ULTIMATE Mechanical Keyboard Keycap Replacement "How To" Guide

you've had your keyboard for a while now and things are starting to get serious you like to take long walks in the park you've enjoyed your fair share of candlelit dinners you're both ready it's time for things to go a little bit further welcome to the ultimate mechanical keyboard guy before making your move you'll need to gather some information about your keyboard start by identifying your keyboard stem this is the part of the keyboards exposed switch which connects it to its own key cap now usually these stems are unique to which switch they are on like Cherry MX toper or Alps but luckily there's some exceptions for example the razer blackwidow z' razer mechanical switches made by kail will work due to inherited Cherry MX 10 compatibility and in more extreme cases the one we'll be showing you today you have the Nova touch from Coolermaster where they have adopted the stem of a toe / switch to work with cherry MX compatible key caps this guy will focus on upgrading keyboards with Cherry MX switches or in other situations Cherry MX compatible stems because they are by far the most widely available replacement key caps once you've identified your keyboard stem things get a lot simpler is your keyboard ISO or a NSI layout this is one of the easiest things to identify by just looking at your enter key on an ISO layout keyboard the in Turkey will be taller and have a little bit of an odd shape on an a NSI keyboard your enter key will be flat and just a horizontal bar fairly straightforward next you have the size of your keyboard the two most common sizes are just a standard full-sized keyboard or an 80% of the size of a standard full-sized keyboard which is also known as a 10 keyless keyboard due to the fact that it doesn't have the number keypad that you would find on a standard full-sized keyboard on the right hand side there are also some fun but less common sizes like the 60% sometimes referred to as poker and a couple other sizes as well knowing the layout and size of your keyboard will help you buy the right amount of key caps and for the final bit of information you just need to know if your keyboard is backlit or not this won't technically restrict you in any way as you will be able to you put any Cherry MX compatible key cap on top of the backlit switch but if you want to be able to see the backlighting effect of your keyboard it will limit your options now this part is all about you what do you want are you looking to replace all of your key caps in this case we actually have quite a few options to consider first off you have the type of plastic you have three main options there with abs abs is the most common type of plastic found in keycaps today and is probably what was on your keyboard to start with abs is very adaptable allowing for things like clear lettering which lets backlighting shine through just the lettering on your key cap the second option is if you want the entire key cap to be transparent that is KBC it allows for a unique look and it also allows for the entire key cap to shine while the backlight is on and finally if you're looking for something more textured and more durable you'd want to check out pbt key caps that's my personal favorite it can be a little bit more expensive but some people including myself swear by the very subtle but definitely noticeable texture differences also pvt key caps are shine resistant due to their durability making it much more difficult for the oils in your hand to wear them away giving them that glossy appearance that you'll find typically on old keyboards a definite bonus one thing I left out about these materials is the general feel it's hard to quantify but especially if you bottom out your keys when pressing them down the material of your key cap can entirely change the feel of typing due to how it reacts with the base of your keyboard and its weight compared to your stock key caps next you have to decide how you want them printed you've got some options for locations you can have the printing on the top of the key you can have no printing at all leaving them completely blank or you can even have side printing also known sometimes as ninja printing which results in a stylish looking blank top with the printing on the front of the key cap just in case you need to check them out every now and then but that's not all when it comes to printing now you need to pick what type of printing you actually want first off we have pad printing it's extremely common due to its inexpensive application and ability to print in more than one color but it definitely has its drawbacks as well not only can you feel where the key cap has already been printed but the printing will wear away relatively quickly which makes that feeling even more odd as the printing starts to disappear and it loses its shape then we come to laser etching or laser engraving which is nice because it doesn't wear out nearly as fast as pad for and it will last a very long time under standard environments you can still feel the printing but some people don't really mind this option as it generally won't change its feel much over time next we have dye sublimation which is more expensive than the previous options and can only be set in one color which is darker than the rest of the key cap as the dye has to be set into the plastic after it is formed but it won't really wear out and can be set in multiple colors and doesn't have any noticeable textures to it and last but definitely not least we have a double shot injection molding this method is definitely the most expensive but the quality is beyond question these key caps are comprised of two entirely separate pieces which unfortunately limits you to only two colors but also makes it so that the lettering will literally never wear out and also doesn't have any noticeable texture to it which brings us to the overall shape you can choose between cylindrical the most common type flat which is usually found on laptop keyboards or spherical which is mainly found on extremely old keyboards and stuff like typewriters I hope you chose cylindrical as finding flat or spherical key caps will be extremely difficult to say the least if you're only looking to replace a very small amount of key caps like say a couple F keys or just your Escape key you will have many more options in the custom sections of some stores including things like fully 3d printed key caps in the form of skulls or pistols or some other interesting custom printing to make your keyboard uniquely yours the job of a keyboard dampener is to reduce the clack of your keyboard not to click the click on a keyboard is the sound the switch makes as it actuates on a clicky switch to help tell the difference between linear and clicky switches click here to check out why missus fast as possible episode explaining the differences between Cherry MX switches the clack on a keyboard actually doesn't have anything to do with the switch necessarily and is just to send your keyboard makes when you bottom out the key cap hitting it against the base board of the keyboard starting with a rings the most common dampeners there are a ton of differences aside from just color there's thickness which is pretty self-explanatory and durometer or hardness thickness will mainly a back to the travel distance with under two millimeters affecting it slightly above two millimeters affecting it in a very noticeable way around two millimeters is recommended for say clicky switches with above two millimeters only really being recommended for linear switches then we have the durometer which gets slowly harder starting at forty al onward to fifty a - r with 40 a - L feeling quite squishy and 50 a - are feeling not as hard as hitting the bottom of your keyboard but still quite hard our rings are available in two main rubber materials nitrile and APD em don't worry about this as they're functionally the same moving on from a rings we've got soft landing pads the main source of these soft landing pads is elite keyboards com although they can be found elsewhere and these are rather easy to make on your own if you can find a good material from elite keyboards they come in either a firm grey or a soft black for varying effect and lastly we have surprisingly enough dental bands the requirements for a Cherry MX o ring is an inner diameter of five millimeters and an outer diameter of somewhere around eight millimeters dental bounds are inexpensive and available in many different varieties they can be found on eBay or honestly just from your local dentist office so you've done your research and you know what's the best for both of you you're ready to make your move but first you need to acquire supplies in the small niche but awesome world of custom mechanical keyboards there is a surprising amount of places to buy things from from the widely known WASD keyboards who were kind enough to supply us with the key cast we'll be using today to the Wow this really looks like this websites gonna scam you out of my money but is actually somehow legit vendee o eSports also known as q10 for a pretty extensive list of vendors of keycaps dampeners and more please check the forum link in the description down below once your new key caps arrived it's time to get down to business when engaging in the delicate process of key cap removal first and foremost you need to be gentle and always use the right tools for the job you'll need preferably two key cap pullers wire pullers are ideal but if you can find plastic ones those will work - or even an improvised paper-based wire puller but just don't use your fingers a coin a screwdriver or anything of that nature one precaution with removing key caps in general is that you need to make sure that you don't pull the entire switch up off the keyboard when you do pull it if you have a keyboard that has switches going directly into the PCB this could be a problem but if you have a keyboard that has switches going into a plate which is in the middle it should be fine but I would just check either way that your puller is only grabbing the key cap before pulling up PCV mounted switches aren't all that common but it's better to be safe than sorry there's nothing too complicated about normal square alphanumeric keycaps so just go slow and be patient but some of the bigger ones can be a little bit trickier first we'll go over how to remove dummy stabilizers as they're probably the most common all you need to do is spread your wire puller over the key cap ensuring you are only grabbing the cap or slide your plastic puller over the cap which will only grab the cap then proceed to wiggle gently if the key cap just won't come off for some weird random reason got something like a flathead screwdriver a coin a credit card or your hopes and dreams and hold down the switch below the key cap and then continue to wiggle a little bit harder and then hopefully the key cap will come off at that point for the spacebar the method is essentially the same but you need to place a puller on each end of the spacebar and lift up equally now things someone help you hold down your keyboard at this point would probably help now if you have wire based stabilizers things change a little bit most the keys are gonna be the same process as that dummy switch stabilizer keyboard we just dealt with but the longer keys like shifts and our spacebar and backspace will all have a wire based system which will take some dealing with once you've removed the keys neighboring these longer keys you can actually start working on them directly as an example we will remove the space bar so position your key pullers on each end of the space bar and wiggle very very gently eventually you will feel it give way from that switch that's in the very middle but it will still be attached to the exposed external wire that is going around the outside so if you just push on one side of the key cap it will free from that side and then you can easily just pull it off of the other side be very gentle in this as well but it should be pretty easy once the key is free you'll notice pegs underneath you should remove these with either your fingers or but don't shove something like a flathead under that little loop as you may risk breaking it if you are having trouble use a flathead to pry it directly from its base not from under the loop and then that should actually be fine another thing to note is that the other wire base stabilized keys will have a shorter wire which will be more stiff so be ready to press a little bit harder on the side of the key cap when you're freeing it from the wire so at this point all of your key caps have been removed if this is a keyboard you have been using for quite a while this will be a great time to do some keyboard maintenance so grab some canned air a compressor or a data vac and give your keyboard a good air base spray down to get some of the chunkier parts out of there for more delicate cleaning you can use a clean cloth and a small amount of water or isopropyl 99% alcohol but please note that if your key caps are UV coated you should only use the water alcohol can eat away UV coating also if the casing is starting to yellow you can use Windex which only furthers my theory that Windex can pretty much clean anything another thing to note is that if you happen to break any small pieces or the entire upgrade of your keyboard you can grab replacement inserts wires or even entire switches from WASD keyboards and some other places as well which will be linked in the forum discussion which you can find linked to under the video down below in the description when moving up your keyboard you really only need to lube up specific spots along the stabilizer bars or on the inserts and stuff like that and even then the amount of leave required is very low the guide I usually use on how much Lube to use is pretty much equivalent to the head of a computer case screw I have many of them laying around and it's just pretty easy to access all I can really stress here is that less is more it's easy to add a little bit more Lube later on but it can be very annoying to take it off the lube I would recommend is finished line Xtreme fluoro it is 100% teflon grease based lube that is widely used by bike knife and gun enthusiasts and apparently keyboard enthusiasts as well as it is already widely recommended almost everywhere on the internet for switch stabilizer lubricant some enthusiasts recommend removing your keyboard every 6 to 12 months but as I don't really expect many of you to do that try to at least do it when you're swapping your key caps out like now finally we are at installation surprisingly enough possibly one of the easiest parts of this entire process for this part turn on your PC a fire up a word processor and then proceed to press each button on your keyboard to check what it does before putting the appropriate key cap on just kidding you have a spare keyboard use this video or maybe look up a picture reference online to find the proper key cap placement take it slow and you'll be fine now if you bought some oring x' or dental bands before you have to install your key caps with those first so you'll need to push the ring or band onto the cylinder underneath the cap after you've installed all the rings or bands you just proceed like normal but this time push a little bit harder once the switch is installed to make sure that the dampener Aero ring is pushed all the way up into the cap if you bought dampening pads all you need to do is place those pads around each switch before installing your key caps like normal if you have a common dummy stabilizer based keyboard the process of installing keys is quite simple all we have to do is line up the cylinder under the key cap with the stems on your switches and push down gently if you have wire based stabilizers it's just the reverse of uninstalling them once the keys will be the same as the installation process of the dummy stabilizers but whenever you have long key caps like space bar you will need to install the pegs that you removed from the previous key caps with the long part of the peg facing the back of the cap then you need to stand the wire up on the keyboard and hook one of the insert pegs on to the wire push in the direction of the hooked in end and then hook in the other side once you have each side hooked in you just need to push down on the key gently onto the key switch and voila you're done alright guys while I give you a chance to enjoy some sexy glam footage of our freshly recap CM storm Nova touch tkl I'd like to thank CM storm for sponsoring this guide the Nova clutch tkl we featured here is pretty unusual in the fact that it features premium topper switches but with cherry MX stem compatibility which made it pretty fun to play around with all day today thanks to him storm and thanks you guys for watching don't forget to subscribe and like this video and possibly dislike this video and if it's too hard to express your feelings it likes and dislikes like Linus says comment in the video down below and also if you guys want more information on where to buy all this kind of stuff check out the link in the description to the forum of this video while you're checking out that description check out that forum topic and go over the forum and comment there if you don't like the ads become a contributor which gets rid of all the ads if you want one of these shirts like the one I'm wearing right now check out the link in the description of this video as well and don't forget to change your Amazon that book link things with the guide on the forum so that we get some kick backs when you buy some Amazon stuff thanks for watching let me know how you thought my first altima guide went and I'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Linus Tech Tips

Views: 3,063,595

Rating: 4.9162312 out of 5

Keywords: keycap, replacement, guide, ultimate, mechanical, keyboard, keyswitches, cherry mx, topre, cooler master, novatouch, tkl, tenkeyless, poker, full size, 104-key

Id: NADlUip6lMY

Length: 17min 2sec (1022 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 09 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/paspasero]

I like how these guys are catering to the mechanical keyboard audience but they need to do some fact checking and should probably read up on r/MK's glorious wiki.

[u/35nick35]

Song at the beginning is Laszlo - Interstellar in case you were wondering, it was not credited.

Edit: They've since added the correct credits.

[u/SigLogical]

Aww they did not talk about DSA vs DCS vs SA and OEM profile : http://i.imgur.com/AH9NnUX.jpg :( not ultimate in my list

[u/Fnzzy]

Did they just show off the Dota keycap from that one clack faker at 6:23?

[u/TalliBighood]

2:03 Dose this mean i should change my flair to a Ducky Poker mini or Poker Ducky mini or just Ducky Poker?

[u/PinkiePai]

"Just go slow and be patient."

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[u/csl512]

Those are indeed keycap pullers in the dinner scene.

[u/Ninja_Raccoon]

So I have a very popular keyboard (a variant of which was shown in the video.) It has the dreaded "non-standard" bottom row that many keyboards seem to have.

All I've heard when it comes to non-standard bottom rows is "you're screwed." But custom keycaps are literally a customized product. NO ONE has EVER come up with a CUSTOM bottom row key that is the width of my (very popular keyboard's) keys?!

I watched the video from start to finish hoping this "ultimate" guide would at minimum say "sure this is a video about keycap replacement and we did show you a Corsair keyboard, but if you have one of those you might as well not watch this because screw you." But I didn't even get that!

Has anyone here ever used a corsair mechanical keyboard with custom keycaps? Ever? Please, if you know a solution I want to hear it!!

[u/[deleted]]

I feel like I know less about the subject after watching this video