also a warning about potentially damaging the finish.
So just accept the fingerprints.
The Polaris has a similar matte finish on it’s brass weight and it’s much more resistant
to fingerprints.
I wonder what that’s about
This feels like a very similar finish to the matte PVD internal weight from Rama.
Fingerprints on it didn’t come off with any chemical, but finally let up when I boiled
it in a pan for more than an hour.
Probably not advised I’m guessing.
One last note on the finish is just how good the polycarbonate plate looks.
I own PC plates for the Polaris, E6.5, the 8XMKII, and the LZ Physix, and they all look
much worse than this.
it's probably wasted effort because I'll scratch it all up with a switch puller, but it helps
in making the experience feel more premium.
Putting this thing together is a lot more complicated than most other boards, so instead
of disassembling like we usually do, let’s start unassembled.
I put this together on a stream, and loosely followed the very helpful guide.
So let’s retrace our steps.
Installing stabs on this is a little different because the PCB is thinner at 1.2mm.
Stabilizers are designed for thicker PCBs, so you’ll need to use the included shims
for them to work correctly.
Moving onto the case, you’ll first want to install the gaskets.
The guide says to stick them onto the plates, and so do the instructions for the Polaris
as well as the KBDFans D65.
It does say that if you plan to use it with other plates, you should put them on the case.
I think the recommendation comes from the fact that in addition to the foam strips,
there is an additional set of gaskets that go on the internal walls of the case.
These work to hold the entire assembly in the correct position in relation to the bezels.
Without them, you could end up being too close to one edge.
In any case, I put all the foams on the case, and the only trouble I had was with sticking
the side gaskets on.
The plate foam occupies some of the space and can get tricky, but everything went together
alright with my installation.
If you have a hotswap PCB like I do, you can choose to install the hardware that makes
the plate and the PCB a single assembly without the switches.
This is something we’ve seen on others like the D65 and the TFV2, and the intention is
to allow secure switch installation without taking the board apart.
Without it, if you take out all of the switches, the PCB will rattle around the case, forcing
you to disassemble before you can rebuild.
Because they may create hard points, I typically leave them out.
I’ll talk more on their impact to feel and sound in the later sections.
With a polycarbonate plate, they do perform their intended function, but when I took the
assembly out, I could see that the switches were not completely seated.
I strongly suspect that this is due to the plate being flexible enough to bend with the
PCB.
I don’t think it’ll be a problem with metal plates though.
Speaking of metal plates, if you have one, you’ll want to screw in one of these standoffs
for grounding.
I wish this was done with a piece of conductive foam like in the TFV2 so that we can avoid
that hard point.
I shock my boards almost constantly during the winter and anecdotally, I’ve never shocked
the plate, so you could probably leave this out if you’re concerned about feel, but
aluminum plates are pretty hard anyway so I doubt it’ll be noticeable.
One last thing before we install switches is to put in a weird little screw on the bottom
of the case.
This will make contact with the conductive foam on the PCB, thereby reducing the chance
of any shocks to the case damaging PCB components.
I’ve shocked this board many times and never once did it disconnect or exhibit any kind
of strange behavior, so I think the protection is working well.
This seems like a clever solution that doesn't create hard points, so I hope everyone starts
doing this.
Finally, we can move onto a more typical step of the build, but the Vega has a little quirk.
Usually, you can put together your entire plate-PCB assembly outside of the case, and
you might want to both to protect the top finish as well as to avoid it getting in the
way while soldering.
If you try to do just that on the Vega, you’ll be in for an inconvenient surprise.
When trying to insert the assembly into the top, you’ll see that it doesn’t fit due
to switch corners blocking the little protrusions.
This is a quality of life sacrifice that was made to accommodate the design that doesn’t
have any externally visible screws.
Maybe these were limitations of the MX switch that we were never meant to break, because
while it is certainly impressive, it feels like a hacky workaround.
I guess this is only really a problem for hotswap and if you plan on changing switches
often but it is kind of out there.
I make it a little easier on myself by filling out the entire thing but saving the ones next
to the mounting points for last.
You could also file down the corners of the affected switches, but that seems like a lot.
Anyway, if you’ve followed the instructions, you can undo the temporary screws and screw
the top and bottom halves together at 8 points, which feels secure enough.
It’s a little weird not having to turn the board over for this, and I get got every single
time.
Building the Vega is probably going to take a little longer than most other keyboards
and with more quirks.
To alleviate this a little bit, they should consider including extra foam pieces to leave
room for mistakes.
These are pretty fragile.
Adhesives aside, the additional complexity that accompanies an externally invisible screws
design is a bit of a hassle and in my opinion not really worth it.
I don’t have one but I like the approach in the F1-8X where the screw holes pull double
duty as slots for rubber feet without any adhesives.
Though that might not be so easy for this design.
with that out of the way, let’s briefly take a look at each of these components.
First the PCB: in addition to the shock protection that really makes all the difference for me
personally, there are some other interesting things going on here.
From a looks perspective, it’s glossy black with visible traces which I think looks pretty
nice.
Ai03 posted his procedure for curving these traces and it looks as tedious as making an
entire minute of animation for one of these videos.
I don’t care what a PCB looks like, so in my opinion, the effort is wasted, but I know
a lot of you are weirdos that do.
Between the ASDF and ZXC rows is a cut, which is intended to provide a more flexible typing
experience.
I don’t have a way to verify, but this seems to make very little difference when you’re
using a full plate.
The effect on my Polaris with a half plate is noticeable though.
The reduced thickness of the PCB also works toward the same goal.
I can confirm that a build with a PCB is much stiffer than a build without one, so making
it thinner likely cuts down on the resistance.
This has a centered USB port, which I’m a fan of, but I would have preferred a daughterboard.
With a flexible mounting system such as this, when you plug the USB cable in, there is the
potential for the shielding to collide with the case.
With my polycarbonate plate and typical typing style, this was not an issue, but maybe if
you were using a half plate, you could reach the threshold.
The center USB when combined with the hotswap socket creates another compromise where the
nearest two keys need to be rotated 180 degrees.
Even when the switches are pushed in fully and securely, the 7 and 8 keys are noticeably
misaligned.The PCB doesn’t shift these keys any but just rotates them around the center
post.
The stem of a Cherry style switch goes into the well of this center, so this kind of rotation
should make no difference, but here we are.
After some more testing with different switches, and even different PCBs, I found that this
might be a switch issue.
I noticed the problem to be particularly glaring with my trusty Gateron Yellows as well as
real Cherry MX Browns, and less so with things like T1s or Kailh Creams.
I think the stem leans away from the LED hole, either at the stem level, or on the switch
as a whole.
I don’t think compensating for this on the PCB would even help, because it’s the angle
that’s misaligned, rather than the position.
So this is just something you’re going to have to live with if you want hotswap.
As expected C-to-C connectivity works.
I’m glad to see this is being implemented correctly more often recently, and from now
on I’m going to only mention it if it doesn’t work.
The top piece is a shell to the bottom in this seamless design and is extremely lightweight
with very thin areas.
You can see all sorts of complicated machining needed to make both the design and the mounting
possible
With the weight removed, the bottom is similarly lightweight.
As a matter of fact, the stainless steel weight accounts for almost 70% of the total mass
of the keyboard.
I’m intrigued by the idea of a version of this without a steel weight.
It’d be great for chucking in a backpack.
We didn’t need to mention the weight in the assembly by the way because you don’t
have to ever undo the screws for it.
Nevertheless, it screws on at 6 points and feels very secure.
The bottom is also relatively complex with these posts for the foam strips.
As a seamless design, you don’t really need alignment keys because the entire top and
bottom are one giant key, but they are included anyway, built into the walls of the screws.
There’s not a lot of bezel to work with here, and the little that exists is taken
up by the foam and the screws, so this seems doubly impressive.
Custom keyboard cases can be really simple, with a basic top-mount design involving essentially
a tray and a cover.
We’ve seen complexity get introduced with stuff like weights and external accents, but
the Vega really looks inward for refinement in design
The Vega’s mounting system is a foam sandwich.
I know it’s called gasket a lot but that term’s been loaded to the point where it’s
no longer descriptive, so foam strip or foam sandwich is what I call these.
It works by sandwiching the plate between two pieces of foam from the top and the bottom.
The idea is that by eliminating any contact between the plate and the case, you can create
different feel and sound.
For smaller boards like this, even flexible plate materials can feel kind of taut like
a small trampoline.
This is what I perceive on something like the E6.5 with a polycarbonate half plate as
well as the Sirius with a POM plate.
There are a lot less of the bounces that I can expect from my larger KBD8X MKII.
So if this pc full plate were to use a hard mounting system like top mount, you’d likely
experience dampened bottom out but not much vibrations.
Here, you kind of get both.
The bottom out feel is definitely softer, but you do get a little bit of vibration transfer
to your left hand when typing with your right.
I think it’s intuitive to think that foam strip and other squishy material mounting
will dampen vibrations, and they do in certain cases like in the D65, as well as with gummyworm
on the 8XMKII.
I won’t know for sure until I try the Vega with an aluminum plate but with PC, you won’t
be getting a totally calm experience.
If you’re already familiar with a lot of different keyboard feels, this is somewhere
between a centerpostless plateless tray and a top mount polycarbonate plate for a larger
form factor.
So for all of those reasons, this ended up being pretty good for me.
I typically don't have a lot of boards that I actually like to type on because none of
my favorites involve plates, and most keyboards have plates, but this emulates some of the
properties that I like from a plateless build.
I tried using the plate-PCB standoffs and I don’t perceive a difference that’s big
enough to notice between the 15 minutes or so that it takes to make the change.
Even still, I’m just going to leave it out.
It doesn’t really benefit polycarbonate plates much anyway.
If you’re a stickler for sound, I’m sure other content creators have commented on it,
so make sure to check those out.
I’m not super picky as long as it’s good enough.
But my assessment is that it sounds pretty typical for an aluminum board with a polycarbonate
plate.
The plasticy bottom out sound is unmistakable and the overall tone is generally muted.
With the plate-PCB standoffs installed, there seems to be some difference in sound for the
keys closest to them.
I assume the impact will be lessened for aluminum plates.
Somewhat unexpectedly, this is noticeable to me, so just another reason to leave it
out.
This comes with three pieces of foam: one for the plate, and two for under the PCB.
The plate foam seems to bring out the switch noise a lot more, as expected, and even using
a single piece of case foam has a bit of compression which gets you that familiar foam-y sound.
Before we get into the sound test, I feel like I need to say this part aloud.
The following test should only be used to compare between the foam configurations.
I’m historically pretty bad at sound tests, and it’s nearly impossible to convey IRL
sound accurately through my mic, through my codecs, over the internet, after compression,
and through your headphones, so you really should not be coming to concrete conclusions
about the board itself based on this alone.
I think the board sounds good enough without any foam, so I’m going to leave it out,
but you could use the plate foam if you want.
I do recommend against using the case foam because that added compression is going to
interfere with the squishy mounting system.
It’ll drastically change the feel to be stiffer.
The Vega feels like a modern keyboard that focuses on the fundamentals rather than flashy
design hit-and-misses that a lot of new customs try.
It’s an internals first board, maybe to a fault where the user experience becomes
a little bit inconvenient for the sake of removing visible screws.
The exterior still looks good without being really polarizing which seems fitting for
a line called the “reference series”.
The in-stock buy’s total cost was about 400 dollars at 360 plus 45 for shipping to
the US.
The group buy was 30 dollars cheaper.
The obvious comparison to make would be the Polaris which was priced at 255 dollars with
a polycarbonate half plate and free shipping.
This amounts to nearly a 50% price increase when compared group buy to group buy, and
while that is a lot, I’m thinking the pricing on the Polaris was an anomaly and maybe unsustainable
for at least one of the parties involved.
So with that, the Vega is no longer the “deal of the year” as the Polaris was, but it
seems reasonable enough for the great quality and the complex engineering that you’ll
be getting.
While the external design is a little boring for my taste, this will get the rare rebuild
treatment as it’ll occupy a place on my desk from time to time.