Building a $100USD BUDGET Custom Keyboard!

hey everyone my name is homaginio welcome back to another mechanical keyboard video today we're going to be building and upgrading a pretty budget custom keyboard this is the gk61 hot swappable keyboard from banggood and this is a pretty popular build for beginners it's priced at around 50 us dollars is made of some pretty durable plastic so this is actually a commission for a friend he's getting into custom keyboards and i thought i would introduce him to it so this is going to be a cool build we're going to be using uh the gateron yellow switches it's another nice budget component a great linear that can be smooth if lubed properly and we also have the dsa pvt black blank keycaps from kvd fans so very nice uh first thing i want to take a look at is this case um the stabilizers don't feel very radley but i'm gonna take a double look at them and just make sure that they sound good so let's take a look at how this sounds just stock okay so for the beginners out there this is a hot swappable pcb it basically means that i can just plug in a switch and it will connect automatically and i don't have to solder each switch manually which is really convenient however there is a bit of a drawback with hot swappable pcbs the main one being that as soon as you step out of the 60 keyboard format it gets harder and harder to find hot swappable pcbs for other formats so if you're a beginner and you don't want to invest in a soldering iron to starter switches your best bet would be to get a 60 keyboard because it's the most widely available format subscribe to homogeneous so okay so from what i can tell with the sound test it sounds pretty decent the case just does sound a bit hollow the space bars and all the other stabilizers sound pretty radley okay so the first thing i want to do is take a look at the case itself and that means upgrading stabilizers clipping it or having to band-aid it or maybe just adding some lube into it and then of course adding foam at the bottom to improve its acoustics um after that i think we can look at looping switches and hearing a before and after sound test of the gate on yellows okay so i'm gonna let the footage of me furiously taking out keycaps play in the background while i quickly advertise my discord server if you're interested in custom keyboards and want a community to chat with i highly recommend you join if you're a beginner and you need to ask some questions or get some help or if you're an expert in the field and want to flex your keyboards we're always looking for more people to geek out over keyboards with so please feel free to join link in description below okay so with the keycaps and switches removed i can now focus on the stabilizers so as you can see these stabilizers are plate mounted and that's normally not great you usually want a pcb mounted stabilizer but because it's a budget keyboard you know it is what it is unfortunately i didn't get a close-up shot but these stabilizers can be removed easily by pressing against a small sort of flap on the top of the stabilizer and then you can just pull them out all right so i'm starting to dismantle the case to see what's really under the pcb and i was surprised to see that they've actually included foam but it still does sound pretty hollow so i'm definitely going to be adding some more foam of my own to further improve the acoustics of this case so after some closer inspection of the stabilizers they do come pre-lubed they're not that great and they do come with a little bit of gunk which oh god it's also not very consistent so i'm definitely going to have to clean all the individual stabilizers and then apply my own lube so as you can see the wire isn't lubed very consistently and it's pretty bad and they've also missed the very crucial part where majority of the rotation against the plastic housing occurs so that is definitely one of the biggest factors as to why it rattles so much all right so my process for cleaning pre-loop stabilizers and this sort of differs for everyone i just use normal hand soap and i pour it into a bowl i sort of scrub it together and after all that mixing i get an old toothbrush that i haven't used by the way that would be gross it was pre-used oh god and then i sort of just brushed each individual one and that works for me it gets it really clean and it's like you know completely new all right so with the stabilizers finally dry and clean i can begin to loop them so a lot of people use different types of lube mainly crytox or dielectric grease i personally prefer die electric grease it is pretty thick but as long as you apply it minimally it comes out really nice and smooth and also helps to eliminate a lot of rattle which is exactly what we want with this build so after lubing and assembling all of the stabilizers i usually do some quality checks and for some reason this stabilizer in particular was being extremely radley even though it had been lubed and clipped the spacebar was completely fine and all the wires were balanced so i was a little bit confused but after some closer inspection i realized that some of the stabilizers provided within the case were not the same and it wasn't a case of two stabilizers being specifically made for the space bar there was just one odd one out so it was really weird and because of this i couldn't continue with the build so just like that it was all over no i'm just kidding i have some spares so i was lucky enough to actually have spare stabilizers from previous builds that i made and i was able to replace the mismatch stabilizer and it now works with no rattle which is perfect so to further reduce any rattling of the stabilizers i actually tried band-aiding the plate however the plate mounted stabilizers already have no room to move around so adding even a thin layer of tape made it unable to fit and it wouldn't function anymore so i was actually unable to band-aid the stabilizers and as disappointing as the realization was it is also a huge plus it basically means that any rattle coming from the stabilizers comes from the bad factory lubing and clipping and not actually from the movement of the stabilizers against the plate which is awesome all right so like i said before i'm going to be adding my own layer of foam but it has to be really thin because the case is already really tightly packed with this foam inside i bought this in a hardware store it comes in really big rolls and it fits really well and because this sheet of foam is so thin i don't have to manually cut holes to allow the screws to go back in i can just apply pressure and the screw holes just break through so it's really convenient all right so with the stabilizers upgraded and the case acoustically treated we can now focus on the switches so the best way to start off lubing any group of switches is by disassembling all of them and then putting them into bowls or if you have a lube station like me you can just use that to sort out for today's build i'm going to be using crytox 205 g0 it's a thick lube that i always use for linears and i really like using it because it makes the switches absolutely buttery smooth so looping switches is about as exciting as it looks it really is just laborious work but i can promise you that the results are worth it especially with the gateron yellows stock gatoron yellows are smooth and they feel great but after lubing it with some crytox the switches become a lot smoother the bottom mount feels a lot nicer and the sound is a lot more rich and deep which i really like [Music] so yeah again it does take some time and it does require a bit of patience maybe a good youtube video or a podcast but if you have a lot going on in your life and you are a little bit stressed out looping switches can be kind of a weird escape and at least for me it's pretty calming okay so we got pretty much everything done at this point we just now have to assemble the keyboard but before that i need to clean my room it is a little bit of a mess and i'm sorry you have to see that so all right looks a lot better okay so we basically have everything ready we have the case for the assembled lubed um no band-aid again uh we have the loop switches no film that was just for the sound test and then we have the keycaps so we can start putting it all together i mean all it takes really is just a little all right sweet okay so already by just listening to the space bar it sounds so much better like yes there is a bit of hollowness and that's just because of the case um just a few things that i had to take note of while designing this the profile is dsa so i'm not really a huge fan of dsa profile keycaps um they feel very flat i don't know how to describe it i'll show it in a video but it's very flat and with um cherry profile keycaps cherry profile is just has slightly more curvature and dsa just feels weird and another thing is that these keycap this keycap set came with two different profile keycaps like these two that i'm showing here right now like a completely different profile i don't know why they've done that oh wait it's for f and j oh my god sorry sorry oh that makes more sense okay sorry so the blank keycaps um there's two different profile ones that is for the fnj keys which um usually have that small line which is meant to be like the home row to guide you back so that's what that's for ah i feel so stupid i think this is a really nice build so let's move to the sound test [Applause] like for a really budget board this sounds really good and it has a nice form factor i really wish this was made of aluminum i would have probably made it way better i really like the design i love how the edges aren't completely just you know flat there's a lot of um cuts that make it look more angular which is really sick i think the black keycaps honestly fit with the design of it it's like a matte black keyboard really if you're a beginner just starting up and you don't want to go crazy and you know solder and stuff this is a great start honestly once again gator on yellow is a great budget linear option um all you need to do is just lube the stabilizers uh get a nice keycap set and i think this is a great starter build anyways guys that's it for today's video thank you so much for watching if you want to support this channel you can join my discord where we have keyboard people talking about all things keyboard and also have a patreon where you can support me and it goes a long way to help me buy new equipment or afford new keyboard stuff and with that see you guys in the next video peace

Channel: Hamaji Neo

Views: 770,099

Rating: 4.9475551 out of 5

Keywords: Hamaji Neo, Mechanical Keyboard Switch, Custom Keyboard Switch, Keyboard Switch Review, Krytox 205G0, Keyboard Lube, Keyboard Linear Switch, typing test, linear switch, lubed linear, endgame switch, custom keyboard, custom mechanical keyboard, gateron yellows, budget linear switch, gateron yellow typing test, gateron yellow, gateron yellow keyboard, custom keyboard gateron yellow, budget linear sound test

Id: YYYbUB7gvD0

Length: 12min 56sec (776 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 12 2020