How to Build Your FIRST Custom Keyboard... (in 2023)

you see this this is a mechanical keyboard you're probably thinking wow that looks okay or wow that sounds really nice and you're also probably thinking that's too expensive and not worth my time well howdy hey I'm hip yo Tech and I'm here to show you that building a keyboard can be cheap and really easy how am I going to show you that well I've gathered a keyboard expert and a keyboard Noob and I'm gonna be putting them to the test to build two different keyboards however there's a big twist the pro gets a tiny budget and the noob gets an unlimited budget what is this going to show you that it actually doesn't matter whether you're experienced or have a big budget keyboards can be fun and good speaking of fun and good over 69 of you aren't subscribed right now and you're probably gonna get help from this video can you just help me by hitting that subscribe button if I hit 1 million Subs this year I'm gonna dye my hair blue so first let's give the expert his stuff we're going to be giving him a gamma K acrylic k61 Pro how do you have you seen this board before never uh have you seen budget boards before no okay this will be this will be absolutely great and for Josie we have this the melatrix zoom 65v2 it's up a whole bunch of things I don't know now as far as keycaps and everything else goes that is a secret that I'll be revealing soon oh now even though they had a budget I decided the keyboards for them for Toby he got the gamma k61 it's a keyboard that you can get for around 80 bucks and it's not too bad but for Josie we went with the zoom 65 which starts at 175. let's check it out there's some things oh my God this is a bag for a single screw if that's not expensive I don't know what it is good to see Noah the cat is helping out oh my God that's heavy wow it's my color for those of you don't know Josie's favorite color is yellow oh that's fancy you built One keyboard before yes so you're not a total Noob you're just struggling [Laughter] [Music] in here you might notice okay notice there's a PCB PCB has a screw well Josie figures out how to unbox the keyboard Toby you're gonna be modding it okay now you're the keyboard expert so please share with the class how are you gonna mod this keyboard um take everything apart and put better things in okay that's one way to do it but how are you gonna get those things um I don't know could could that be the secret is there a secret behind me why yes in order to gain access to your parts you're going to have to take this keyboard entirely apart oh man I hope Nola doesn't eat these now that Josie has her keyboard entirely unboxed it's time for her to work on the build but Josie do you know what you're doing no I don't well don't worry I'm not entirely evil so I'm going to help you out a little bit and if you're following along building your first keyboard then guess what you can also get help too now the keyboard you're building is hot swappable this is a hot swap PCB meaning you won't need to solder so your first step is actually going to be to lube your stabilizers oh no do you know how to do that yes well how do you know how to do that from last time oh right from the last time and if you watch the video in the top right you can see how Josie Loop stabilizers but I'll go over it really quickly the first step is Grab Some Loops 240 g0 something uh crytok's 205 g0 there there we go I'll also be using a loop palette to make our life easier okay okay what do I do with these things well actually we don't use those or those we don't use those either those are pretty lame we don't use those oh now here we can see Nola sitting by watching the chaos and uh Toby who has literally already taken off every keycap this guy works too fast why is he so fast well he actually has to leave in an hour uh on his flight he flew here for this video specifically and then he has to go right back home now what's your game plan here after you take game plan we'll take this apart we'll see what we're dealing with in the bottom of the case here if we have room for foam tape something we might swap out the stabilizers if if I'm given some to swap it up if it's in the budget so okay speaking of stabilizers how's it going over here Josie uh hopefully I I think I forgot okay well you've already put one team I'm my backward my I'm working backwards as part of my process so if I can figure out how to put it together then maybe I can figure out how to so in order to Loop stabilizers we have three parts we have the housing the stem and the wire first we're going to Loop the housing what I do is I take the housing and I take a little bit of lube not too much lube and I brush the whole entire inside big gloop glob all around the inside nothing too crazy just a little bit once you've done that you want to take your stem and make sure that the two holes line up with the little clip side of your stabilizer and then push it in yeah do I lube the stem because it's too redundant we don't lose the stem at all it gets enough Lube from the housing side segment of wire lubing here's how to lube your wires basically all the wire and then I dip the end in the python but like more than that you want the whole glue glove up to the Elbow oh god oh no oh geez but see this is a perfect example of what to do when you've done a little bit too much you can just take the brush and smooth it out evenly throughout the stem now all you do is you take that and you insert it through the bottom actually yeah the bottom up yep like that and then it Clips ends back towards me where'd my keyboard go wait until he's already taken off all of the keycaps all of the switches Now Toby hold on there's another catch okay in order to get your switches you actually have to help Josie Lube all of her stabilizers yeah this is absurd it's unfair why is the outside Lube should help her with all of them yes I system you say housing stem housing stem housing but how do you feel about looping stabilizers now Josie I feel great now that I have expert help what did the expert help teach you that tasks are better done with friends okay I'm just gonna Boop Nola on the nose and then the stabilizers will be looped so Boop oh wow look they're all looped yay we did it next you have to install the stabilizers and how do you think you're doing that you screw him probably lots of fun metaphors with this one what am I doing do I do the big one or the little one is it like that or the other way the big hole is for the clip okay okay I learned this at last I'm actually I remember distinctly that you screw it from the bottom not from not from like wow well Josie does that back to Toby Lane hi here's some switches okay and because I'm nice I actually gave you some really good switches but in order for you to use them I think you actually have some other things you need to do yes now because you're on a budget I'm not going to give you new stabilizers so you think you can make these work maybe well do you like do you like the switch now I don't think these switches are actually that bad they feel kind of they kind of feel like Ice Candy switches but like a little bit scratchier oh no I lost I forget what it's called though it's a problem what's it called the washer yes screw them right I did not say that yeah you did yeah Toby's keyboard opened though we realized that it was actually a lot better than we thought on the inside this actually looks like it already has silicone in it this is not bad for like an 80 keyboard there's a phone it's phone oh wow and the bottom of the case is a relatively thick polycarbonate for eighty dollars this is a decently impressive board not too bad I mean the switches weren't terrible the keycaps genuinely suck plate foam oh yeah that's pretty nice remember oh it has like it even has PE foam no way hold on dude this 80 keyboard is blowing me away right now this is kind of incredible now we'll talk about PE foam in a second but in order to make your keyboard sound good sometimes you need some type of mod whether that be foam or press and seal and I'm gonna Force Toby to press and seal mod this keyboard because you know that's that's fun it's the hippo mod Toby do you have any idea of how to do this uh I couldn't figure it out hey that's the spirit that's what I like to hear for those of you at home here's how you do the mod you take a sheet of press and seal and then you cut it to size for your keyboard in the meantime let's check on Josie yes that's me somehow I have to get into here it did it now unfortunately for Josie she did one of the most classic mistakes ever she forgot to put her PE foam before she put her stabilizers on uh oh you did the classic blunder yes Toby that really makes her feel better it's fine though because it's a simple fix you can just cut the PE foam around the stabilizers actually pisses me off know why it'd be like making a pair of pants and then being like oh I forgot to put the pockets on let me just show them on top of the pants isn't that what you do only on purpose for some pockets maybe it's on purpose for this do we have other stabilizers or should I use these these old ones well does the budget allow for a new stabilizers I don't think the budget allows allows new stabilizers but he's really done this now if I gave you all the parts that wouldn't be as fun I want to see what you can do with the keyboard that you're given you know but I'm not totally evil so I am gonna give you a special gift here's a couple dollar bottle of Permatex Dielectric grease oh thank God why do you like Dielectric grease so much I like it because when you go to put Lube on the stabilizers for the wires you need a really thick amount to go inside and it's really hard to achieve with cry talks without breaking your bank so doing this it's like a cheap very thick like usable alternative it's very nice and you don't have to brush it on like a silly person you don't have to come up with janky Solutions someone else's mistakes what do you mean I feel like these are like 300 level classes that I'm taking right here you know my hope here was that beginner keyboards are as easy to build and customize as experts okay that that actually worked what'd you do so this keyboard has a little it's either an on off toggle switch or like a Bluetooth or something and since I'm going to be attempting to put this thicker piece of foam in there I had to make a cutout for the on off switch because otherwise it would do nothing so will it work I have no idea but it'll work better than without doing it [Music] I figured this would be the easiest part uh you would think it's got me and it's so cold though you know how they say you want to say so your favorite enemy puts you in a Chokehold what does that even mean I don't know who says that I just took apart one of these stabilizers and I don't know if the camera will pick this up but they have like the saddest little amount of factory Lube oh my God wait that was from the factory it's lit the smallest to God like it would have been more respectful if they did nothing I think so it's like Lube condensation it's like so it's like so minimal what do I do next Josie's about to become the Joker takes one bad keyboard did here's I have a question for you yeah did this board come with instructions yeah yeah I do want the instructions okay okay well I feel like now they won't help they'll help okay okay here's the build game okay can you use the switch bomb in place on the PCB to measure the holes then add the stabilizers oops oops I need the uh standoffs so in this case we actually don't need the standoffs because we're using a thick sheet of foam in between the plate and PCB are you sure because this is the two of them are not optional I always make them don't do that so okay I think it's just extra effort I always make don't do that I always don't do that I just picture this is like you just gave Josie one of those like 10 000 piece one color puzzles just said is that how this feels it looks like it's wearing like two sweaters you know how when you wear two sweaters and the sleeves get all like bunched up inside of each other that's what this looks like so you've added your phone yeah in between the plate and PCB yeah it's going to improve the sound of the board sick in my opinion next you're going to be adding switches oh Lord have mercy now for your switches I'm gonna be giving you some switches that are good for any beginner why because you don't have to lube them yourself what it is these are ruche Studios WS yellows what color are they yellow which is like the boards yellow and when you put switches into a board for the first time you're gonna want to support the PCB from the back so you're going to want to hold the back of the hot swap socket as you put the switch in and that's just the first time or every time but it's when you're a beginner to keyboards it's really important because you might push too hard oh my God Toby that's so much loot that is so much might be a bit too much they're not gonna work bro it'll it'll it'll work it'll work write that down it'll work it'll work and now Josie has put in her first and second switch now she's starting at the corners and working her way in from the corners because this makes it a little bit easier to put the switches in without having your plate warp on you and she's doing great and Toby's also just putting more Lube when moving really really budget stabilizers like this with Dielectric grease just dipping it in like this is honestly pretty good I think he put way too much blue bars oh no I'm gonna win it works see it works it works it works one really important thing when building a keyboard is checking your posture so make sure you check it what do we want posture what do we not want scoliosis guys I can tell that joke because I have scoliosis I discovered that they put the switch in sideways it's not beginner level architecture here mister because yeah I was looking at it and I was like well I don't see the other hole and then I was in that hole sideways and I was like oh there's the other hole porque why maybe it wasn't going to fit there if it wasn't sideways the socket interesting because the switch will still work even if it's sideways that's crazy okay so we have the stabilizers lubed and in thing is pressed and sealed so we are ready now for new switches now since it's this style I don't want to set this in and put in the switches I want to pre-load the switches why is that that way I don't have what's happening over here as much I need an expert like Toby helping me so I have this little piece of foam on the back to support it from the back and then I'm just gonna press the new switches in here and then we're going to load it in all right we'll hopefully go together now I've given you a couple the basic cheatbooks cheapish beginner switches well what do we have here so there's Brown stems we all know how people love Brown stem got these black ones you want Brown switches or black switches well since they're so popular and so well loved I think we have to go at the brown Browns at first you kind of wanted to die yeah well I have to say I was being a bit dramatic that's what that's what I realized remember like in your first video you're just screaming like half the time it was great I was not what do you think is it gonna turn out good I don't know I don't know Joseph do you think yours is gonna turn out good yes because it was made with love it's heavy oh you can see me [Music] [Laughter] hey what speed do I use that's your preference actually it's not fancy they give you both so you can decide what color keycaps am I using yeah son of a stupid oh my God I'm just putting the final touches on this may not actually work because I opted for a piece of foam in the bottom that might be thicker than you probably should put in so we'll see if it closes if it doesn't uh too bad I don't know I don't know we'll see now that you're following the instructions Josie how do you feel about this well the instructions make it pretty manageable and pretty doable honestly one to ten how difficult is it well I watch a lot of hypotech videos so not too difficult what the heck is this though haha I thought you was gonna be a tech videos so now that this is done now we need keycaps and I'm sure there's some convoluted rule for what keycaps hipio is going to give me oh okay now I've given Toby two different types of keycaps from my closet now at the time I didn't really know what these were worth but I assumed that both of them were pretty budget I can see that now what we think is that the melon keycap set is going to sound better but the white on black is gonna look better what we didn't know is we'd soon run into some problems just one more piece of foam left oh basically one last step okay not choosing the foam so now Josie's blown us all away by actually assembling your keyboard hard because there's so many steps yes don't be like hip yo just follow the instructions Toby I've got some fresh new keycash for you because let me just roast keep straw real fast keep swirl sent me these keycaps they're supposed to be a nice little budget key kept offering black on or white on black the space bars are so warped that they're completely unusable in this build the space bar is not good because we're having an issue where sometimes when you tap it the opposite end is tap in the case oh it's warped so now I've given Toby an incredibly interesting I guess off-white themed keycap set a very budget keycap set from idle Bell thank you yes my favorite space bar yeah so hopefully this works it'd be really funny if this didn't work it's wrong with their terrible keycaps out should I give you a chance do it for the meme I want cute ones whatever is gonna look the cutest cat said that's worth probably as much as like Toby's keyboard I've never heard of this and now you get to use it on your board it's perfectly sealed I've literally never used it before keycaps are so goofy they have like they have like the row and like the number and the unit size I really want to win oh wait Jesse there's no afro too bad Josie lost you're already done Josie is the loser but there's no winners yet Toby you have to help Josie finish her keyboard who could have seen this coming I thought you're gonna give him an ice cream special or something to get a popsicle Toby what were your thoughts on building your keyboard interesting I've never built a keyboard This budget before cheap um some interesting like uh audibles like trying to cut out the um the thing for the switch down here which kind of worked you know it wasn't perfect but you know we we made it work and then having to deal with with this yeah it was extra extra fun but I mean overall you know not too bad pretty easy and you got a popsicle and I got a popsicle screeches the final key for Josie The Beginner's keyboard build it's been literally like 15 minutes but she's doing great that's honestly not that far behind because I stopped Toby like seven different times to like make it but she's been really good thank you okay do you have like anything to say I wish it were more fun was it enough it was fun I just wish it were more fun no okay we're just getting it on yeah stop laughing at me I'm struggling just press down but it's not finding it oh yeah well the beginner mistake yeah it doesn't reflect poorly on me as a person and beginner mistakes are fine because you're a beginner yeah yay okay [Music] there we go oh versus that sounds a lot deeper that sounds a lot poppier [Applause] well you know I think keyboard expert you managed to make that sound really good thank you uh we're keyboard beginner what you also managed to make that sound really good thank you but you both managed to get keyboards that sound quite different and it really turns out that the keyboard friends that we've made were built along the way and popsicles and popsicles [Music] just [Music]

Channel: Hipyo Tech

Views: 462,750

Keywords: keyboard, mechanical keyboard, mechanical, switch, switch review, novel keys, keys, gateron, kalih, sound test, switch sound test, keyboard sound test, mech keyboard, aesthetic, wholesome, reddit, id80, panda, alpacas, krytox 205, krytox, type, test, keyboard mod, keyboard asmr mod, TKL keyboard, red, 65%, 60%, RGB 65%, taehatypes, :3ildcat, 3ildcat, tech, MKBHD, Linus tech tips, Taeha Types, Tech Review, Banggood Review, hipyo tech, hipiyo, hipyo, custom keyboard, thock, thocc, akko, razer, wooting

Id: jBHS0TeX4WM

Length: 23min 17sec (1397 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 11 2023