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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • Do you have a programmable keyboard right now? If so you can put a 36 key keymap on it and try it out, or at least certain elements of one.

    A big difference between a 5-col vs 6-col is that 5 will require homerow mods or some riff thereof. If you can put homerow mods on your current keyboard, even without changing anything else, and use them for a week or two to see if they agree with you, then you’ll know for sure whether the 5 col is the right choice. That’s what I did, then made a Fifi







  • I have one board with Choc Sunsets (tactiles), one with Choc Pro Reds (35g linears), and one with Choc Purps (25g linear).

    Out of the box, the sunsets were way too aggressive for me, but I lubed them with 205 including the tactile bump and that mellowed them out and quieted them down.

    The Purps are too light and kinda rattly, didn’t care for them.

    The Pro Reds are my favorite. I lubed them with 205 and they feel and sound good.

    I also laser cut a small pad from thin silicone that sits between the keycap and the stem, and which cushions and silences the bottom out. On a choc switch the keycap bottoms out against the top housing, rather than the stem hitting the bottom of the housing, so you can put a film or something under the keycap.

    With those silicone bumpers and 205 lube the Pro Reds are nearly silent, and the Sunsets are pretty quiet too.

    I just ordered some more PCBs, on the next board I may try pro reds on the homerow and purps on the other rows and see how that feels.


  • Before you go charging full speed ahead, you need to look up what the logic voltage on the blackpill is. I’ve never used one, so you’ll have to check that for yourself.

    If the blackpill’s high voltage is 3.3v, then an RGB running at 5v will likely not recognize 3.3v as high (or as a binary 1 if that’s easier to think about).

    There are two ways to get around this, either power the RGBs from 3v which is out of spec but will work (they will be dimmer though, and again this is out of spec), or shift the blackpill’s logic level to a higher voltage. You can use a diode to accomplish this, with this fiendishly clever hack.

    If you need to use either of the above approaches, probably a good idea to breadboard it first before shelling out for the PCBs