A real life story with a happy ending.

I’m not too sure about the first few seconds. I think she called my name or made some sort of noise to wake me. I also think it was really hot in our room. I remember being all sticky and the sheets were wet. It could be the heat but it could also have been my body reacting to the panic of being woke up in the middle of the night. Two seconds, that is my guess, of confusion, after that everything is crystal clear. Wide awake, my brain starts working in overdrive. Why is she calling on me in the middle of the night? It is the middle of the night, right? Is there someone else in the room? I jump out of the bed and run towards the sound of her voice. We’re on vacation and I run towards the only light source in our hotel flat. The first thing I see is blood. Lots of blood. She has told me I always exaggerate the amount of blood, but the image in my head is that the entire floor of the shower is covered with blood. And lumps. Red lumps. She’s calm as always. She looks up at me and says with a soft voice that it’s probably a miscarriage and that we need to call someone. Those red lumps were my child. Our child. It was also our first miscarriage. But not our last.
The rest of the night and the following morning we spent at different hospitals on Mallorca. The first place we were taken to was an emergency room where I didn’t get to see or know anything about my wife for hours. When they finally came for me, I was shown to an empty bed in a room with nine other beds, all of them occupied by people with differen ailments . I looked at the nurse but she just shrugged and walked away. I feel the panic rushing towards me like a freight train. I have trouble breathing and the thought of my best friend being dead hits me so hard i still to this day believe that imaginary freight train actually hit me. She bled to death and they have moved her body. It’s only logical with all that blood. All that blood slowly running down the drain. But why haven’t anyone told me or the nurse? I call her name and I get a calm reply from the back of the room. I’m here, in the bathroom she says. Once again it’s the memory of blood that has etched itself to my memory. She stands there with some kind of diaper for grownups and it’s filled with blood. She’s completely calm and she says she’s fine.
What happens next I have no detailed memories of, but we are being told to get ourselves to the other side of the island, to the capital with the big hospital. She has to have surgery. We could take a cab they say, or they could arrange a hospital transport with a nurse and a bed but that would cost a lot of money. We use our credit card and opt for the transport. When we arrive at the big hospital we’re shown into a small room with three women who barely understand or speak any English. By this time I’ve not had anything to eat or had any sleep in a very long time and my blood sugar is dropping fast. I’m sitting with my head between my knees while we’re trying to understand each other and trying to understand what they are planning to do with my wife. She is off coarse calm and trying to get them to take care of me. He’s going to faint if you don’t give him something to eat, she says.
An hour later we are lying in the same hospital bed. I’m eating chocolate and drinking orange juice. She can’t eat or drink because of the pending operation. She gets her shot and then she is being rolled away from me. I’m shown into a sitting room when I suddenly realize I have to call her parents. Her mother answers the phone like you would expect someone to answer a phone call in the middle of the night. She is confused and worried. I break down and start to cry. I somehow manage to tell her what has happened. She is just as calm as her daughter and she tells me to calm down, everything is going to be just fine and I should take a deep breath.

She awakens from her artificial sleep a little tired but in a good mood. When we are sitting in the taxi on our way back to the hotel we both cry. It’s tears of joy. The joy of being alive and the joy of loving each other. Then and there everything was crystal clear. This is the woman I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. The future mother of my children.

We decided not to go back to a cold, dark and snowy Sweden. We stayed there by the ocean. I went for takeout and we sat on the balcony and talked for hours. We called our families and friends. We watched a lot of movies.
Several years later, several miscarriages later and with the help of a lot of amazing doctors. We are now proud parents to a four year old daughter (soon five dad! she keeps telling me) and a baby son.

Despite all the misery during those years, with the blood and the loss and all the hurt. I can’t help but think about how I must be the luckiest man alive.

When I first saw the prices of the new iPhones I sighed. $1099. And that is for the Xs Max modell with 64gb of storage. I’m not buying a new iPhone with 64gb of storage, no way. So for me it starts at $1249. And that is if I live in the United States. I don’t. I live in Sweden and the price we pay here (including VAT) for the model with 256gb of storage converted back to dollars is $1780 (16000kr). Yes, that is correct, you are not reading that wrong. 1780 dollars for a phone.

Holy crap, that is the same amount of money that I would have to pay for a new laptop. A brand new MacBook Pro.

So I started thinking. Why do I feel an iPhone is wort less money than a MacBook Pro? Is it because it’s smaller? The fact is that it’s more expensive to build something in a smaller form factor. So what is it then? Is it the specs?

If you compare the specs of an iPhone Xs Max and a MacBook Pro 13" you find that they both are very powerful portable devices.

Chart by Alex B @somospostpc

The more I think about it, the more I suspect I’m just used to a phone costing less than a computer, I don’t think it’s more complicated than that. But I think we are now in an age were our phones are our most important computers and maybe it’s time we start to think about them that way. It’s the computer that most of us use most of the time. I for one use my phone much more than I use any of my other computers. I use my laptop for work related stuff, an hour a day. I use my iMac for making and recording music a few times a week, and some other small tasks that still can’t be done on iOS (like programing my keyboard). I also use the iMac for when I write texts like these. The rest of the time I use my phone. The computer in my pocket. It’s always there and it’s always on.

I still think it’s a lot of money to pay for a phone, but I came to the conclusion that it’s wort it to me. I’m going to use this phone everyday for the next two years.

I for one can’t justify not buying the absolute best phone there is (for me) as its going to be my main computer and camera for the next two years.

There is also the possibility that I’m writing all this to convince myself that it’s OK that I just spent 1780 dollars on a phone…

We’ve all heard it. Things can’t make you happy.

I respectfully disagree.

I’m not saying that “stuff” can replace the important things in our lives, like love, friends or a meaningful existence and a happy family. That would be stupid. But I’m saying that they can (and do) play an important part in some, if not most, peoples lives.

I’m not talking about a new iPhone, no, I’m talking about the really unnecessary things. Like a pen. You can get a really good pen for a buck. Still, some people are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a pen. It’s not in any way a more functional pen. It’s a pen of a higher quality, yes, but not a more functional pen. Now why would anyone do this? I own a Lamy 2000 Rollerball pen. It’s a ridiculously expensive pen. For the cost of that pen I could get hundreds of inexpensive pens that write just as well. But that is not the issue here. I don’t care about that kind of quality in this case. The kind of quality I want in the case of a pen for myself, is the weight of the pen, the feel of the pen in my hand as I write. Is the balance right? How does the ink feel as I write on the paper? How does the ink look on the paper? A normal ballpoint pen would probably be better in every way from a practical point of view. But I’m willing to overlook all those details just to have something “feel” good.

The same goes for a watch. You can get a great Casio watch for next to nothing that tells time in a more legible and accurate way than any Rolex. Still the cost of a Rolex can be 100 times that of the Casio. This is a phenomenon that defies common sense. The individual parts of the Rolex are more expensive, sure, but not 100 times more expensive.

I first started to think about this odd human behavior a few months ago when I felt the need for a new keyboard. The keyboard on my new MacBook Pro started to behave strange. I had to type a little harder on the spacebar for it to register. No big deal, but it led me to think about my disgust for laptop keyboards. I knew of mechanical keyboards and the spell they put on people. I told myself that “that is not a rabbit hole I’m going down”. No way. So of course, I had ordered a new mechanical keyboard within a few days. I spent my days totally obsessing with everything that had anything to do with mechanical keyboards. And I came to the conclusion that if I’m getting a mechanical keyboard it has to be the best. And when I say “the best” I’m not talking about more keys than other keyboards or flashing lights, no, I’m talking about something that’s well made. Something that’s made with love and care. Something that’s not being made with production streamline and efficiency as the main priority. I want something that someone has thought about for hours and weeks and months. I don’t want something that’s made out of plastic unless plastic is the best material for that part.

In the case of the keyboard that I ordered, it was a good keyboard with an aluminum body and really good PBT keycaps (PBT is a high quality plastic that is used on some of the best keycaps available). But it was not “right”, it was not special, it was not good enough. I had gotten a feel for mechanical keyboards, but I knew I could get something even better. After some research I had learned that the mechanical keyboard world was just as obsessed with the perfect feel as I was. In fact, everything was based on “feel” in this tactile world. The cases of the custom boards should preferably be made of a single piece of aluminum with some going so far as to put pieces of brass in the cases as to make them even more sturdy and heavy, to make them “feel” even better. The keycaps come in different shapes or profiles and that makes each of the sets feel different and it also makes each of the sets sound different. They are also made out of different materials for a different feel depending on the plastic used. But the most important thing when it comes to the “feel” of a Keyboard is the switches. There are hundreds of switches to chose from and everyone claims to offer a different feel, a different tactility. Some are clicky (my favorite), some are tactile and some are linear. You have to try them to really appreciate the difference, and believe me when I say they are different.

For me to make the perfect keyboard, for me to feel as if I had the perfect keyboard, I already had gone to insane lengths. I’d learned about switches and keycaps, different plastics used in keycaps and from whom I should order all these parts so I could make my own fabulous and perfect just for me, tactile keyboard.

I eventually built my perfect keyboard, I’m writing on it now in fact. It’s a Planck keyboard with PBT DSA keycaps and wonderfully clicky Kailh Box White switches and an aluminum case, of course. This probably doesn’t mean much to the average human being, but it means that I can “feel” something when I type that I can’t quite put in to words. It feels wonderful, in fact it feels fantastic. Every click under my fingers is a deep satisfaction. I feel quality and that is important to me.

My keyboard makes me happy.

My pen makes me happy.

I used to own an Apple Watch. I sold it so I could buy a mechanical watch instead. Two in fact. They are much worse than the Apple watch at showing me the time or even keeping the time and they most certainly can’t show me my notifications. But they are complicated little machines that give me great pleasure every day. They are not digital, they are analog. They are mechanical. Little cog wheels spinning and making quiet music for me to listen to.

My watches make me happy.

These things sometimes cost a bit more, but they are often well made and sometimes will last you a lifetime. Your Apple Watch will not. Your cheap pen will not and the keyboard in your laptop will not.

Enjoy the small things. Take the time to find the perfect thing for you. You might find that it can add some happiness to your life. It’s the little things, the details that make all the difference.

A journal of my first mechanical keyboard build.

Part six

The review

Video at the bottom of the review

For those of you that has followed along in this series of post about my Planck build, it will come as no surprise that I really love this keyboard. For those of you that haven’t read the previous stories, you can find them here:

The construction of a Planck, introduktion.

The construction of a Planck, keycaps

The construction of a Planck, keyboard switches.

The construction of a Planck, wrist wrest.

The construction of a Planck, artisans.

The construction of a Planck, the build.

When I say love, I really mean love. So much so that I have come to believe that all keyboards should be ortholinear. I know I’m in a minority here, but for my brain this is just more logical. I found it much easier to learn touch typing on my Planck than I ever did on my staggered keyboard. It might just be me tho, you may feel completely different.

What is a Planck?

When you first look at a Planck you see a really small keyboard, or something that at least looks kind of like a keyboard. In fact it’s not a small keyboard at all, you may see 48 keys, but I see over 130 keys.

Now that’s just impossible you say. Well, it’s not.

If you look closely att the keyboard, there are some keys that are not on a “normal” keyboard.

In my case it says “Raise” and “Lower” on the two keys on the bottom row. I see these keys as extra “Shift” keys. When you use a normal keyboard you get an “A” if you press the “A” key while holding the “Shift” key, and an “a” if you just press the key alone. The same principle aplies to the “Raise” and “Lower” keys. If I hold down on my “Raise” key, this is what my keyboard actually puts out.

Now the numbers are right under my fingers on the home row, and all the special characters are easy to reach without having to move my fingers hardly at all.

When I access the second layer, the “Lower” key, I get this:

I put the arrow keys and some media controls on this layer. I’ve also thrown in some macros so I don’t have to write my email addresses over and over. You can put whatever macros you want on there. In fact, you can put whatever you want on any key on the keyboard. That is the whole point of this keyboard. You use something called QMK to program the keyboard. There are different ways to use QMK to program the Planck. There is the original and a bit more complicated way that you can read about here:

QMK

But that way is a bit to complicated for me so I use this instead.

KBFirmware

This is what it looks like on my first layer. It’s my “Base” layer, that is to say my normal layer that I use to write text like this. This is the layer that is active without holding down any “modifier” buttons.

It looks a little bit odd but that is because I’m Swedish and the computer translates certain keys. If I tell my computer to use the Swedish language it will change some characters to others, it will “translate” if you will. Like if I were to plug in an English keyboard and press the key that says “[” it would come out on the screen as “å”. All computers act this way. But as soon as you know what characters come out when you press certain keys you can program the keyboard to do whatever you want. And that right there is it:

"You can program the keyboard to do whatever you want."

I for one haven’t done as much to customize my keyboard as others have, I’ve seen others put five or more layers on a Planck. That is not for me. I want my keyboard to be simple. I love that I can think of my keyboard as having just three layers. The base layer for normal typing, the “Raise” layer for my numbers and often used characters and the “Lower” layer for my not so often used macros and controls.

To get the custom key map configuration on to the keyboard you need to flash it. You do this by pressing the “Compile” button in the Keyboard Firmware Builder. It will then download something thats called a “Hex file”. You will use that to “Flash” your Planck.

I’ve watched a lot of videos of how to do all this and I recommend you do the same if you want to do this yourself.

Here are some links I found helpful:

QMK Firmware Tutorial by Chokkan

Top Clack QMK Special with the creator of Planck and QMK, Jack Humbert

QMK Tutorial by MechMerlin

Conclusion

I’ve been using the Planck as my only keyboard for several months now. There is no way I’m ever going back to a regular keyboard. Both the small form factor and the ortholinear layout has become second nature to me. Once you get used to switching layers you quickly see the advantages in having a really small but really capable keyboard. Minimal movement of the hands make me a much faster typist. That in combination with all the other great things with mechanical keyboards, such as mechanical key switches and exchangeable keycaps for almost unlimited customisations, makes this a keyboard I would recommend to anyone.

Video

Here is a video of me talking a bit about the Planck, and also, me typing on the Planck.

Thanks for reading/watching.

https://youtu.be/WOifmsu_5yY

Seiko SARB033/035

There is something very special about these watches. They are respected in the watch community. They are respected in a way that’s usually reserved for more expensive watches. They sell for almost nothing in a community that is more than willing to pay thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars for a watch.

I recently decided that I’d had enough of my Apple Watch. The constant nagging from the Apple Watch was about to drive me insane. I know, there are settings for the notifications. But as soon as I turn of the notifications the Apple Watch turns in to a digital watch. A watch that I have to make a special hand movement for it to even show me the time. The advertised features is for me, as it turns out, the things I can’t stand with the Apple Watch. So I’ve decided that the Apple Watch is from now on, my running watch. I’ve turned off the sound on my phone to. There is just a small vibration for the most important notifications, and nothing at all for the not so important notifications like social media and the likes.

I still needed to tell the time. And I really love mechanical things. So I started to think about the watches I’ve owned in the past. What was the most special, and why? And as you probably have already guessed, it’s the Seiko Sarb033/035. An affordable watch with many similarities to the Rolex DateJust. It’s waterproof and relatively rugged, but at the same time you can wear it with a suit. I’ve owned other more expensive watches, most notably the Heritage Ranger by Tudor. I really liked that watch, but I was constantly worried that I would damage it somehow. I also found it to be a bit big. I eventually sold it.

The most comfortable I’ve ever been is with my old Seiko Sarb033. For some reason I sold it and all my other mechanical watches to get a new Apple Watch. In hindsight I don’t know why I did such a stupid thing.

As soon as I had made my mind up, it was just a question of getting a hold of one. To my surprise I learned that the SARB033 and SARB035 had been discontinued. Luckily I found a seller not far from me who had a new Sarb033 for sale. And after having the 033 on my wrist for a few days I ordered the Sarb035 from a seller on Chrono24. There aren’t that many new Sarbs left for sale so I was very happy to get one. During the summer months I’m using the Sarb033 as my swimming watch, so I keep that on it’s original metal bracelet during swimming season.

I know some of you are screaming at the screen right about now. “You are crazy for swimming with a watch that does not have a screw down crown.” But it says right on the watch: “Water resistant to 10bar.” I choose to trust Seiko on this. I know that if the crown somehow gets poped out, the watch is going to take in water. I’m fine with this. I only use it for a quick dip in the water, no real diving. If the watch breaks, it breaks. This is one of the advantages with this watch for me. It’s not that expensive, so it’s not the end of the world if it breaks. I can simply enjoy my watch and do whatever I want with it. I’ve been swimming with the watch almost everyday this summer and it’s just fine. So for those of you out there worrying about swimming with your Seiko Sarb033/035, don’t. It’ll be just fine as long as you don’t knock it around to much. Enjoy the watch and use it as intended. My feeling is that this is the exakt use case scenario this watch was made for. A dip every now and then, but not meant for diving.

The Sarb035 I keep on a leather strap. I think it really makes the watch come to life. It all of a sudden goes from a white dialed generic watch (on the original bracelet), to a really stunning timepiece with a vintage look.

It’s hard to think that these two watches are the same. The only difference is the color of the dial. To me they feel as two completely different watches.

So what is so special about these watches?

First and formost, it’s value for money. You only pay a few hundred dollars, but you get a watch that has an in house movement that has proven itself over the years as a reliable workhorse, and the service cost is a small fraction of what you pay for a Rolex or equivalent watch. You also get a real sapphire crystal on the front and a hardlex crystal on the back of the watch so that you can see the movement of the watch.

I know, the movement is not a pretty one, so why the display case back? Well, I love to see the mechanical heart of my watch. I oftentimes just take my watch of to look att the movement. It gives me great pleasure.

Another thing about these watches that I love is the fact that they are a bit smaller in size compared to most modern watches. These are just 38mm in size compared to 40–46mm in most modern watches. (Thankfully the big watch craze has settled a bit and the most extreme sizes seem to be a dark footnote in the history of watches.) I personally prefer the smaller sizes as I think they look more proportional and not so much in your face as the larger monstrositys that you see on the wrists on younger men with questionable taste.

I also owned a Seiko Sarb065 (The Seiko Cocktail time) for a short while, and that watch is 40mm in size. I did not like the larger size of the cocktail time. The dial on that watch is to die for, but I could not get used to the size of the watch. All the elegance of that beautiful dial was washed away by the vulgar size. If that watch had been made in a 38mm case it would be perfect.

But I digress.

Another ting that I find really important about this watch is the design. It’s timeless. The white dial (Sarb035) with a brown leather strap is really close to the perfect watch according to me. Understated but beautiful and classic. It looks like a much more expensive watch than it really is. The black one (Sarb033) is also a beautiful watch, but I feel that the black one is more of a discreet watch than it’s white dialed sibling. Both watches can easily change it’s appearance by a simple strap change and both modells can be paired with a number of different straps and bracelets.

I ordered two leather straps from twostitchstraps.com One two stitch leather honey

and one two stitch leather black.

I’ve heard nothing but great things about these handmade straps. I have not received mine as of writing this post, but the look of the straps in combination with the glowing reviews I’m sure I’ll be more than satisfied.

I’m planing on using the two straps on both the 033 and the 035. I’ve tried a cheap brown leather strap on both watches, and they look great. I’ve also seen pictures online with a black leather strap on both watches and that to is an awesome look for both watches.

So all of this, the price, the design, the versatility and the relative ease of witch you can get a hold of one, (that may change soon, now that Seiko has stopped producing them) makes this one of the best watches you can buy without spending a small fortune.

If you can, I would recommend you get one before they start to go up in price.

A journal of my first mechanical keyboard build.

Part five

The build

So, the parts from OLKB.com finally arrived. From the moment I ordered the PCB, case and top plate, it took almost two months for it to travel from the US to me here in Sweden. Those two months felt like an eternity.

The first three weeks was just waiting for Jack att OLKB to get to my position in the long shipping queue (apparently the Planck is very popular and Jack does all the packaging and handling himself). I had no problem waiting for those three weeks. But the other five weeks was the Swedish post office not being able to do their job.

I do not have the energy to tell you about how bad the Swedish post office (PostNord is their name) is. Just trust me when I say, they are impressively bad at the job they are supposed to do.

Now, on to the build.

If you are curious about the parts I use in this build, you can check out the previous parts in this Planck-build-series.

The construction of a Planck, introduktion.

The construction of a Planck, keycaps

The construction of a Planck, keyboard switches.

The construction of a Planck, wrist wrest.

The construction of a Planck, artisans.

I have never done anything like this before. The sight of these parts lying on my desk was both terrifying and very satisfying. The first thing I did was I put the switches in the top plate. I’ve read online that you should not put them all in at once, you should put the corner switches in first and solder them so they keep the PCB and the top plate together. Thats not what I did. I put all the switches in all at once. It worked fine. The switches all lined up with the PCB without any problem.

Soldering

Now this is were it got really interesting and a bit scary. I had never soldered before. I had watched a lot of YouTube videos on the subject but that was it. Now was the time for the real thing. I knew I couldn’t mess up or else I’d have to wait for months for the new PCB’s to ship. That was not something I wanted to do after my two month wait for this PCB.

I had gotten a soldering iron from my local hardware store for something like 40 dollars. I did a little research and I found out I needed a soldering iron with adjustable temperature and a fine tip. So that’s what I got.

The soldering itself went much better than I had thought. I was a bit worried that it would be difficult and take a long time. But it was pretty straight forward. It took me about half an hour and I thankfully didn’t make any misstakes. The first two or three switches took a little more time than the rest while I was figuring out were to heat the prongs on the switches and were to apply the solder. As soon as I figured that out the rest was just repetition.

The solder joints may not be perfect, but they are functional, and that’s good enough for me.

Here is the finished board without keycaps. It worked right away with the standard layout that shipped preloaded on the Planck. That layout did not work for me. I’m from Sweden and I can’t write without åäö so I had to make my own layout.

I’ll wright more on the subject of how I went about programing my Planck in the final part of this “building my own keyboard journey”. But it looks like this.

The middle layer is my standard layer and the raise button switches to the top layer and the lower button switches to the lower layer.

I’m pleasantly surprised at how smoothly this build went. I thought it would be much more difficult. In reality it’s not more difficult than building an (easy) LEGO set. The soldering may put some people of (it shouldn’t) but that won’t be a problem going forward as the new planks don’t need to be soldered, you just put the switches in as LEGO bricks and they stick to their position all by them selves.

So this is the finished result. It’s my daily driver and I love it. I’ll write more soon in the last part of this series. That part will be a review. I can tell you now that it will be a positive review.

A journal of my first mechanical keyboard build.

Part four

Artisans

Now if you thought the community was a little crazy when it came to switches, them wait until you hear about artisans.

Artisans are custom keys in different shapes and colors. Not like a different color on your alphas or mods (your ABCD… keys or your “enter” or “shift” keys) but completely custom. Like these.

At first I thought it looked ridiculous. Why would anyone put keys like that on their keyboard? Well, like everything in this hobby I quickly got pulled in.

I was designing my keyboard and I had settled on this look for my board.

I really love the look of the two grey colors mixed with the baby blue and pink colors. I could have been satisfied here, but I felt as if something was missing. Something to make the board more unique. Anyone can get this exakt colorway from Signature Plastic, so I wanted something to make my board stand out in a crowd.

So of course I started looking at artisans.

Now here is the thing about artisans that really confused me at first. You apparently can’t buy artisans whenever you want. You can’t just pay for this tiny piece of plastic (or metall, or wood, or glas, or whatever) like you can for most other things in this world. Almost all of them are hand made and so there are a very limited supply of them. So I have found that one of the more common ways of solving this problem for the seller is to start a raffle. If you get drawn in the raffle you get the opportunity to buy an artisan. If not, well, better luck next time.

I do not like to wait, so I started to look for more conventional ways of getting an artisan for my board.

I knew right from the start that I wanted something pink or baby blue. I started googling and before long I had found my perfekt artisan.

The pink kitty paw was a perfect match for the colors of my board and I could order it directly from KBDfans.cn. I placed my order and the “ZOMO Aluminum and Silicone Kitty Paw Artisan” arrived a couple of weeks later in my mailbox. I payed 40 dollars including shipping for the thing. When I write it out like this it seems crazy to pay that amount for such a small and insignificant thing. But the thing is, I really think its wort the money. It puts a smile on my face every time I look at the thing. And I can’t wait for the board to be finished so I can hi-five that kitty paw every day, all day.

I found out later that this design was a copy of the “meowcap” by KeyKollectiv

You can’t buy the original any longer unless you get it second hand, so this was my only real choice if I wanted to get a pink kitty paw artisan. And I have to say that I really prefer this modell since its made from aluminum (it feels wonderfully heavy) and the design is a lot cleaner.

It arrived like this.

And it looks like this on my board.

I have to say that I’m really happy with the way my board turned out. And yes, the last parts of the build finally arrived. (The Swedish postoffice took 31 days to deliver the package to me. I’m not kidding.) But more on the board and the build itself in the next part of this series.

A journal of my first mechanical keyboard build.

Part three

Wrist wrest

When I first typed on my new mechanical keyboard (the vortex race3) I did not like the fact that the keyboard was so high above the desk. I was used to typing on my MacBook Pro and the feeling of the keys being on the same plane as my hands felt most natural to me.

So, how to solve this problem?

There are solutions you can buy. Many different kinds. There are wrist wrests in exotic woods or soft plastics, tilted ones or plain ones, cheap or expensive.

I for one am not going to pay for a wrist wrest. I instead chose the DIY route. The simplest way of making your own wrist wrest is to just roll up a towel and place it under your wrists.

I’m not gonna do that.

My first experiment was this.

A litteral plank. I put some rubber feet under it and it worked just fine. As soon as I knew that the concept worked I started to plan for the real thing. I liked the size of the plank and so I measured it. It was 10 x 30 cm. So at first I thought I should go with oak or something just as beautiful, cut it to the right size and sand it and polish it. But as I was searching the internet for the right dimensions of wood I stumbled upon bathroom tiles that were the dimensions I was looking for.

Bathroom tiles? What is he talking about?

Hold on a minute. Let me explain.

If I take two of these 10 x 30 tiles and superglue them together, I have a heavy and solid piece to base my wrist wrest on. I then put rubber feet under that and this is what I got.

I was mighty pleased with myself and immediately posted this to Reddit.

Now some of the fine folks on Reddit were really nice and some even though it was a great idea. Some were a bit more sarcastic. Like this comment:

Now you only need to put tubes into it and feed through your water cooling loop. (like a floor heater)

And the nice gentleman was, of course, right. It was cold and it was really sticky. But I liked everything else about it, the solid feel and the heft. So I decided to try and wrap a piece if leather around it. I have a friend that works as a wood shop teacher and she gave me a piece of leather and some glue.

It was super simple and I had the tiles wrapt in no more than 5 minutes. I let it dry over night and then I rubbed the top and sides with a mixture of coffee and olive oil. I did this to darken the leather. It turned out really good and it smells great!

Not so pretty from this angle, but I hardly ever look at it up side down. (I’m seriously considering building a new one just so I can make it pretty from all sides…)

OK, thats enough of me rambling about wrist wrests. In the next episode of this journal I will be talking about artisans. A fascinating topic if there ever was one!

A journal of my first mechanical keyboard build.

Part two

Switches

OK, this is where it gets interesting (and complicated).

You are going to want to get one of these.

It’s called a switch tester, and you guessed it, it’s a device for testing switches. This one is for 6 different Cherry MX switches. Two clicky, two linear and two tactile.

The Cherry switches are named after the color on the stem of the switch.

The blue switch is a clicky switch, the brown is a tactile and the red is a linear switch. The green is the same as a blue but with a stiffer spring. The black is a stiffer red and the white (it’s name is “clear”) is a stiffer brown.

Right around here my head started to hurt.

But it gets worse. A lot worse.

Apparently Cherry, the company who produces these switches, lost the patent rights to the design of the switches and now anyone can make a switch that both looks and funktions the same. But I’ll get back to that in a little while.

The Blue switch is a "clicky" switch. It has a loud click when you press it. It's claim to fame is that it's really loud and apparently you get a keyboard with blue switches if you want to drive your coworkers insane.

The Brown switch is a tactile switch. You can feel a "bump" when you press it, but you can't hear the "bump".

The red switch is a linear switch. There is no click or bump. You just press it until it bottoms out. Apparently this is a favorite amongst gamers.

In these GIFs you can see how the different switches work. You would think with that little difference between the different models there wouldn’t be much room for improvement.

You could not be more wrong.

I’ve come across more switches and manufacturers than I can count. Like 20 or 30 different variants on both the clicky and the tactile switches. And every company has their own take on them. It’s insane. This is a board I found online with a different switch in every position. And these are just a small sample of what’s out there.

There are a number of manufacturers that produce these switches and everybody on the forums seems to swear by a different switch by a different manufacturer. They all have slight differences like a stiffer or softer spring, or louder click, or a more pronounced bump. Some even modify the switches, “mods” are combinations of parts from one switch and other parts from another switch. Picking the switch apart so you can lube different parts of the switch seems to be another way of reaching switch euphoria.

And these are just the different variants of the cherry MX switch. There are a lot of other variants of switches as well, but I have no interest at all to learn about them. At least not right now…

The keyboard I’m writing this on right now is a Vortex race3.

There are a lot of things I like about it, like the keycaps and the switches. I love the keycaps, but I only like the switches. I hate the staggered layout. But more on that later.

When I bought the Vortex I had no clue about all the different options when it came to switches. I read online that the brown switches was a good middle ground. OK for most tasks but not the best at anything.

I have a bag of brown switches sitting in my drawer, but those are only there as a backup. The other two switches I’ve ordered are in the mail and they are a clicky and a tactile switch. I’ve gone with the Zealios 65g as my tactile choice and the Kailh box white as my clicky choice. I haven’t tried any of them but that’s part of the charm for me. From what I’ve read on the internet they both come highly recommended. I’ll put the switches on my tester when they get here and I’ll just solder on the ones I like best. The rev6 PCB of the Planck lets you switch the switches without soldering so I’m going to get my chance at experimenting with different switches later.

So if you’re just getting started with your first build and have stumbled on to this article locking for help, I’m sorry, but its impossible for me to say what you will find pleasant to type on, and you’re going to have to find out what it is that you like all by yourself. Buy a switch tester, try a friends keyboard, go to a store that has keyboards on display or if you’re lucky, there might be a keyboard meet up near where you live.

I find this search for the perfect switch equally frustrating as fascinating. Hopefully I’ll be able to write more on the subjekt when the Planck is built and I’ve gotten some experience with different switches.

A journal of my first mechanical keyboard build.

Part one

Keycaps

By next week I’m hoping to have started my first mechanical keyboard build. I’ve gotten all the parts except for the most important bits like the PCB and case. It’s in the mail and should be here by next week. I have two options available to me when it comes to the keycaps, but I think I’m going with the blank PBT DSA keycaps I ordered from pimp my keyboard.

My other option is the same color and profile, but with legends.

Yeah, the blank ones look really nice…

I’m learning to touch type and I’m no longer locking at the keyboard when I type, so the legends is just clutter at this point.

So what is PBT and DSA you ask?

Well it took me a while to figure that out. At first all the different letter kombinations, ABS, DSA, PBT, SA, XDA and a few more I don’t know of the top of my head, really confused me. But I think I’ve figured it out.

ABS and PBT are different types of plastic that are used when making keycaps. The biggest difference, as I’ve gathered, is that ABS tends to get a shiny and almost blank polished look after some use. PBT stays a more matt look and feel over time.

ABS is also cheaper and more easy to work with when it comes to the different methods of printing legends on the keycaps.

DSA, SA and XDA is the profile of the keys. There are even more profiles like cherry profile and OEM. Here is a picture explaining the differences between them.

I chose DSA because I like all my keys to be the same profile on all keys and I really like the feel of DSA. My fingers simply feel at home on DSA keys. My advice is to go to a computer store and try different keyboards and see what profiles you like.

I’m also thinking about ordering a blank set of SA row 3 or XDA just to have something different for my second bord I’m planning (row 3 is the R3 key in the picture). It would then still be the same profile on all the keys, but a different profile (different feel and sound.)