Today we have another DIY mechanical keyboard build, and this will be featuring the DZ60
Rev 2 PCB, and the KBDfans 5 degree acrylic case.
This is a build request from someone, so we picked out all these parts.
And they’re mostly from KBDfans, which is a pretty well known store from China that
offers value custom parts.
I’ve done a couple of 60% builds using the Satan GH60, which is a cheap and readily available
PCB, and is a great way to get into custom builds.
However as the market grows, there continues to be new products, and the DZ60 Rev 2 PCB
is one of the great releases.
My friend Chokkan has a great video on the why you should get the DZ60, and other new
entries in the market, over the older Satan GH60.
We got this from KBDfans, and this is the current Rev 2 USB C version.
There’s 2 main upgrades that you get with the DZ60 over the GH60.
Firstly we get even more options for the layout especially that bottom row.
And of course this does support the ISO layouts.
. And then the major cosmetic change, is that
we now have 16 RGB underglow LEDs on the underside of the PCB.
Back in the day the B.face from Winkeyless, and then subsequently the copy, B.fake were
the go to underglow 60% PCBs.
But these days, it’s a common feature that’s now kind of expected.
Before you do anything, it’s good to test your PCB.
Just plug it in, open up a keyboard tester, and short each key with some tweezers.
Next step is the stabilisers.
If you can, try and get genuine Cherry stabilisers, or some sort of screw ins, because rattly
stabs can truly ruin an otherwise good keyboard.
I clipped the little legs off, which takes a way a bit of mushiness.
And I lubed them with some Super Lube, just to ensure there’s no rattle.
Since the DZ60 has quite a few different layouts, there’s a couple of spots for some of the
stabilised keys.
The backspace is straightforward, as well as the enter key.
But the right shift has 2 spots.
So to demonstrate, I’ll put it in the wrong spot, and we can clearly see that it’s wrong
for the standard ANSI layout we’re going for.
It’s very important to make these mistakes now rather than later, as we won’t be able
to remove them after we solder in the switches.
The same goes for the spacebar as well.
You can layout your keycaps to ensure that everything lines up correctly.
Normally with genuine stabilisers, they stay in place pretty tightly and don’t pop out.
However for the left shift key there’s 2 possible positions for the stabs, in which
share the same holes.
So I found that they were way too easy to take out, which can be extremely problematic
in a finished build, which can potentially result in you having to desolder the whole
thing.
One thing to prevent them from coming out, is to shove in a toothpick.
With some stabs, they stay in pretty tightly.
But this just wasn’t cutting it, so I resorted to hot glue to fill in the gaps.
And I decided to do it to the rest of the stabs as well, and it worked out pretty good.
And the good thing with hot glue is that it won’t harm the PCB and is easy to remove
if you want.
Now to the plate.
The DZ60 does have its own prescribed mounting plate, however the aluminium plate wasn’t
in stock at the time, and since we’re doing a completely standard ANSI layout, it didn’t
matter what plate we used.
So we got this standard aluminium plate in silver.
However to take full advantage of the available layouts, you have to get the proper plate
that is sold on KBDfans.
The switches we have are 65g R10 Zealio’s.
For tactile MX style switches, Zealio’s are hard to beat.
These are manufactured for Zeal PC by Gateron, and have an emphasis on tactility and smoothness.
However, it does come with the higher price tag as well.
These are PCB mount switches, so they have the 2 prongs that go nicely into the PCB.
So it’s easy to make sure that the keyswitches are flush to the PCB.
Sometimes the prongs can be too tight preventing the switches from going all the way in, so
if they are, you can snip them off.
Now to the soldering.
You will need a soldering station or iron of some sort, so if you don’t have one,
then maybe a friend can do it for you.
But it really is just easy through hole soldering stuff.
My friend JUJU has a great video specifically on soldering mechanical keyboards, so check
it out if you haven’t soldered before.
But all we want to do is make a shiny concaved cone.
And as long as your iron isn’t too hot, I like to have mine at about 330 celcius,
and you don’t keep your iron on there for more than a few seconds, then you should be
sweet.
The PCB also does support backlighting for singular colour LEDs.
So there’s no RGB key lighting.
And we have 3mm purple LEDs, and when installing LEDs the longer pin is the positive, with
the shorter the negative, and on the PCB it will show the polarity with the positive symbol.
One thing that did get me, was that there were 4 keys on the bottom row that were flipped,
so those LEDs didn’t work and I had to desolder them, and put them back in.
But anyway, here it is all done.
The yellowy brownish residue for each joint is just flux, and you can clean that off with
isopropyl alcohol if you wanted to.
Alright so now to the case.
This is the 5 degree case from KBDfans, and is the frosted acrylic version.
This is also available in the transparent acrylic, and also the aluminium version in
various colours.
Before we do anything, it’s always good to put on the rubber feet because the acrylic
is easy to scratch.
I’ve built a couple of frosted acrylic boards, with the TEX acrylic case, and the cheap Chinese
ones.
And this is a step above.
This one adopts KBDfans 5 degree design which they have in aluminium.
So it has this unique angular aesthetic which is quite different to the usual just rectangular
cases.
The standoffs are part of the case itself, so the router simple cut around it, and it
was tapped to create the thread.
So there’s no brass threaded inserts or anything, so when putting in your screws,
be careful to not over tighten because there is the risk of cracking and just wrecking
the threads because it is just acrylic.
Also the screws aren’t magnetic which always makes putting in screws annoying.
I tried to use my own 6mm M2 screws, but they were just too long, as the ones provided have
4mm long threads.
Now to the keycaps.
The owner wanted something very clean.
At first he wanted something like a greyscale gradient, but with keycaps is always tough
to get what you want, and often what you want is very expensive.
So we got these blank 2 tone grey DSA profile keycaps.
And these are very affordable.
We just got the 60% ANSI set, and they’re nice.
And you can always change the keycaps later if you wanted to.
These are made from PBT plastic, and are about 1.3 to 1.4mm thick.
And they’re quite textured, which seems to be the case with many blank PBT sets.
Oh and KBDfans chucked in this cute little novelty keycap, but it’s in the XDA profile,
so it doesn’t match the set we have.
And here it is all put together.
And it’s a very very clean result.
Acrylic is such an nice alternative to work with, and it’s a nice change from the more
standard aluminium for custom builds.
Acrylic has that softness to it, which is especially accentuated with the frosted finish.
It’s an interesting contrast to the angular nature and hardness of the case design.
When you look at the aluminium version, you definitely feel that sharpness, as it mimics
that sort of crystallic shape.
But with the acrylic, it strips that backa bit, and you get that fusion between the two,
as the hard lines are now much more subtle.
However it’s angular design is still prominent.
As said, in the past, I’ve worked with the simple rectangular acrylic cases, however
this is much more complex in its shape, but it still manages to look clean.
Although of course since it is an acrylic case, we have to show the underglow.
And this is where the keyboard really comes to life.
The DZ60 has 2 rows of 8 underglow RGB LEDs which is more than enough to make this guy
glow.
One of the advantages of it’s angular design, is that the bezels are thicker.
And this helps with the diffusion of the LEDs, in reducing the concentration points.
Obviously on the bottom, you will still clearly see the LEDs.
It’s difficult to get an accurate representation on camera, but around the sides, the spread
of light is done quite well.
There’s also a bunch of lighting modes that you cycle through.
I like to keep it pretty chill, so I’m quite a fan of just a singular colour type of thing.
But you can go full rainbow when you feel like it.
One issue I had when I first plugged it in, was that I wasn’t able to lower the brightness
of the underglow LEDs, which is a problem, because it’s an absolute beacon in the darkness.
So to fix this we have to reflash it.
The DZ60 uses QMK which is a highly customisable firmware.
On the QMK firmware builder, you’ll find a bunch of keyboards, and even a couple of
DZ60 preset layouts.
And I just picked the standard layout.
And in here we can customise a bunch of things, in regards to macros, keymapping and all that.
But again, do your research.
Here’s the problem I had before.
On layer 2, we have our RGB keys from the Q to the I key.
Previously, the U and the I keys were not assigned to that, and therefore I couldn’t
control the brightness.
When you’re done, just go to compile, then you download the hex file.
On the DZ60 product page, there’s a bunch of links.
And here you will find the software to flash the hex file onto the keyboard.
So we just find our hex file and open it.
And t he keyboard will then need to be restarted.
Unfortunately there is no reset button on this revision of the PCB.
So we press function + pipe or backward slash, and that will reset the keyboard.
And then you press flash keyboard, and you’re done.
I also did put in purple LEDs for the key lighting, and that can be controlled as well.
And it’s a very subtle light that just peeks through the gaps of the keycaps.
Interestingly, when you turn the underglow off, and just leave the key LEDs on, we still
illuminate the case, but in a much more subdued way, which I came to like very much.
Using 65g Zealio’s, the typing experience is always going to be good.
Although I felt that these DSA keycaps didn’t bring out the best of the switches.
The deep dish keys felt absolutely amazing though.
And I guess it was also due to the combination of the aluminium mounting plate, and acrylic
case.
Everything is quite soft.
So this experience would be quite different to say, the aluminium 5 degree case, with
a steel mounting plate.
And also the rubber feet make this thing quite bouncy.
It didn’t really impact on using the keyboard when typing, but if you push on the front
side, it does bounce quite a bit.
Overall, it was a really fun build.
I loved working with the 5 degree case, and the underglow lighting really reacted well
to it.
And the DZ60 is a great 60% PCB.
KBDfans can do no wrong at the moment.
They’re really riding the value mechanical keyboard custom wave, and they’re doing
it well.
It’ll be interesting to see how long they can keep this up.
If you’re looking for a custom underglow build, I feel that the 5 degree case with
the DZ60 is a hard to beat combination.