Heretic with Box Jades here. They’re awesome for typing and waking my neighbors up at 3AM.

Second for QMK. Flash any macro directly into the firmware, no proprietary software needed.

I’ve watched videos and ordered the right type of connector. It doesn’t seem so hard with flood soldering techniques.

Fortunately the break is clean and happened on the connector’s legs, so the traces are unharmed. I think the hardest part will be to remove the remnants left on the traces.

My work keyboard has a cheap magnetic cable so I can easily plug and unplug it (I’m not leaving a custom mech unsupervised a work!). It indeed takes most of these strain.

~~Makes sense, I think most users I’ve seen are french speakers. Which org? ~~

Edit: nvm I found them, it’s Les Soulèvements de la Terre. Thank you!

It’s like buying an electric sports car and immediately converting it to diesel.

Happens to everything that becomes a commodity.

But Model Ms and Model Fs are still in production, and the MK ecosystem has never been so vibrant

It’s a tool first and foremost. If you’re professionally using a power drill all day everyday, you’ll want a very good one that’s powerful, reliable and comfortable to use. If you professionally type all day everyday, you’re absolutely entitled to use a keyboard that perfectly fits your preferences in terms of feel, comfort, feedback and layout.

BallisticNG. Incredible WipEout homage, Linux native, VR compatible, runs locked at 60fps on Deck. Fun tracks, cool ships, nice lore. Physics and mechanics are by default more geared towards classic PSX games (1, 2097, 3), with “modern” physics and mechanics (Pure/Pulse/HD with absorb, barrel roll etc.) getting an overhaul in the next version.

You and me brother.

Which machine did you choose? I went for the Lelit Bianca, never regretted it.

I’ve built two XD64s from kprepublic, one with Box Jades for home and one with Boba U4s for work, because they perfectly fitted my use case: flashable with QMK, ISO layout compatible, bottom layout flexible enough to fit an arrow keys cluster despite being 60%. They’re very good.

I don’t have any experience with other vendors.

PCB, top plate and case need to be compatible, so you need to pick ones made for each other, usually from the same vendor.

99% of the PCBs and plates out there are MX compatible, so you can consider switches, stabs and keycaps universal.

Unless you have the tooling and knowledge to manufacture precision parts like swiches and stabilizers, and integrated electronics like a microcontroller, it would be very hard to 100% DIY a keyboard.

The most DIY I’ve ever did was to design, 3D print, handwire, build and program a split ergo keyboard based around a Teensy 2.0 microcontroller and Kailh Box Jade switches.

An intermediate but still very interesting route would be picking matching parts from vendors like kbdfans or kprepublic, with your choice of enclosure, PCB, switches and stabs, lots of soldering and testing, and some QMK fun to round it off.