KBDFans has been improving on their designs like we've seen on the TFV2 but sometimes
it's a bit unclear if they would continue on this trajectory.
The Bella was released at around the same time and it was such a step back that I thought
it belonged in 2018.
but I realize different designs have different timelines for a relatively large entity like
KBDFans so it could totally be the case that the Bella was in the works for a long time
and the D65 here was a little more recent, because this to me seems pretty good.
With a relatively complicated assembly with many parts as well as a foam strip mounting
system, this seems to check a lot of the boxes that people are looking for in a custom nowadays,
but of course it wouldn’t be a KBDFans board if they did everything perfectly
Designs from KBDFans seem to go one of two ways.
Very conservative so that it'll appeal to the widest audience and sell well, or really
super out there and polarizing.
The Tofu is an example of a conservative design and the KBD661 a crazy one.
I think this one falls right in the middle of the spectrum and stands adjacent to the
Canoe and the Space65.
It works within the confines of a regular wedge adding flares like removable blockers
and asymmetry to spice it up a little.
Looking from the top, it's got relatively thick bezels that's required to easily support
the foam strip mount.
The corners are round and the line is interrupted by the arrow key blocker.
This appears to be a separate piece because it is, and you can get them in different colors
as accents.
This to me seems like a similar idea to the Bella’s cat accent and while the seam might
be contentious, I’m a fan.
For the first time in one of our design discussions we'll have to look at the two side profiles
separately.
The left is pretty much what's expected.
None of the bottom is visible and the top comes more or less all the way down, but with
a floating look kind of like the Rama M65-A. This approach to seamless design is my favorite
versus the ones you see on Ai03’s Reference series.
On the right we see two segments interrupting the seamless lid.
The more forward one is a continuation of the bottom case from the front while the tiny
square is yet another swappable accent.
While there’s more of it on the bottom, it’s side presence is hard to justify.
A different color here could lead to a missing tooth look since your top and bottom are probably
the same color.
I don’t think I would miss it if they got rid of it.
Unlike most others, the front of the D65 is actually pretty interesting.
The seamless left side wraps around then is stopped by the bottom, creating asymmetry.
For whatever reason, keyboard nerds are symmetry nuts so this may bother you, but I think it
works well here.
The 65% layout is already asymmetrical, so assigning a bit more visual weight on the
right side makes a lot of sense.
Most cases have seams, and most of those avoid drawing any attention to it, because they’re
typically just an unavoidable side effect.
My position is that if you’re going to have a seam, you should own up to it and design
for it rather than around it.
The D65 does just that by accentuating the seam with bevels.
It and the blocker overhang work together to further highlight the asymmetry.
The rear is the most normal looking part of the keyboard.
It's seamless throughout and only makes room for a USB Type-C cutout.
I'm happy to see the two levels of recess on the port cutout that hide any trace of
the cable shielding peaking out
Finally moving on to the bottom, we have the continuation of the side accent as well as
standard fare for rubber feet.
The weight is the same size and shape as in the TFV2 and the Bella, but it replaces the
ugly KBDFans “K” with a black infilled logo.
I haven’t seen this on any other board and I think it’s pretty cool.
Wrapping it up, I think the D65 is the most consistently designed KBDFans board I’ve
seen in a while, and it deviates from the norm tastefully.
I hope their in-house designs continue this trend.
If you’ve only seen anodized surfaces, this bright and glossy orange color might be throwing
you off a bit.
This so-called E-Yellow finish is indeed this vibrant in person with a smooth paint-like
finish.
If you’re the type to exactly match keycap color with the case, it might be a little
hard to find something for this orange.
If you’re open to other combinations, most keysets use warm colors, and I think even
something like 9009 here looks alright.
The finish quality seems to be acceptable throughout.
The only thing I found was a tiny little ding on the interior of the case, but otherwise
the orange, like it or not, is consistent.
I can't speak for other colors but I know that black anodizing from KBDFans has been
good recently, and I'm generally happy with their E-finishes so I don't have a problem
recommending those.
Let’s now get into the assembly and also take a look at the components along the way.
While not as complicated as the Vega, an instruction manual is provided, which is great to see.
Keyboards have been getting more complicated lately, making these necessary.
As usual, you need to install the foam strips first.
The guide says to put it on the plate, just like the Polaris and the Vega, but unlike
those, I explicitly recommend putting it on the case.
The top and bottom cases have indents for the foam strips probably for alignment.
They’re sized precisely so if you’re off by a bit, you’ll end up squishing the foam
at unintended points, creating uneven pressure on the plate.
This is made worse by the strips themselves that are too long.
You’ll want to trim them before use, and put them into the case slots.
With the foam sorted out, you can choose to install the hardware that fixes the PCB to
the plate.
This is for when you want to change switches without taking the board apart.
It shouldn’t be a big issue for my aluminum plate but I would discourage it for polycarbonate
users since it could create hotspots for either feel or sound.
Disassembling is hardly any more work than reinstalling switches anyway.
Another thing between the PCB and the plate is the conductive foam.
This uses the PCB from the KBD67 MKII, which is top mount.
This conductive foam would have electrically grounded the plate, which would then ground
the rest of the case.
Because the D65’s keyboard assembly is insulated from the case by the foam strips, this solution
ends up being ineffective.
While shocks to the TFV2, another keyboard with the same protections, are handled well,
the D65 will disconnect temporarily.
I hope to see the case grounding solution from the Vega in the future.
One sidenote here -- if you use the conductive foam, your plate foam won’t be compatible.
Pretty strange oversight but maybe they already knew the conductive foam wouldn't work in
this keyboard.
As mentioned before the two case halves are a little more complicated than in a regular
top mount.
It’s got slots for the foam strips as well as various nooks and protrusions to implement
the asymmetry.
One part that I really like is this little indent on the bottom case that makes room
for the arrow key blocker to slot in.
They totally could have ended the blocker right at the seam, but this overhang plays
a significant role in making the look more cohesive.
Speaking of the blocker, it and the accent are removable by just one screw each.
I would have liked to see Torx head here instead of Phillips because that’s what the case
screws use, but I guess most people won’t be swapping these out.
Complexity doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement.
The bottom case’s foam slot doesn’t account for the plate, so if you press down hard enough,
the plate will collide with the case.
This is not a problem during normal use, but if the foam ends up degrading, you could end
up with a scenario where the assembly is freely resting on the case.
The KBD67 MKII pcb looks pretty nice, if you care about that, and has per-key RGB.
Strangely, this isn’t directly controllable through VIA like it was with the M60-A. I
think it’d be nice to see a daughterboard here but it’s not really a big deal because
the mounting isn’t all that flexible.
More on that later.
When you’re set with the internals, just align the foam strips if you put them on the
plate, then close it up with 8 Torx head screws from the bottom.
Here, you can see the standard KBDFans-sized brass weight.
It’s got the often cheap looking brushed finish, but I think the factory infill job
makes it look pretty good.
It’s also improved compared to the bent and poorly finished one in the Bella.
The assembly process for the D65 is a little more involved than other boards, but is mostly
manageable.
The pieces are finished nicely and fit together alright with minimal oversight.
This seems like an improvement over the TFV2 which itself was a big step forward.
Love to see it.
Marketing around foam strip mount tends to claim that the experience is somehow softer
or otherwise more flexible.
This makes intuitive sense but it’s not really so with my D65.
To be fair, I can’t comment on the experience with a polycarbonate plate, which surprisingly
was offered this time around, but this aluminum plate just feels the same as a top mounted
one.
When I put it together, I was shocked at just how stiff it was.
Absolutely nothing in the way of vibrations that you’d find on a softer plate.
If this was top mount, maybe you’d have a slight bit, but at this size, I doubt it.
A contributing factor here is likely the fact that this has mounting points on the sides.
This is generally not found on custom keyboards as it adds too much support, canceling out
any of the intended effects of the mounting mechanism.
It’s a strange choice given that there have been plenty of foam strip mount keyboards
before this came along.
They could have simply chosen to copy those but they had to go do their own thing.
Can’t fault them for experimenting I guess but we already kind of knew this.
If you’re not a fan of stiff bottom out feels, I’d strongly recommend the polycarbonate
plate because the experience with an aluminum plate is entirely unchanged when compared
to top mount.
This sounds like a typical aluminum keyboard, without the hollowness I found on the Bella.
There’s an even amount of space under the PCB and it comes with both plate and case
foam if you want to use it.
As always, sound tests are not representative of real life.
If one more person talks about making sweeping conclusions about a board on this alone, I’m
going to lose my mind.
The case foam here almost entirely eliminates the low end while the plate foam expectedly
isolates the switch noise.
I think it sounds plenty good without, but if you like having all of your keyboards sound
the same, go ahead I guess.
It can be tough to tell what KBDFans is doing but it seems to me that they’re starting
to go somewhere with the new D-series.
I see they introduced it for the 60 and the 75 size as well.
I wouldn’t necessarily jump to grab one of those though because the pricing seems
out of whack with the 60% kit costing more than a fully built 75% version.
Maybe KBDFans is testing the waters on how much they can charge.
Of the three, I think the D65 is the most visually interesting with its asymmetry.
Being able to change accents on two different spots on the board is a novel concept but
realistically not a lot of people are going to do it, so this is added complexity.
I think Most people would be happy if the seams were just faked, kind of like the fake
screws on the Space65 Cybervoyager.
When paired with an aluminum plate, the typing feel is super stiff, but I appreciate that
polycarbonate is an option.
The sound is perfectly acceptable with or without foam and overall I think you’d be
happy with one.
Often times western designs tend to focus on minimalism which results in a million varieties
of metal rectangles, and it’s a breath of fresh air to see unconventional designs explored
like here.
This feels like a contemporary take on something like the Canoe and I’m all for it.
The cheapest configuration is about 270 dollars before shipping, which is really starting
to inch up to regular group buy territory.
For reference, my E6.5 was about 350 and the Space65 about 280.
KBDFans has previously been about value, but it seems like they just want to compete with
other customs now.
That’s all fine and good.
Other entry level outlets are going to pop up, but that also means I’m going to hold
them to a higher standard.
The daughterboard cable issue on the TFV2 was unacceptable, the entirety of the Bella
was unacceptable, but this seems like it’s alright, or at least not any worse than group
buy boards that can also be incredibly janky.
One last note is that I’ve been asked to compare this with the Vega, but that’s difficult
because I don’t have the same plate material and there’s more than a 100 dollar price
difference compared in-stock to in-stock.
If I were to speculate, the D65 will probably have a slightly stiffer feel thanks to the
side mounting points.
Pretty exciting the kind of boards that are relatively easily available nowadays, but
I don’t know if this can count as an entry level custom.
I’ve got an NK65, Portico, and a Kara, but I don’t know if I could call those really
custom.
Leave a comment down below what you’d consider an entry level custom keyboard in 2021.