<aside> 🌊 we’re gonna build vanelao a hip af keyboard!
</aside>
for a mechanical keyboard, there are three key (haha get it) parts:
this is a pretty gross simplification, but for the kind of keyboard we’re building (cheap, feature packed, cute) these are the things that we can really customize!
the body of the keyboard determines a few different things. one of course is actually the body/frame and how it looks aesthetically, and the other is what kind of layout you have. there are a lot of different layout styles (full sized includes a whole number pad, ortho means the keys are all orthographically aligned, etc.) but for you we already decided on a 65%. this encompasses all the keys that are necessary for regular use while packaging everything into a nice smol size. the body in our case also includes the pcb, which stands for printed circuit board. this is the brains of the operation and is what interfaces with your computer.
the next important part of a mechanical keyboard is the switch – this is the actual mechanical part. it doesn’t have any electronics in it, but it does have (generally 2) pins that click into the pcb. when you press down on a switch, the circuit completes and that letter is sent to the computer. it’s all very cool stuff but the coolest part is that they’re super customizable! we already discussed the 3 different kinds of switches: linear, tactile, and clicky. these generally refer to how the actual switch press feels and there’s a wide variety of switches that all have different characteristics. in the interest of keeping this part simple, we’re going to get switches similar to the ones you liked off of my smol keyboard (Preonic) for your keyboard.
the last important part of your keeb build are the ✨keycaps✨. caps are made from plastic (most of the time in abs or pbt) and will fit on top of the switch. this is generally where you can really customize the aesthetics of your board! quality has really improved for keycaps, especially for cheaper sets, so you’ll see that even though there’s a wide price range for these, they’ll all feel fairly similar. keycaps also come in various profiles which refers to the size of the keycaps. on a laptop, the keys are all of uniform profile, but old school mechanical keyboards used to come with some serious sculpted profiles, which means the top and bottom rows of keys concave towards the homing row. these profiles all have different names but since you’ve already expressed interest in have a uniform profile (all the keys are the same height regardless of row), all the suggestions below fit that criteria.
and that’s it! I know I said this would be a quick crash course and that this looks lengthy, but trust me there’s even more that I haven’t gone into HAHA. for now, this should be more than enough to understand the diff parts of the keyboard we’re building and to source parts.
final build stats
→ 65% build
→ has bluetooth and wireless capability
→ knob!!
→ tactile switches
→ uniform profile PBT keycaps