How to Build a Custom Keyboard - The EASIEST way! - Wooden GK61 + Mars Colony Keycaps

hi braless marvin here from tech barrack comm where we doing boxing's reviews and sexy bureaus in today i'll share with you the easiest way to build your own custom mechanical keyboard tailored to your personal preference this is good for both beginners and enthusiasts as it is super easy to achieve while having a ton of flexibility when it comes to further customization and improvements down the line I'll make it as simple as possible for beginners while providing enough details for our fellow in to assess out there with that being said let's get into it alright so let's take a minute and discuss why you would want to build your own custom mechanical keyboard in the first place since it is easier to grab a pre-built one of the shelves well the thing is we all have different preferences when it comes to mechanical keyboards and there's a ton of things to consider when buying one like the design the construction switch choices kick ups and a lot more and more often than not we cannot simply find one that fits all our needs in just one people keyboard so we tend to buy try and resell and buy again just to find the right one for us which is not very cost-efficient right so building your own could be more expensive at first but trust me when I say that it is very satisfying and since you built it yourself there's a chance that it will stay on your desk for a while unless of course you get hoop and you start building custom keyboards left and right we just watch usually the case with enthusiasts getting hooked down the rabbit hole but that's a story for another day so yeah building your own custom keyboard allows you to choose all the different components based on your personal preference and now I'm going to teach you how to build one and it's actually quite simple all you need to do is get a bare-bones keyboard which means it is basically an already built keyboard but doesn't have switches and key caps in our case I chose the cheeky 61 with a hot swappable board and this is the easiest way to do it because you don't need to solder the switches and it is super easy to replace them once your preference changes over time which it will at some point so this is very cost effective and then I have here a set of key caps and a set of data on yellow switches right here and that's about it you only need three different components to start building your own custom keyboard alright so let's unbox all of these first let's start off with a geek DK 61 the packaging is pretty straightforward just a black box with the geek logo at the center inside the box the first thing you'll notice is the universal manual so it is also applicable to other models like the DK 62 and the GK 64 it is written in both English and Chinese aside from that we have a nice weighted and gold plated USB type-c cable right here with a velcro strap and then we have a generic switch puller and a plastic iike puller right here the good thing about this is that the keyboard comes inside a nice velvet bug so it is well protected and since this is relatively small you can easily bring this anywhere with you ask your personal custom keyboard and not only that it is also protected with a plastic cover as you can see here okay so the reason why I picked this particular bare-bones DK 61 is like I said personal preference I like things made from wood and this fits right in so yeah like I said with a custom keyboard you can pick a particular component that fits perfectly with your personal preference now what first look in touch it looks really good with a decent amount of weight to it and of course with wooden construction it is super solid without any flex on the body and as you can see here it has a nice white backplate that looks really good with the wooden material flipping it on the front side we have a better view of the wood patterns and the thickness of the bottom housing flipping it on the side we can see that the bottom housing is a little bit angled and turning it on the back side we have the recessed USB type-c port on the left side and as per my testing it fits a wide variety of USB type-c plug now turning it all over at the bottom we have four rubber feet and as expected with a wooden housing and a 60% form factor we don't have an adjustable stand this is usually the case for 60% keyboards so these no surprise so now we have all the things we need here we have the backplate the PCB the housing and the stabilizers so again these the geeky 61 hot swappable board version and before we move on let me just share with you some of the most common budget hot swappable boards that you can get out in the market right now just to help you find one aside from the geek degree 61 we also have the GK 64 and the GK 66 for a 60% form factor and then we have the rack clam and pro in the tech where phantom elite 410 keyless form factor as for full size you can check out the tech where phantom elite full-size version these are all using universal socket which means you could pretty much use any Cherry MX style switches there are other hot swappable boards in the budget category like the rock lemon right rack Elise wrapped and ooze deck where phantom L and tecware Specter but they are all just using the Ottumwa hot swap world and are only limited to o-tama switches now going back to our aside from the bare-bones keyboard we need a set of key caps again depending on your preference in our case since we have a wooden keyboard I chose the Mars colony set of key caps which should perfectly match the aesthetics of our keyboard so it has blue brown and against cream-colored D caps these actually a full set with 162 keys and the reason why I chose this other than the theme is that I want to show you guys that there are set of key caps out there that has a ton of different sizes of modifiers which is perfect for custom builds especially for builds that have an unconventional layout so essentially you have everything you need here and usually the most common set of key caps is just around the standard 104 keys as for this Mars colony set of key caps it features die sublimated legends and features an ex-dea profile if you want to learn more about those features you can check out my review of the moon landing 165 set now for the budget alternative since this Mars colony set that we have right here is quite expensive you can just grab some generic double shot PB te caps which I also did a review that you can check out here and lastly of course we need a set of switches and what we have here is the gutter on yellow switches by the way all of the things mentioned here you can get from Bangor comm you can check out their website and look for different bare-bones PCBs keycaps switches and other components of a keyboard for your own build now the reason why I chose the gutter in yellow is that I really like the smooth travel of batter and switches and I like the relatively light equation force of the gutter in yellow in particular so this is the SMD version with black bottom housing and clear top housing for the illumination to pass through but you can also get this in other versions such as milky and ink but that is a little bit more advanced for most beginners and a topic for another day I'm not sure how many switches I have here but I'm sure we have more than enough now before we build this I think it is important for me to show you how this barebone is built so that you can have a better understanding on how a keyboard is constructed should you choose to build your own from scratch like choosing a bottom housing backplate PCB and stabilizers so after you moving the screws we can simply pull the backplate out and as you can see the PCB is good on the backplate itself looking at the back we can see that this board uses gutter on universal socket and like I said earlier it is compatible with most Cherry MX switches and while we're at it let's measure the thickness of the backplate and the PCB for those of you who are interested the PCB has a thickness of around 0.0 six inches or 1.5 millimeters while the backplate has a thickness of around 0.05 inches or 1.3 millimeters this Apple itself consists of two sockets for the switch pins three holes for the plastic pins for both PCB and pate mount type switches and the SMD or surface mounted LED for this particular board we also have a physical microphone right here for the audio visualizer feature as for the wooden bottom housing we have some nice brass standoffs a cutout probably for battery for a wireless version and the cutout for the USB type-c port I can also see here other holes for the standoffs so there's a possibility that you can move it around for compatibility with other boards but I am not 100% sure about that before I forgot guys the thickness of the key cups by the way is around zero point zero six to zero point zero seven inches or 1.5 to 1.8 millimeters I'm really sorry I forgot to change the mode on my caliper and while we're at it let's check out the weight of these bare bones so the wooden case alone weighs around 387 grams and the PCB and Pei twist around 260 grams for a total of 647 key birthday alright so with all the components checked out let's finally build this which is actually pretty straightforward we just have to install the switches carefully by the way making sure that the pins are perfectly aligned because if not they're going to damage both the switch pins and the circuit itself so it is very important to make sure that the pins are straight and if ever you feel like there's some resistance we're inserting the switch hold back and check it again to make sure now using a absorbable board like this has its advantages and disadvantages the advantages are you can easily swap switches out just in case some of them becomes faulty at some point or if you simply want to try other switches and the disadvantages are the switches are a little bit wobbly due to the fact that it is not solidly attached to the PCB and that the head swap socket themselves can also suffer from wear and tear due to frequent replacement of switches but don't worry much about that because I'm pretty sure before it even becomes loose you've already considered building or getting another board so just enjoy it while you have it and once you're done finding the best switch for your preference you can open see they're building your own custom keyboard with soldered switches and just a quick tip guys when buying switches online make sure to get extras as you don't know what can happen during shipping and so that you have extras for replacements down the line now as for the kick ups installation there's not much to it while you to do is gently insert the key caps on the stem with just enough force to get it in there without much pressure to not damage the key caps and for an unconventional layout like with a 60% keyboard like this you can refer to the manual or online to make sure you're properly match the Kika placement with the layout and there you have it guys we now have our own custom mechanical keyboard with our preferred casing layout switches and key caps and without all the technical details that I shared with you earlier you can pretty much build this in just a matter of minutes the total weight of our finished build is around 855 grams which is quite heavy thanks to the wooden bottom housing now before we end this video for those who are interested to follow the same path let's talk more about the characteristics of this particular build let's start off with a switch of choice which is the gutter in yellow gutter in yellow has an efficient force of only around 50 grams which is relatively lightweight and I'd say right in the middle between the 45 grams thread switch and the 60 grams blop switch this is linear which means there's no tactile bump or click and it just spreads it straight to the bottom now guitar yellow is considered to be one of the smoothest stop and mainstream switches out there and is ideal for gaming and typing especially if you prefer a relatively quite switch as for the key caps what we have here is made of durable pbt plastic with the sublimated characters that become part of the plastic which means the legends will never fade away over time the XDA profile is flat across all rows which means it is good for custom builds because you don't have to worry about the height of the key caps it also has a relatively larger surface area compared to most Kika profile as for the bare-bones itself the stabilizers come pre lube which is nice and though it still has some rattle to it it's not entirely bad especially compared to other birds at this price range like I said it also has a physical microphone for the audio visualizers which is quite unique again especially at this price point the cutout for the type C is substantial enough and should fit most USB type-c plug and the wooden case is nicely finished with a smooth texture to it overall I'm pretty happy with the simple build that we did right here all the components perfectly matched my personal preference from the colors the materials use up to sound and typing experience speaking of typing I know some of you are waiting for it so here's a quick typing test for you guys by the way if you want to learn more about the geeky 61 keyboard especially the performance in the software you can check out my full review here and now to include the mechanical keyboard happy is deeper than we actually thought there are a lot of things to consider and sometimes it's kind of overwhelming where to start and I also understand that a lot of you are not into custom build and just prefers pre-built keyboards which is perfectly fine there's no problem about that but just in case you want to dive deeper into it I'm here to help you and we can dive in together as I am also relatively new to custom builds let me know in the comments below what other tutorials or tips you want to learn about mechanical keyboard so that I can share more information with you and there you have it guys thank you for watching make sure to check the full article link below and I hope you get a thing or two from this video huge thanks as always to Bangu comm you can get all the components used in this build on their official website link below as well thank you for watching subscribe if you like this and please consider turning on the bail notifications so you won't miss our videos thank you and have a great day guys [Music]

Channel: TechBroll

Views: 101,003

Keywords: how to build a keyboard, how to build a keyboard without soldering, how to build a custom keyboard, how to build a custom keyboard without soldering, how to build a custom mechanical keyboard, how to build a 60 percent keyboard, how to build a 60% keyboard, how to build a 60% custom keyboard, how to build a custom keyboard for beginners, wooden gk61, mars colony keycaps, wooden gk61 review, mars colony keycaps review, how to build a 60 keyboard, wood gk61, gk61 wood, gk61 case

Id: ScHBHNC0_70

Length: 12min 59sec (779 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 20 2020