How to build your FIRST custom keyboard! (ON A BUDGET)

oh you want to build a custom keyboard well where do you even start there's keycaps there's switches there's keyboards there's everything and they're all out of stock and i don't know howdy hey hypotech here to save the day it doesn't matter if you have 500 bucks or 50 bucks you can build a custom keyboard and i'm going to show you how but if you have 500 it's a little bit easier in this video i'm going to walk you from start to finish how to pick out a keyboard pick out switches lube switches and whatever this is okay yeah now if you're watching this video you probably have no idea where to start or maybe you have a keyboard and just want to learn some new things now i can help both of you so stick around we've got some useful knowledge warning this video contains opinion so this video story begins with 50 landing one of my favorite artists i felt like building him a keyboard because he plays games i reached out he was down and i'm gonna take the beginner's perspective on this one now when you're picking out a keyboard there's a couple things that are pretty important the first thing is budget lay out how much money you're willing to spend and then maybe extend that just a little bit next you need to figure out what layout you need layout dictates what keys are going to be on your keyboard contrary to what some people would have you believe layout is entirely preference and you're going to have to decide this one for yourself chief sorry i'm just kidding it's 75 i won if you go to 60 and 65 you get more desk space but you sacrifice f keys and on 60 arrow keys 75 is considered a sweet spot for some as it keeps the f keys and the arrow keys but it looks a bit odd to some now i can already stop typing it stop it you're typing about the number pad probably all four of you there are options for that as well now when looking for keyboards you might hear about gasket mounts and tray mounts and mounts and you're like why are these people obsessed with mounting things uh well put very simply a mount is kind of how your keyboard fits together it can change how your keyboard feels and performs and it can differ from board to board gasket mount generally means the typing experience will be softer tray mount generally means it'll be stiffer but there's a big spectrum there and yeah now i've got a video i'll put in the top right as far as my top five in-stock keyboard recommendations but generally keyboards run a lot of things in group buys meaning you can't buy them or if you can you have to wait quite a long time which is really unfortunate for somebody getting into the hobby just know if you see gb or group buy that's like a kickstarter it means you're gonna get it a lot later but if you're incredibly impatient there are options out there for you there's even pre-built keyboards that aren't half bad like this iqnix now i can hear you getting bored oh kind of rude by the way but my final word of advice for buying a keyboard is make sure that it says it's hot swap for beginners i don't recommend soldering it's fun but it limits your ability to experiment without higher effort levels so in my opinion get hot swap there you go if you're already feeling incredibly confused don't worry you can also check out this video where my friend tried to build a keyboard entirely by herself oh oh i goofed it up real bad you guys why are you making me do this by myself all right everybody let's take a deep breath together and let's have a conversation that your parents don't want to have about lube but switch loop now there's a lot of different types of switches there's clicky tactile and linear clicky makes a click noise tactile makes a small bump and linear smooth all the way down unfortunately there's really no way to figure out which one you like the best except of course trying them in my experience most people are generally comfortable with a linear switch but it's totally preference also keep in mind when shopping for switches a switch can sound different in a bunch of different keyboards and the keyboard sound is not just the switch so if you looked up a sound test for something and it sounded good it might sound completely different in your keyboard if you want a list of switches then check out cubes4all in the description use code hippo to save five percent for the build i'm making in this video i'll be using gatter on milky yellows which are one of my personal favorite linears these have been lubed and filmed and you're probably wondering what's lubing we'll get into that pretty soon you'll also notice when shopping for switches that it mentions the spring weight and this is how easy it is to press the switch the higher number means more force to press now let's talk about lubing switches and why people do it uh here's a really good example so that's the same keyboard same switches the only variable that changed is i lubed the second one now enthusiast loop keyboard switches so that we can make them smoother more consistent uh various reasons but in general it's for sound now some switches come factory looped which for some people is good enough but it really depends on the switch as some factory lubing can be incredibly inconsistent and not as good as hands but if you don't want a lube make sure your switch is factory lubed at least now let's get into lubing and if you already know what's going on here i recommend you keep watching as you might learn some new things or at the very least exhale out of your nose because i made a funny joke um anyways to lube your switches you first need a switch opener and i'll leave all of this stuff down in the description then just press down with the switch on the opener and pop all of them open now you're probably thinking hippo this is an incredibly sus bag what is going on here well i put 15 drops of super lube oil or crytox oil in a bag and then i put all my springs in there this is because i'm very lazy but because i'm a hard worker uh wait i then proceed to shake the bag for 30 seconds and then massage for 30 seconds you know you got to give them a good massage otherwise they will not perform well and then you pour them out for this next part you need a brush and some lube and of course i'm using keeps for all stuff here they're an affiliate of mine but like any brand work next i also recommend some tweezers as they will save your life and a stem holder which is kind of optional i just have fat fingers and then maybe a backup brush to lube the switches themselves you want a very light layer on your brush like you shouldn't really be able to see the lube on there at least that's kind of how i like it and then basically you do three strokes on each slider like one two three flip the brush and then three strokes on the other slider and then go around the world wait i thought we were gonna cut this part no no cut this part cut cut cut cut okay with a light layer of lube we can then put our spring in our switch and i'm using a lube station here but you really don't need one it literally just holds your switch in place like uh and try not to lose the spring next take the stem either in your fingers or on a stem holder get a light layer of lube again and then go over the stem with a light layer across the highest contact points first my technique here is not very good because i was looking through a viewfinder but you know i tried my best now if you're lubing tactile switches you probably don't want to loop the legs but i recommend trying it out as lubing the legs reduces the tactility some people like that and in fact i like that a lot to reduce the tactility but you know preference next we're just gonna put the stem with the legs facing the little metal part and then pop the switch back together and test it i can't stress this enough test your switches when you're lubing them to make sure that you're performing how you want to be performing maybe you over lubed it maybe under looped it who knows also i haven't forgotten our core objective i did lube all those gather on milky yellows uh but my camera filming was terrible now i need you guys to bear with me for this part if you get through the stabilizer section you get an extra howdy hay why are stabilizers important well just listen to this that's what happens when you don't lube them and this is what happens when you do okay do you understand now stabilizers are these little guys that keep your keys stable now there's screw and stabilizers and plate mount stabilizers and different boards support different types generally i recommend durock screw-ins and durock plate mounts screw-ins are generally superior and that they're easier to get tuned however if you're dumb then they're hard to install plate mounts can also sound just as good but require a little bit of modding sometimes you'll see band-aid mods on them like this and yeah they're easier to install here's a bonus tip if your stabilizers are pre-installed and you're lazy then you can use a hobby syringe and some dielectric grease and just shoot it in there this won't be perfect but it'll make them better than if you didn't but here's what i recommend if you have a lot of patience you can try the holy mod feel free to look it up but i don't generally what i do is i take a brush i get some crytox 205 g0 on it which is a lube and i generously coat the inside of the stabilizer housings now if your stabilizers are particularly bad you can coat the stems as well but if you're using durock v2s you kind of don't need to coat the stems it's kind of excessive but the ones i'm lubing here are pretty bad so i'm going with the more as more method it's it's literally that more lube is more good now there's full videos out there on like exactly how to lube your stabilizers but this kind of gets the general vibe across there's a lot of different methods and everybody likes to do it differently but essentially all that matters is that your stabilizer doesn't tick now for this if you have a lot of money you can use crytox 205 g0 on the wires but oh look at this shot oh my gosh is this a professional youtube channel is this guy professional i use permatex dielectric grease for my wires most of the time it gets the job done you do a hearty coding and then oh we're gonna need to blur this one and then you insert the lubed wire into the housing and make sure you hear a click when reassembling stabilizers make sure the stem at the two hole side faces where the wire goes in when you put the stem into the housing then you just grease up the other side pop them together and repeat like four to five times if you bought a stabilizer pack that comes with a long wire that's for a 7u space bar and check to see if the board you bought supports that or not howdy hey howdy hey anyways back to the build and 50 landing decided that he wanted a tkl so i picked the idabo id87 crystal i've got a video on that in the top right but let's install the switches yeah it's not that easy but provided you listened to my input and bought a board that's hot swap it will actually be decently easy with the hotspot pcb you can try a bunch of different switches and figure out the one you like the best then you'll be the happiest i guess here's an important note you need to be incredibly gentle when installing the switches and i recommend installing them with the pcb out of the case so you can support the socket from the back make sure the pins on the switch are straight before you put it in so if you've been following along at home that means you have a keyboard you have stabilizers you have loop switches they're installed you're doing pretty good granted i can't tell you how to actually build each keyboard that you have at home but you know what yeah this isn't even scratching the surface with mods like you could put pillow foam in your keyboard and tape to improve the sound and there's limitless possibilities that are so fun with the hobby oh my gosh but that's once you get addicted you know just keep watching so with the keyboard mostly assembled it looks nothing like a keyboard because we're missing one crucial element here can you guess what it is no it wasn't it no frankly i'm disappointed in you it's keycaps guys keycaps it's an important part of every build and every balanced breakfast please don't eat plastic it would take me a whole 15 minute video to discuss keycaps and everything i feel about them and maybe that's coming soon and maybe i'm going to include a diss track in it hit subscribe for a diss track let's go but i have done a video on keycap sets that are in stock that you can buy from various lower budgets to high budgets you can check that out as well as i mentioned before group buys ruin everything in this hobby but there are more key cap sets coming in stock like drops key cap program and kinetic labs has a bunch of stuff in stock this is hugely oversimplified but essentially pbt is gonna sound deeper abs is gonna sound sharper clackier but as you'll see with this build i'm using pbt keycaps and it sounds clacky so there is no one size fits all everything is subjective that sounded like a betty switching click type of shout silent whisper when we were looking to build 50 landings keyboard we found these mozzure keycaps on drop.com and we kind of had to have them they are only 86 however drop sent them to me for free and they ship right away so that's pretty cool a lot of keycap sets have what are called novelties as well those are just fancy keys that look pretty oh yeah did i mention a lot of keyboards have rgb and epic rgb gamer time that's pretty cool right but just a side tangent not enough enthusiast keyboards have good rgb and that makes me really sad i think we need to change that we need to get on that now i might have totally 100 missed something this was a relatively fast paced video just to try and get you through the general vibe of building a keyboard if you're interested check out some of my other videos get subscribed and follow me on twitter to tell me what i forgot i'm going to post 50 landings reaction to getting this keyboard on twitter or instagram one of the two also howdy hey to everyone to hit that join button down below and supports me and all my videos that i make if this video helped you consider hitting it here's the sound test of the board bye you

Channel: Hipyo Tech

Views: 1,658,171

Keywords: keyboard, mechanical keyboard, mechanical, switch, switch review, novel keys, keys, gateron, kalih, sound test, switch sound test, keyboard sound test, keyboard asmr, asmr, typing asmr, 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

Id: Sm1DVbyeDiI

Length: 13min 5sec (785 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 29 2022