This week I finally made the plunge into the slightly deeper end of the mechanical keyboard community. I made the pre-order for Drop’s Ctrl Keyboard (Halo True switches). Total damage after shipping: 201.05 USD.
It’s my first step into the custom keyboard modding community. I was contemplating for the longest time if I should build a totally custom keyboard from scratch from sites like kbdfans for example. But the high cost of entry and the fear of screwing up made me decide to go for a semi-custom route instead.
However, while waiting for the keyboard to come, I decided to do some slight modifications to my Filco keyboard to see if I could improve the feel and sound of it.
Modifications
Bandaid mod for the costar stabilizer on the plastic clips as well as at the bottom where it hits the board. I gave up taking a picture because my camera refuses to focus on something that was 4mm big.
Also applied a thin layer of Krytox 105 lube on the bandaid to smoothen out the contacts.
O ring mod for most of the keys to remove the bottoming out clack sound, which works out pretty well, the keyboard is now much quieter, and the stabilizers are a lot less rattly.
Took about an hour or two to get everything done cause it was my first time applying the bandaid mod. Can’t wait for the Drop Ctrl keyboard to try lubing the switches for the first time. There are still quite a few more things I need to purchase before I am going to bother opening up the new keyboard.
I found a site with a pretty good guide on what kind of lube and how/where to lube switches.
Practice
On another related topic, I’ve been practicing my typing skills on various sites to try to break the 130wpm barrier on average. I didn’t realize that I have actually joined typeracer over 12 years ago. But it is very pleasing to see that there has been a steady improvement over the years.
Over time I’ve switched the way I place my fingers, forcing myself to use my pinky for the backspace, optimizing which hand to hit the shift key for capital letters and other little habits to improve my typing speed.
Is there really a point to typing this fast? I would say, probably not. When working, the limiting factor is how fast I think, most of my time is spent pondering over the solutioning instead of banging out letters on the keyboard. But I guess it’s a hobby that goes along well with the interest in keyboards.
Looking forward to modifying the key switches for the first time, probably 2 months later, can’t wait to bring this to the next level.