The KBD8X Mark II is KBDFans’s second tenkeyless offering that was designed in collaboration
with Ai03.
KBDFans offers great value boards but this seems to be a cut above that, though it has
a couple serious flaws.
The April group buy listed a very aggressive delivery date, which after a couple hiccups
became about seven and a half months for me.
At some point, there was a change of factory, and depending on where they came from, there
were some marked differences in quality for certain units.
It seems to me that I was one of the last to be delivered to, so I’m guessing mine
comes from the latest batch, which seems to be better than the rest.
At around 300 dollars for the aluminum version and 350 for polycarbonate, this seemed to
be a good deal for a custom TKL kit.
With a new group buy running, it seems like a great time to see if it’s worth getting.
The overall shape of the Mk II to me is pretty much the same as the TGR Jane V2.
It’s got that narrow separation between the alphas and the function row, as well as
that signature rear bottom cut.
This follows the same overall design Ai03 uses that’s also found on boards like the
Equinox or the Polaris.
Looking straight down from above, you can see that it’s a regular TKL.
The corners are rounded with a small radius and all top edges are chamfered.
From the front edge we see something a little unusual.
Most customs would have a seam here where the top and the bottom meet.
This one doesn’t, which I think is more aesthetically pleasing.
Moving on to the side, we catch the first glimpse of the two piece construction.
The bottom is entirely nested under the top, and gives it that angle.
The rear shows that overhang, as well as the USB Type-C port located in the usual TKL position.
The port cutout is exceptionally tight, which is even more impressive given that there is
no daughterboard.
The rear cut would usually make picking up the board easier, but because of the increased
depth, I can’t comfortably grip from the front and the rear.
This is a both-hands board for me when moving it around.
On the bottom is the brass weight whose color seems to be a little more yellow-gold than
usual.
My aluminum version is the E-White color, which is also seen in my white JER Mini.
It is a smooth paint-like finish that’s a true white as opposed to MAO, which is a
light gray.
The overall design seems to be the same for the polycarbonate version.
One thing of note here is that the finish is a little bit different than what I’m
used to with PC.
Looking at my E6.5, which isn’t even the gold standard for finish quality, the texture
is much smoother, and has a clean translucent look.
The Mk II on the other hand has a much rougher finish which leads to a more frosted look.
This is a shame because it ends up looking closer to an Acrylic Tofu rather than a high
end custom.
One last beef a lot of people seem to have with the PC version is that the plates have
cutouts under the empty space above the arrow cluster.
This is particularly noticeable when using a brass plate.
I think it’s fine but some people don’t like the way that looks.
PC finish aside, I think the 8x is a good looking keyboard.
I especially appreciate the seamless design where the top is more like a lid to the bottom,
rather than the upper floor.
Being so simple, there’s not much else to comment on, but it makes sense to use an inoffensive
design for an accessible board.
The board comes apart with 8 screws on the bottom.
They seem a little small and fragile to me, but that was probably required to get these
thin bezels.
The screws on the polycarbonate version are longer black hex heads, compared to silver
Phillips on the alu.
The top is a lightweight piece to which the keyboard assembly mounts to.
The plate screws into it at 9 points, none of which are directly under the spacebar.
The bottom is where the majority of the weight is focused.
You can see that this brass weight is absolutely massive.
Even for the aluminum version, the weight is heavier than the entire rest of the bottom.
The finish on one of the two weights is pretty good on the outer face.
The one that came in the PC version has a couple flaws including a scratch about an
inch long.
Both weights have flaws in the inside face.
The most noticeable of which are the scratches near the screw holes.
It makes it seem like these were assembled in a hurry and someone missed the hole by
quite a bit.
They’re not perfect, but given the price, I think they’re excusable.
Not a cheap keyboard for sure, but usually custom TKLs are much much more expensive.
Considering a lot of those run into brass quality issues, I think these are fine.
Let’s now examine the finishes, starting with aluminum.
Looking around the exterior, there are no flaws at all with the E-White finish, which
is very pleasing.
The texture on this one is just slightly more matte than the one in the Jer Mini.
I think that gives it a bit more of a satin look than gloss, but it’s a tiny difference.
Looking hard for some flaws, I could only find tiny little chips in the mating surface
on the bottom.
Not really a big deal.
Overall I’d say the surface finish on the E-White is exceptional, especially for the
price.
Polycarbonate, while quite good, is not as perfect.
The aforementioned rougher than usual finish isn’t something I really like, but it does
help in covering up some other flaws.
Looking at the bottom through a bright light source, you can clearly make out the machining
lines on the inside of the case.
This is actually not as bad as the E6.5, and is effectively covered by the rough finish
on the outside.
One thing that makes the PC version feel a little less refined is the connection between
the bottom and the weight.
It makes a bit of tapping noise when you set the board on your desk.
Nothing during use, but still feels a little janky to attach a piece that weighs five times
as much with four far screw points
Like the bottom, the top’s rough exterior finishes cover up the interior machining lines
of which there are many.
The only exterior flaw is the number of scratches above the arrow cluster.
This is one of the only blank spaces on a TKL and it should have been taken better care
of.
But these are generally issues that come with the territory, so I shouldn’t complain too
much.
One major complaint is that the provided screws are too short for the polycarbonate top.
After accounting for the plate thickness, you have 2mm of thread remaining.
For one of the holes in the pc top, this much thread was stripped straight from the factory
and was unable to secure the plate.
This is something that is easily solved with longer screws because the holes are already
deep enough for those.
I bought some M2x6 screws as suggested by Ai03 which work fine.
I hope these longer screws will be included next time
The 8x was offered with four different types of plates.
Full and half plates in either brass or polycarbonate.
Naturally, I got all four.
The brass plates are the same yellow-gold color as the weights, if not slightly brighter
still.
I kind of like this type of finish, but some others prefer the more muted natural brass
color.
The quality of the finish is similar to the weights.
There are fewer flaws, but some smudges and marks remain.
The polycarbonate plates are the same as others I’ve seen.
Glossy on one side, and textured on the other.
The cutouts on these are kind of gnarly, particularly on the half plate.
It doesn’t affect usability at all, but this was a $35 add-on which isn’t necessarily
cheap.
Lastly, the PCB is pretty cool.
It’s got a matte black finish, which looks really good, and has a variety of features.
One that I appreciate a lot is overcurrent and ESD protection.
This isn’t all that common in custom PCBs and it’s really frustrating to zap your
board on a dry day and render it unusable.
I’m also happy to see that using a USB C to C cable works.
I recently found out that this doesn’t work for some PCBs such as the one in the E6.5,
DZ60 and the first round of Space65
Another cool feature are these flex cuts.
The idea behind these is that by separating rows from each other, there will be more room
for movement, and therefore bounce.
An interesting idea that we’ll come back to.
That was a really long discussion on build quality and construction, but in summary,
the quality seems to be above what I’ve seen from KBDFans in the past, particularly
for the E-White version.
I don’t know if I can recommend the polycarbonate one but you can always follow the guide Norbauer
made to sort of refinish it yourself.
I have here all four of the plate options that were available at group buy.
Brass and polycarbonate plates in both full and half.
I have them all built with stock Gateron Yellows so you can be reasonably confident of my comparisons.
Starting with the familiar, the brass full plate largely delivers what’s expected from
it.
Harsh bottom out with a harsh tone.
Though when compared to other brass plates, I find this one to transfer a little more
vibration than I would expect.
This could be due to the relief cuts all around the plate or possibly just the larger size
of a TKL versus something like a 60%, but I don’t have the means to verify these.
With all that said, if you like brass plates, this will be familiar territory.
I don’t really like them so they don’t get a recommendation.
The polycarbonate full plate is actually my preferred of the four for it’s consistent
forgiving experience.
It has that signature plasticy sound, with quite a bit of bounce.
I’ve used this analogy before, but I’d describe this to be like a trampoline on the
bottom out, whereas the brass would be something like that semi firm rubber material they
use in modern playgrounds.
I really like the amount of vibration transfer from one hand to the other.
This gets my recommendation but it does sound kind of loose so take that into consideration.
Next up are half plates.
For those not familiar, a half plate’s goal is to provide some flex to the main typing
area of the keyboard while still working within the confines of a top mount.
This kind of plate is uncommon already but it’s even more interesting when combined
with the flex cuts on the pcb.
Without the plate securing the alphas, the Q and A rows are largely free to move up and
down.
Here, we encounter our first problem.
The pcb is able to bend so far that it hits the bottom case.
And this doesn’t even take that much force.
After bottoming out on the switches, there’s just a tiny bit more travel before you can
feel some pcb components, probably the solder joints, bottom out.
If you type heavily, you’re probably going to feel this “double bottom out” a lot,
which leads to weird feels and sounds.
In certain typing recordings I actually heard some clanking caused by this.
While I haven’t run into them, electrical components touching metal could cause shorting
problems which will probably manifest in multiple keystrokes registering on a single press.
In the event of shorting, you could insulate either the case or the pcb with something
like electrical tape, so technically speaking, you could use the half plates if you really
wanted.
Functionality issues aside, There are some keyfeel inconsistencies that come from the
pcb flex cuts.
The Q and A rows that are separated from the rest of the pcb are bouncy and gummy while
the number row and the Z row have a significantly harder bottom out.
A theme in attention to detail in keyboards is trying to get every key, or at least the
alphas to feel and sound the same, and this directly takes away from that.
Due to these issues, I can’t really recommend the half plates at all, but if you must, you
should go for the polycarbonate one since the middle portion flex doesn’t really seem
to be affected by the material, and the difference between the plated and non plated portions
are less stark than the brass.
To recap, half plates have issues, brass is the same old, and polycarbonate full is nice.
It’s a shame that this round only offers brass full, and if I was able to get this
video out sooner, I would have recommended a ProjectKeyboard plate but here we are.
One last note on feel is on burger mounting.
This is when you add o rings to some part of the top mounting system.
Especially for PC, it’s hard or impossible with the included screws, so I picked up some
M2x6 screws which worked alright.
I don’t know if burger mounting is clearly defined, but I used o rings on both sides
of the plate which is a real pain in the ass.
I tried it on a brass plate since I thought the difference, if any, would be the most
noticeable there.
The feel was largely unchanged but the sound seemed a little less resonant.
Comparison to follow in the next section.
A couple years ago, KBDFans just had uninteresting tray or top mount boards, and you can still
get that experience here.
However, flex cuts and half plate options were a definite step forward even with their
problems.
So you can understand my frustration seeing these rolled back.
I hope they aren’t discouraged from trying other new things in the future
I’m not as obsessive about sound as other members of the community, so it should be
telling that this was one of the only boards I’ve ever owned that stood out as sounding
hollow.
Typical alu and brass boards tend to deaden most noise, but this one is resonant.
There is that muting kit that you can get, and it definitely works in making the board
sound as you’d expect, but that’s not without tradeoff.
The foam is thicker than the space under the pcb and therefore compresses quite a bit upon
installation.
The result is a significantly dampened bottom out.
Brass full will have the smallest change in feel so I definitely recommend it there, but
for poly full and all half plates, the vibration transfer between the hands is significantly
reduced.
You could still see movement when you press down on half plates, but the bounce is unnoticeable
in real typing scenarios.
It improves the sound, but I think it makes the board a lot less interesting, so I can’t
recommend it.
What I can recommend is you crumple up a couple tissues and put it under the pcb.
It seems to help the sound while not absolutely destroying the bottom out feel like the foam.
There are a lot of combinations to cover here so each will be relatively brief.
I’ll make separate comparison videos down the line though.
My aluminum 8x came out really nice but the thing about KBDFans is that yours might not
not be this good.
I think they’ve definitely been improving their reputation over the years, but really
the only thing consistent about them is their inconsistency.
The polycarbonate version has a pretty disappointing finish, and the stripped screw holes are definitely
worrying for the board’s longevity.
So until they prove otherwise, I’ll need to stay away from KBDFans polycarbonate.
Generally TKL customs are pretty expensive.
Nowadays I see them go for over 500 retail before shipping, which is in stark contrast
to the MkII which comes in at under $350 with shipping to the US.
I’m satisfied with my preferred configuration, which is an aluminum case with a polycarbonate
full plate.
I think this is a great value while other TKLs remain out of reach.
At this lower price, you’ll have to temper your expectations.
You could have imperfect finishes, scratched weights, and mismatched colors, but it’s
not like expensive boards are immune from those.
So for someone looking to get into customs, the KBD8X MkII gets my recommendation.
However, I’ve been doing this for a little bit, and I actually bought into these because
I thought they would be great boards even when judged outside of their price points.
On paper, this seemed to have everything from flex cuts and half plates to seamless design
and a polycarbonate option.
But in practice a lot of this falls apart.
The pcb flex cut locations don’t make much sense, it also clanks against the bottom,
and it’s much hollower than I’d like.
So while I don’t think this is a bad board, It’ll be on my desk only occasionally.
The other reason I bought this board was to do A/B testing between things like full and
half plates as well as material differences in cases and plates.
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