- A couple weeks ago,
I, and a bunch of other keyboard YouTubers,
met in a secret meeting.
And we came up with an idea
that we all upgrade the same keyboard.
I proposed that we have randomized budgets anywhere
from $20 to $60.
We put that all on a spinning wheel,
and then spun them both at the same time.
I landed on $40 and this is tools included.
Everythings to make it more realistic.
You don't have lube just laying around in your closet.
Like none of these things are just normal items, you know?
So we're gonna do some shopping.
I think I'm gonna start with KBDfans.
When you mod a keyboard,
the first thing you need is a switch
and keycap puller.
That is extremely cheap, and it comes with
the switch and the keycap puller.
So, oh okay.
So nevermind.
I thought this would be $1.
The thing that is $1 is just the keycap puller.
I need the switch puller as well.
So I'm gonna get this,
for $3.50. (money clinks)
It's a good start.
The thing that matters most,
I feel like that's going to determine the winners
versus the losers will be the spacebar.
I'm not planning on lubing my switches.
Krytox alone takes like a ton of that budget.
Cutting. (keyboard keys click)
Diagonal, cutting pliers.
There we go.
$2 (money clinks)
That's pretty good.
Tweezers?
I mean, who needs those?
I've got finger tips here.
Do a genius thing, sort by low to high.
Sold out, sold out.
I need pre-lubed.
Milky Yellow Pro Linears, $6.
25 per pack.
So I only need two or three packs.
$18. (money clinks)
The Gateron Milky Pro Yellows are pre-lubed.
That's why, that's why
they're winning material. (video game music)
As long as the typing test sounds good,
that means I could win.
That leaves me $17.
What the heck can you buy with $17?
Again, low to high.
That's the secret.
Okay, lube brush, I wanted that.
$2. (money clinks)
Things are adding up real fast.
(keyboard keys click)
Are there any keycaps that cost $17?
I find this not possible.
Pudding keycaps are 20, but I don't.
I think that would just,
that'll make me lose more, I can't do that.
More pudding keycaps.
And I don't want pudding keycaps.
It's not how you win.
This is the magic I've been waiting for, okay.
Spacebar foam.
A little expensive, worth a shot.
These quick hacks are gonna win it for me.
Switch pads.
Yes.
What makes things thocc?
That's really, really, really cheap.
Just get a PE foam sheet.
You say that like I could
just buy a PE foam sheet, (keyboard keys clicking)
that's affordable.
Rather than PE foam.
I got it,
tape mod.
Blue tape. (keyboard keys clicking)
On one of Hipyo's videos,
he said this only cost $3.
Home Depot, maybe.
Home de pot.
He lied on his thumbnail.
Painters tape is not $3 dollars.
Dollar Store painting tape. (keyboard keys clicking)
Walmart, $3 painter's tape.
That's legit.
Blue tape, $3. (money clinks)
It's $39.50.
Don't think we have anything that can open
up the case.
I need a screwdriver.
Like a legitly cheap,
50 cent screwdriver.
Ooh, here we go, $1 screwdriver.
But I only have 50 more cents.
I'm going to take away one packet
of the Milky Pros and add in the screwdriver.
(money clinks)
So I need dielectric grease.
I can't believe we almost forgot about dielectric grease.
$4. (money clinks)
I think that fits.
$38.50.
I'm pretty happy with that.
Would you rather have the switch pads
or
have more Pro Yellows?
They are both $6.
I wanna try out the switch pads.
(laughs)
Four votes to three votes.
Not a huge (laughs) turnout.
But hey, more switches it is.
Goodbye, switch pads.
Alright, so shopping.
The shopping phase has been finished.
And what a surprise,
I actually did most of my shopping in real life.
It's sort of like food cooking channel.
You put it in the oven, you pull it out.
And you're like, "I actually prepared another one."
Base keyboard is this.
The Womier WK61, high performance mechanical keyboard.
We all are using the same keyboard.
It comes with some foam, you know.
I can, I can put this in the keyboard.
That'll be free, (money clinks)
included in box.
It's not terrible.
It's sort of a see through case.
No feet or anything.
USBC port.
Does it come with anything?
It comes with,
I guess reddish pink, orange key caps.
Alright, RGB.
I dig it.
Nice bright lights, looks really good.
Typing test.
(keyboard keys click)
(Betty laughs)
My spacebar doesn't work.
Okay.
The key that you never use, is this one.
This key will be
the sacrificial lamb. (knife stabs)
You will go into space bar.
You will go here.
I, I don't think that deserves to live.
It can just not go back in.
(keyboard keys click)
It's actually like pretty decent.
There's a lot of potential here.
Stabs, not great.
(keyboard keys click)
The spacebar foam better do something.
First step is probably tape mod.
I'm mowing through this thing.
It's fast speed. (car engine zooms)
You glad I invested $3.50 into this tool?
Better tools are OP.
You won't witness another fire hazard.
There's no battery in here.
You'll be, you'll be all good.
USB-C can deliver up to 100 watts,
enough for a solder iron.
But people are always doing tape mod.
Has anyone else caused a fire with tape mod yet?
Or is this just some unlucky event
that I've had to deal with?
Ah, we only spent $38.50.
Do you think I could replace the blue tape
with electrical tape?
Can I afford that?
Cause I don't wanna cause a fire.
You don't wanna cause a fire.
I'm gonna take this time
to look up the price of electrical tape.
So we'll be okay.
Oh wow, electrical tape is like super cheap.
It actually costs less than painter's tape.
What?
$2, we're doing it.
Safety.
Yes.
Safety is number one.
Look at that, PCB just like moves around.
(metal clinks)
(Betty laughs)
I don't have scissors. (laughs)
I don't have sciss, oh, I have flush cutters.
Yes.
Let me tell you,
scissors are way better than flush cutters.
This is not the purpose.
My $1.50 pen.
Really hard writing on these.
Library.
And shh.
That's OP.
This plate is so warped.
And these stabilizers are bone dry.
Barely any lube there.
Not the best.
That's all I can say.
I even got a lube brush in the budget, but no Krytox.
So I only have this,
I'll do just a little bit of that.
Since it's just dielectric grease,
I'm doing a really thin layer.
I don't want it to get too sluggish.
(grease sloshes)
(bouncy music)
I wonder if anyone's lubing their switches.
Cause then you need to buy a switch opener
and the lube and that's expensive.
How safe would it be if I just like
put this in here, safe or not safe?
Safe?
Let's go.
(foam pops)
(bouncy music)
Oh yeah, here we go.
Put that on.
Screw it back in.
(metal clanks)
Milky Yellows.
This better sound amazing.
And I think it will.
Alright.
(Betty claps) Switches are done.
They look beautiful.
I, I think I've got a fighting chance.
And don't forget, don't forget okay.
We've got space bar foams.
This is the secret.
The black part around this is going to interfere
with my stabilizer here.
So I think I might just cut those ends off
and plop it in like that.
I think that's the best I could do.
But let's hear what it sounds like without the foam,
and then put the foam in.
(spacebar clacks)
Ooh, dang.`
(spacebar clacks)
That's not bad, it's not bad.
There we go.
Deformed spacebar foam.
I hope it makes a difference.
If not, I'd be very sad
that I spend $5 on this, aha.
(spacebar clacks)
Spacebar?
Good.
Chance of winning?
Quadruple.
These are sort of cute.
Fish, paw, owl, panda.
I really think, gonna win.
Is that overconfidence?
They don't have a chance.
The one person I'm worried about,
is the person that got $60.
That's a lot of money.
When I didn't allocate any budget to keycaps,
I was a little bit worried.
You know, cause looks play a big part in things.
I think sound matters a little bit more.
Finished keyboard.
Lemme plug it in.
I'm proud of us for this.
Gone a long way from the before.
(keyboard keys clack)
And the after.
(keyboard keys clack)
I love it.
I think it's awesome.
(keyboard keys clack)
Oh yeah.
Okay, mods.
I forgot.
(keyboard keys clack)
(computer beeps)
(mouse clicks)
(keyboard keys clack)
It's good.
It's like legit.
Yay.
Yeah, it's nice.
The only downside is (laughs) you see the
black foams there.
(bouncy music)
So it even bottoms out still because we cut the foams out.
I dig it.
I finished modding my keyboard.
Everyone on stream was super helpful
during shopping and the build.
And kept me from burning the house down.
Adding the more, extra thocc into the spacebar.
It's time to meet with the guys
and we're gonna see who's keyboards sounds the best.
I think we should start with the cheapest.
- Yeah.
Okay, I had $20.
So we had to get a little bit creative,
by cheating.
- What do you mean cheating?
(Andy laughs)
- I bought a different keyboard.
(Andy and Betty laugh)
It's still the same keyboard.
It's just different.
- It's prettier.
- Yeah, this is our loophole.
It's from the same vendor,
it had the same name.
- Yeah - It was the same price.
So I'm considering it, fair cheating.
- Alright.
- Yeah, yeah.
(Hipyo laughs)
No objections here. - Fair cheating.
We've got pudding keycaps.
Gateron Red switches.
There's a bit of a problem here in that.
As I mentioned, I had nothing to lube them with.
So I bought a tube of super lube oil and two Ziploc bags.
I put all of the stems and springs in those bags.
(Betty laughs)
Filled it with oil, just drenched it.
And I, I shook up everything.
It still sounds pretty bad.
The stabilizers - No you're gonna win,
you're gonna win. (laughs)
- Believe
- The stabilizers were done with some Permatex
and more super lube oil, of course.
I have then press and seal wrapped
the whole PCB and taken an allergy filled
carbon air filter.
- Ooh.
- And done the back with that.
So there you go.
- Creative.
- Resourceful.
- Very
(Betty laughs)
- Let us listen to the sound test.
- Yes, everybody listen.
(keyboard keys clack)
- I thought it was pretty good.
So that was $20. - Okay.
- I think the next one up is - 30
- $30. - Yeah.
- Alright, Andy.
- So, this is my keyboard.
Same as everyone else.
(Lewis coughs)
I did not have the foresight to fair cheat.
Yeah. WK61 from Womier.
And.
- Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
(Betty laughs)
- What?
- I see all those coins back there.
(All laugh)
- I went to a vending machine, put $20 in.
Expected change and it did give me change,
in quarters.
Came in handy for today. (laughs)
For my mods,
I knew I wanted to put the quarters in there.
I wanted to do a silicone port, but with $30 budget
the silicone port would've taken almost half of it.
So I put quarters in the bottom (laughs)
but there was a little.
(keys click)
(Betty laughs)
- Shake test action, that's not quite secure.
I bought a whole set up from Divinikey.
The brush, 205G0, and switching.
I went ahead and modded the stabilizers,
and they improved them.
But they're still kind of stock stabilizers,
so there's a little bit of rattle in there.
I taped down the piece B, two layers.
The tape isn't included in my budget
because I said, "Just go to a kindergarten class
and steal their tape."
- I didn't know you were a thief.
- They're children, it's fine.
(all laugh)
And I had that lube, but then I got lazy.
So I didn't wanna lube the switches,
so instead I used the rest of my budget
and bought 50 JWKs from Divinikey.
- Ooh.
- Okay.
- That's smart.
- JWKs sound great stock.
Only had 50 because if I did 75 sets of 25
I would've went over the budget.
So we only put the important keys.
All the alphas and the mods.
Your numbero, it's a nice little Gateron Red.
(keyboard keys clack)
Sounds horrible.
But,
you get your JWKs everywhere else.
(keyboard keys clack)
- Ooh.
- That's nice.
- Without having to do any work,
and that's my method.
Time is money,
and I don't have three hours to bag oils (laughs)
and parts like Hipyo.
(Betty and Hipyo laugh)
Please enjoy my sound test of this lazy $30 mod.
(keyboard keys clack)
- Oh.
- That's pretty nice.
- That's not bad.
- That's pretty good.
- Yeah. That's not bad.
- What's our next budget?
- It's me.
I'm at $40.
I spent almost all of it.
So it did come with these other colored key caps on it.
- [Hipyo] Yeah, yeah.
- And I was like, "What a steal."
So my main goal was to make the spacebar sound good.
You know, if your space bar sounds good,
you automatically win.
So most of my money was spent trying
to do space bar stuff.
I bought dielectric grease, spacebar foam.
And it sounds great, you know.
Listen to it.
(keyboard keys clack)
- Oh wow.
- That's a pretty good, it's pretty good spacebar.
A keyboard came in a sleeve,
and I smooshed that in the back.
- Ooh. - It's free.
I was like, I'm not lubing anything.
Lubing is freaking expensive.
So I bought Gateron Milky Pro Yellows
for $18 from Divinikey. - Oh.
- That was a steal.
You can listen to, to the typing test.
(keyboard keys clank)
- That sounds pretty good.
A little bit hollow.
- Mm, I tried. (laughs)
- But that space bar is kind of nuts.
- I thought it was unsaveable.
- The competition is looking strong when we're coming
into our more expensive budgets here with $50.
Scott.
- I'm a little nervous.
I got some stiff competition now.
But to be fair, I didn't spend all 50.
I think I spent $38.57.
This right here is,
I call this the stealthy Bakeneko.
- Ooh.
- I think the reason why I think that,
is because if you look inside it,
you could actually see that
this is gummy o'ring mounted.
- Oh, dang. - Ooh.
- I bought a replacement Bakeneko 60 o'ring.
I had to step it up, you know.
I had $50 to show for it.
So I kind of took a similar path as Andy did.
So I did go with the JWKs, I did get some Krytox 205.
I bought a $2.99 bag of polyfill.
Shoved it in here with the o'ring,
and it has a nice bounce to it as well.
I was like, "Oh man, do I have enough money
to try to splurge for some keycaps?"
Which I didn't.
So I'm like, what, what can I do?
I picked up some Elmer's white glue.
It's $1.50 for a bottle of glue.
And then a, just a crap ton of my time.
I filled each individual keycap on the top
with this white glue. (laughs)
Trying to make a doubleshot keycap myself.
Which I think it helped a little bit,
added some weight to it.
So like the, the keys don't sound so like bad anymore.
- Yeah.
- Hopefully the sound is okay on that as well.
- Alright. - That's impressive.
It'll probably feel the best out of all of us.
- Wow.
(keyboard keys clack)
- Oh my God.
That spacebar, what?
- The heck?
- It's probably cause he has 50 bucks, man.
You know, it's not that he's smarter
and more resourceful.
(Betty laughs)
It's the money.
- Oh my, we lose.
- Yeah, I think we lose.
- It's too early.
We got Lewis, and he has 60 bucks.
- Yeah, Lewis has got- - Let's see, let's see
- Even more money.
- Lewis could pull out anything.
- Okay, so my WK61, we'll start from the back.
Penny modded,
but I forgot that you have to tape it down.
So it just shakes like crazy.
(pennies shake)
(Betty laughs)
I did a full mod.
I bought foam for like $5,
For stabilizers, I decided to not use any lube.
$60 to rid out any lube whatsoever,
so I could buy keycaps.
There's this mod that stream showed me,
called the dry hump mod.
You basically tape every single thing you can see
on a stabilizer and make sure it sounds pretty decent.
But in my mind, I was thinking big brain move,
you know.
When we are doing like a typing test,
when do you press enter
or left shift or right shift?
You don't.
So I try to avoid any mistakes whatsoever.
Press the spacebar as light as possible,
even though there is major rattle.
And hopefully I win the sound test,
cause my stabilizers sound ass.
(Betty laughs)
I spent about $20 on keycaps
for some Girl clones, you know.
JTK sakura night.
- That's pretty. - So I'm pretty sure
I'm gonna win the best looking.
But best sounding, I, I don't think I got it anymore.
- I got this, here's what we do.
We copyright strike him for the clones and now.
(all laugh)
- Oh wait, I forgot about it.
My switches are the Akko Rose Reds.
- Oh.
- Nice.
Now let's hear it.
(keyboard keys clack)
- It's not bad, know I mean.
- That's not bad.
- It sounds pretty good.
- For some reason I can't screw it in.
So it's just floating like, man.
(all laugh)
- Yeah, I think we got some good competition.
- That's some tough contenders.
- Yeah.
- So we're gonna compile everything,
post it to Twitter.
You guys will vote and then there's gonna be a winner.
- It's been about a week
since we posted everything on Twitter
about which keyboard sounds the best and looks the best.
And the results are finally in.
Sounds the best is keyboard B.
I'm pretty sure that is Scott's keyboard.
So it's Scott, Andy, Hipyo.
- Aw.
- Me and then Lewis.
- Nice
- I did that bad?
- Congratulations.
(Betty claps)
You scienced the heck out of all of us.
- I hope I didn't start anything where
people are gonna start gluing their keycaps now.
- Are you sure I'm E?
- I'm sure, yeah.
- A keycap glue video, coming soon.
- Aw, no.
(Betty laughs)
- Yeah Hipyo, you can make that video.
Which one looks the best.
Yep, D is Lewis' keyboard.
I mean, of course look at these.
- I mean.
(all laugh)
- Pudding.
- The pudding.
- D, E, B, A, C.
I'm last place. (laughs)
N one likes the red.
- I hope it doesn't send the wrong message.
Higher budget you have,
higher propensity to win.
- But yours makes sense
because yours actually made the keyboard sound good.
I just dropped $20 on clones.
- On keycaps. (laughs)
- [Lewis] Yeah.
- Well that was a fun challenge, honestly.
- Yeah, I think so too.
- More challenges?
Leave a comment.
- If you have any ideas for challenges
put 'em in the comments.