Today I wanna have a break from the boring reviews and just do a nice and easy fun project.
So today we build the Dilly, which is a sweet little creation from Keebio, and is a 3 by
10 ortholinear keyboard, basically just a Gherkin, but for the Kailh Choc low profile
keyswitches.
It comes with the PCB, a base plate, 30 diodes, a reset switch, a bunch of standoffs and screws,
and a mosfet and resistor if you wish to install LEDs.
You will require a soldering station to complete this, and this just involves very simple through
hole soldering, and a bit of surface mount.
Now to the Kailh Choc switches.
These are some low profile switches by Kailh, which are not to be confused with the Cherry
Low Profile keyswitches.
The original ones were Whites, Browns, and Reds, but there’s a heap of variants now
thanks to NovelKeys.
So I picked out the heaviest of each the linear, tactile, and clicky switches.
The reset button pins hit the corners of these two switches, so I just melted some of the
plastic away, so that they sit properly.
Like most other barebone budget PCBs, we power it with a Pro Micro.
This uses the QMK firmware, so you can download an available default hex file, or create your
own custom layout on QMK configurator.
Once you have your hex file ready, open up QMK toolbox, load up your hex file.
Reset the Pro Micro by shorting the ground and reset pins, and it should be good to go.
Now to the case.
You would have seen in the thumbnail, but to go with the Choc switches, I’m gonna
make a nice block of chocolate.
Nothing too new or crazy here, I just want something simple to border the keyswitches.
I’m using 3.5mm polycarbonate sheets, and doing the old glue up and scroll saw method
of mine.
So uh, yeh, there’s not enough clearance for that thick as Pro Micro.
So I had to cut out that bottom layer, and glue on another one.
And that’s the thing with this, it still ends up being quite thick, because we still
have the PCB, and we still have the said Pro Micro.
They include 5mm spacers, which require you to really cut down those pins on the controller.
Then it’s just a matter of sanding, priming, and painting.
For low profile keyswitches, you will need low profile keycaps, because of the different
stems.
I got these keycaps from NovelKeys, and these are just a smooth blank white.
They’re very much like laptop keycaps, being really flat.
And these will get a paintjob as well.
And here it is all done.
I now have a nice little choc bar that I’m totally not ever going to realistically use,
because if you’re using a 30% keyboard, you’re havin a laugh.
But yeh, I’m pretty happy.
I went with this high profile design, so that the keyswitches are hidden.
It is pretty thick which kinda goes against the whole low profile thing, but to be honest,
it’s pretty much as thin as I could get it.
It is still tiny though, of course being a 30% board, but the footprint of the switches
is smaller to normal, so the footprint of the whole keyboard is smaller.
Without the case, it definitely looks more legit, like an actual block of chocolate,
but I still wanted a case to enclose it.
I gotta give Keebio a big thumbs up as well,with all the cool unique keyboards they have.
I love little keyboards like this, and it’s especially cool that they made something for
the Kailh low profile keyswitches.
The Kailh Choc switches are also really fun to play with.
Honestly in my personal opinion, the clickies are pretty much what I find interesting and
worth it.
For such low profile switches, they still maintain a pretty good amount of travel at
3mm.
So the linears are decent I guess, since they still do have most of that distance, and all
of these are factory lubed as well, so they’re relatively smooth.
As for the tactiles, they’re okay, but for me not that impressive.
I have the Burnt Oranges which are supposed to be the most tactile ones, and well yeh,
the bump is really quite weak.
I think for me these are the disappointing ones of the bunch.
But of course, your experience may vary.
So yeh, the clickies are where it’s at for me, since they do use the click bar, like
the Kailh Box keyswitches.
I hope I can do more project builds to break up the monotony of the reviews a bit more,
especially novelty builds like this, so I hope you enjoyed this.