- A few months ago, I launched merch,
And in that merch, there was a
special promotion
where anybody that bought merch would either get a
custom keyboard built by me
or get their keyboard upgraded by me.
Now this person, they chose to get their keyboard
upgraded by me because they have a really strange layout.
So as you can see, it's ortholinear
and it's like
weird looking, you know?
The Drop + OLKB Preonic
in red with alpacas.
I believe she did lube these.
Obviously this key cap profile is like not working,
not, not working very well when it comes to this layout.
So I guess we wanna hear what it sounds like at first.
(keyboard tapping)
It's not bad.
She said that she did not film them.
I hopped on a call with her,
and I think she said the main problems here
is that the keyboard is
too hollow and that
the switches aren't exactly what she wants.
So she was like, yeah I sort of like Gateron CJs I'm like,
okay cool, I could totally like do that.
So I did hand lube them the other day and yes
I hand lube my own switches.
Sometimes I really think about getting somebody to do
it for me, and then I'm like, well,
I need brainless work still.
We've got plastic bags.
We can store the original key caps and switches.
I'll probably keep this one, even on the new version.
I don't know what it is, but it is really cute.
It's like an egg with a squirrel looking thing
made of resin, very cute.
What? Okay. So there's some alpacas
and then there's some Gateron Black Inks as well.
We've we've got a variety of switches in here,
very unexpected. Oh. And there's also a Gateron CJ
in here as well.
What that, that is, it's a lot of stuff going on here.
I see she's a woman of culture,
variety is the of spice of life after all.
What do we have here? It's a Gateron Milky Yellow.
Nice. So far, I've seen
four switches in one keyboard.
Oh, another one, Milky Blacks, Yeah.
I have a feeling, this was her like switch testing board.
I probably will be replacing the stabilizers too.
Everything here can just go into a bag.
Oh my gosh. She did say that she had a hard time
pulling out the switches.
Very accurate. Why are they so hard to pull out?
I understand now why someone would want me to
upgrade keyboard.
I may even have arthritis by the end of this but
a deal is a deal.
A lot of people say 60% is totally usable
but then whenever I try it, I'm just like, aw, no
I am also too smooth brain for less than 65.
My brain is too, too rock hard for that.
I feel like we're missing.
We're missing screws for the standoffs or
we're missing something.
They're glued in there. Yeah, there is.
Yeah. Gosh, last one.
Oh, there we go.
That was tight. That's what she said.
That's what he said.
No, I don't know. Somebody said it.
Okay. Now I have to unscrew these things.
Wow. The screw is so long.
Wowstick makes everything fast.
We like Wowstick.
Okay. These stabilizers, we're just gonna replace them.
And then this keyboard doesn't let you really put much stuff
inside it or any foam, Really.
It would have to be a really thin layer.
I think this is way too thick.
Like barely fits in there.
I feel like that's too thick.
I will need more options,
that is not this.
It almost feels like it needs to sit flush to fit
there though, it's a tough one.
Might just do tape mod on this.
Yeah, I think you're right
tape mod's the only option here.
I might do the stabilizer before the tape.
Yes. That's a smarter idea.
Hey, that looks good, that is
pretty solid.
Okay, tape mod time.
I wonder if the electrical tape will work
on the bottom of the keyboard.
I usually always use electrical tape, but then
people are like, well,
everyone else uses blue tape, so,
maybe you can use blue tape.
I'm like, okay, fine.
I'll use blue tape then.
Okay. And put the screws back in.
The Wowstick's nice because it doesn't have a bunch of
torque, so when you get to the end, you don't keep going.
I swear, we're missing like standoffs or something.
I might steal standoffs from my plate. If I have them.
I have, I have one standoff that I could steal.
You should o-ring mount this bad boy.
Oh, you're right.
That could be really interesting.
And we've got a little bit of bounce.
These are the only O-rings I have.
Will it work?
We're going into unventured territory here.
So it would have to go
through then you would O-ring like this.
Yeah, there we go.
Okay. Now to put this in.
This is the harder part.
Keyboard is not cooperative.
Oh, it's it's it's loose now.
We're good. We're good.
O-rings complete. I think that's good.
Okay. I'm ready for switches.
Oh no, no.
Here I am trying to clean up and the world's
like, Nope. It's so tight that I'm
I'm personally scared for my switches.
It is tight. It's like mortifyingly tight.
I think the plate is just super warped.
It's like bent like this.
Ooh maybe if I do that, that'll help.
That'll help. This is all kinds of wrong.
I don't recommend you do any
of these things to your keyboard.
The right side is probably the scariest side.
If we could problem solve that situation
that would be awesome. Oh, that's the problem.
Ha ha. It wasn't screwed in all the way.
Well, that was just an idiot mistake.
Now that we figured out the problem,
we're making good progress.
Wanted to make your own switch?
We do. So we're in contact
with a bunch of different manufacturers now, you know
just starting up the conversation, not dedicating ourselves
to any singular manufacturer at this point
but learning about the different options that we have.
It'll be very fun. Right now,
I don't know the name of it, the colors, anything
but it'll be a very community driven kind of switch.
I definitely want long pole stem.
Those are my favorite sounding linears of all time.
Alright, I even have some switches to spare.
So I bought this ortho kit from Drop,
it's called the MT3 DEV/TTY ortho kit.
Being the ortho noob that I am,
I'm not even a hundred percent sure
that they will fit the keyboard, but I sure hope they do.
Or else. This profile is MT3 profile.
(keyboard tapping)
Alright. There are a lot of escape keys.
What in the actual heck, but I said I would use this one.
So there it is.
Why the heck are there so many escape keys.
Okay. Actually this is stupid.
Before I put on keycaps, I really need to make sure
that it works. So four doesn't work.
Replace it with another one.
And now I go back to putting keycaps on 'cause we're good.
Oh no. It might still be a weird layout.
(Betty laughs)
'cause it's Colemak. It's cursed now.
We've now ventured into cursed territory.
I'm not putting in random letters.
Here, I'll show you. See this, this is the original.
I'm not some weird troll that puts in random letters.
I mean, I don't know how I feel about this.
It's only slightly cursed.
Only a little cursed.
Maybe put some symbols here just for kicks.
I don't know what these are, but they can go there.
Okay. Obviously I cannot type with this thing, but
I will let you hear all the goodness that it has to offer.
Is it bouncy?
It's bouncier
I suppose. The finger positioning is so, so wrong.
(keyboard tapping)
What?
(Betty laughs)
(keyboard tapping)
That was pretty good.
18 words per minute. Nice. Some bounce to it.
A little bit more comfortable.
(keyboard tapping)
I finished up the I don't wanna say jank 'cause
it's not a jank keyboard.
It's a great keyboard for the person that will use it.
It sounds pretty good.
And I hope they like it.
And if not, you know, I can always buy them new key caps
because this one is not looking like how it should.
So yeah, hope they like it.