I haven’t done a whole lot of custom mechanical keyboard builds in my time, but one type I
have yet to build is a full sized, which in the common world is a regularly sized keyboard
that you see everywhere.
Rare breed in the custom world though, with most being more compact for various reasons.
So today we will build the TX108se from TX Keyboards from South Korea.
The TX108se ran late last year, and was fulfilled earlier this year.
And these are the guys who make the TX keyboard bags as well that I showed in a previous build
vid.
Pretty nice.
Comes with nice zippers, and it comes with a bunch of foam to fit whatever board.
Anyway, let’s take it apart to have a closer look.
There’s 12 hex screws on the bottom, which keeps the two halves together.
And then we have the brass weight in the bottom of the keyboard, and that’s held in by some
countersunk Phillips head screws.
Super heavy by the way.
And it’s a typical top mount design, as we see on most customs.
So as we can see, the plate and therefore PCB and switches, are mounted to the top aluminium
piece.
And that just creates a more even typing experience.
Whereas a more typical design would be tray mount, where the mounting points would be
on the bottom, and therefore there will be some hard and soft spots because of those
mounting points.
Alrighty, so first we have the mounting plate, which is made from 1.5mm brass.
Brass being heavier than the usual aluminium, this comes in at 324g, so yeh, pretty heavy.
So for reference, that’s more than half of the Ducky One 2 Mini.
Here’s the top aluminium piece.
Lots of the screw holes.
So as seen before, the outer set of holes is for attaching the bottom case, and the
inside set for the mounting plate.
Between the top and bottom we have this thin polycarbonate piece.
It’s CNC’d as well, so we’ll see later, but it is a bit rough around the edge.
Said bottom case was tough to carry for the shot.
Again, CNC’d aluminium.
Finish on the inside is close to perfect, and around the screw holes as well.
This is usually where you do see some defects, but all good around here.
Full sized aluminium board is heavy enough, but just because, there is a brass weight
which comes in at a hefty 1.4kg.
That’s heavier than pretty much all typical prebuilt mechs that you can buy at a store
or whatever.
They’ve gone for this ribbed design.
Finish looks pretty clean, but yeh you can see the machining marks and stuff.
But this is all covered anyway, and you only see the ribs themselves from the outside.
Here’s the PCB, which supports MX style keyswitches.
And it does also support through hole LEDs, which we won’t be doing.
For the stabs, we have a bit of a treat.
The stabiliser scene has been quite confusing as of late, and still is.
With GMK screw ins supposedly being retooled and not being as good.
And yeh, Durock stabs is what I have today.
Just a brief look at them.
They are pre clipped, or rather they don’t have the little legs.
The wires do clip in more firmly though, so less chance of them popping out.
And putting these in were a bit harder than usual, because the thread is metal, and is
bigger than usual.
So I had to use more force to get it in
the hole.
Now to soldering.
I personally use a Hakko FX888D.
But you can easily use something cheaper.
And I use .56mm solder, which is pretty thin, but you can go thicker.
For the switches we have Gateron Yellows, which are a medium weight linear switch, and
these are lubed by Greg.
It’s worth taking your time with soldering, and making sure each joint is good.
You want a nice shiny concave joint.
Sometimes I put a bit more, but that’s fine as long as you don’t go too heavy.
But yeh, it really is an easy skill to learn, and it’s just really useful for other stuff
as well.
Because the outside of the plate doesn’t actually touch the sides of the case, there
is a bit of wiggle room.
So I had to line it up by eye.
And then trying to line up the polycarbonate piece was a little tough as well, because
it isn’t flush with the rest of the case, and again, there’s wiggle room.
So that took a bit of moving around.
And uh yeh, it’s a 108 key keyboard, 109 in this case, so filling up the whole thing
was a bit of a challenge.
And here it is.
The heaviest keyboard I’ve built on the channel so far coming in at about 4.3kg.
For comparison, this Varmilo which has a steel mounting plate is 3 kilograms lighter, and
that’s already heavy for most people.
It looks good.
On top, it’s clean, just a classic look, but with rounded corners and edges giving
it a pretty soft look.
There’s the TX branding above the arrow keys which do light up.
And yeh, our lighting was flickering, so I’ve kept it off for now until we can get it fixed.
And the same goes for the sideglow.
I did have a few LEDs flickering.
But regardless of that, it’s not the best look in my opinion.
These are side facing SMD LEDs which are right on the edge of the PCB.
And without proper diffusion and just the spacing of them, you get this effect which
just doesn’t look good to me.
And to be honest it looks way better with the lights off.
The plastic piece is inset just that little bit as well, so it’s not flush with the
aluminium.
Don’t know how to feel about that.
But the whole sideglow thing just doesn’t work for board.
The other unique part are the I guess grips, or finger holes.
Polarising design.
When I first saw them in drawings, I didn’t like them because they are quite jarring,
and really do stand out.
In real life, I think they look fine.
Still do look quite aggressive, and isn’t the cleanest design, but they work like a
charm.
And you do need them to move this keyboard around.
On the bottom we see the brass weight peeking through.
No branding or anything on the weight.
Instead it’s engraved above it on the aluminium.
Also the anodisation is stunning on this keyboard.
Flawless, looks even.
Colours match nicely.
And it has a bit of a soft touch to it, being more matte, rather than metallic.
Typing experience is delicious.
Lubed Gateron Yellows are some of the best value linear switches you can make.
Nice and smooth, which pairs perfectly with the top mount design and brass plate.
Bottom out is softened a bit by the lube, and it feels tight and dense.
The slight disappointment are the stabs.
Durock stabs have been kinda hyped, but in this particular build, with the usual band
aid and lube job that I do, they’re not great.
I haven’t further attempted to fix them up yet, just so I can kind of compare them
to other builds I’ve done.
But yeh, you hear that rattle on nearly all the stabilised keys.
Not sure if it’s just this board in particular.
I’ve heard really good things about them.
But right now, for this particular build.
They’re not great, and my past GMK pre-retooled stabs are better.
Again, just in this case.
It was actually interesting using a full sized keyboard again, because it has been a while
to be honest.
We do have the 4 extra keys in the corner.
The keycaps don’t represent what they are, it’s just really all I had in that profile.
And we have stepped caps lock, just a typical bottom row, and split backspace for this configuration.
Interestingly, they do use their own software for this which was a little difficult to find.
And here you can program the keys and all that.
As well as play with the lighting.
Unfortunately I didn’t see a simple off option, so I just lowered the brightness all
the way down.
Overall, a really enjoyable build.
I love getting a chance to build all these different kind of keyboards.
As I said before, this is the heaviest one I’ve built so far.
There’s a few unique design traits which I like to see.
It is just a keyboard after all, and you don’t want them to all look the same.
I think the sideglow and polycarbonate piece don’t really fit the board, but I just choose
to ignore it.
But other than that, I really like this board.
TX keyboards have quite a few boards, and some different layouts which look really cool.
I’ll leave a link in the description if you want to check it out, but beware, these
are custom mechanical keyboards.