Keyboard Builders' Digest / Editorial
Behind the scenes #188
Keyboard projects, reviews, quick news, in the mailbox, meetups, vendors, discounts.
Published March 13, 2025
Creators! Feel free to tip me off about your keyboard related projects to bring them to 140K readers.
Hey, what's up everyone!
Welcome back for another recap and behind-the-scenes write-up.
If you are new to kbd.news, you can read how this started out and what this is all about nowadays. If you like what you see, subscribe to the newsletter (free) and donate some bucks to keep this otherwise free and ad-free project alive.
Some posts worth sharing
- Keyboards are cool, but let's be honest: there are bigger things. I live near the Ukrainian border, and these heroes have been saving my ass too, for three years now. Join me and support Ukraine's freedom fighters – let's take action into our own hands while politicians play politics.
Let's support Ukraine via kbd.news
- In my monthly market overview of community-favorite mechanical switches, here are February's top picks, based on real sales data provided by vendors and manufacturers.
Best-selling keyboard switches of February, 2025
- Peter wanted to find "the best" alphanumeric layout for English, German and more European languages – and ended up with anymak:END.
END - my final keyboard layout
- Review: The wireless/wired Dareu A950 Wing mouse is another huge overkill for an office worker like me :) – with 8K polling rate both in wired and 2.4G modes.
Dareu A950 Wing mouse review
- A wireless monoblock split keyboard by trkeyboards: Orasnica – inspired by the Grumpy.
Orasnica
- Tschibo00's 40% grAIl was inspired by an AI image. But it's a real keyboard.
The grAIl - AI inspired design
- An ultra-low-pro split ortho by Sebastian Graz: Bayleaf.
Bayleaf
- A cheap, adjustable and upgradeable split keyboard by Saixos: Apiaster.
Apiaster
- A 40% ortho split keyboard with parametric, tented case: Zwerg by floookay.
Zwerg
- Dyad is a no-frills wireless split keyboard with tented base and a clever carry case.
Dyad
TIPS
- A Choc keycap riser by smallwat3r:
I’m only raising the caps of the index fingers and the thumbs, the rest of the keys stay low profile. When I rest my hand flat on a table, I noticed my thumbs and index fingers tend to be higher than the rest of my fingers. It adds a sort of tenting effect, which I think is comfy – smallwat3r.
- Ergohaven's HPD v2 is now open source.
- IKEA Skadis pegboard keyboard hook by marmech.
Closed-source, WIP, etc.
- A handwired ortho build by salavatme, and another wireless handwired one from the same author.
- keebboy_50 by New-Concentrate6308. WIP prototype. Uses a cartridge system inspired by the giga 40.
- A handwired split with a walnut base. Based on the Scotto44.
- A math keyboard by NoConfidence.
- Peppapig's Hall-effect Boardsource-like ortho running on libhmk.
- A handwired macropad with a big ass encoder knob. By icelongclaw.
- A WIP ESP32 modular macropad by Nxe5/questionbox.
- A mechanical keyboard with TouchID and a removable numpad. Posted by Hot_Frame.
- Great Gable is a handwired ergo-ish monoblock by Stewtheking. Laser-cut plywood, 36 keys.
- PlanckBoy by TemperatureAgile et al.
- Hm. Bent sheet metal is scary but the Curve0 by kbd0 is still interesting.
History
- Ortho keyboards of the Tu160 and Tu95 aircrafts.
I took [these photos] back in 2020 of the keyboard in a Tu160 and Tu95 strategic missile carrier. These particular aircraft were (are?) the ones exhibited at the Poltava aviation museum. To my knowledge, the only surviving Ukrainian long range bombers, though deactivated – DaDragon88.
Keyboard art
- Keyboard jeans by charliekabe.
- A Caitlyn & Vi (from the show Arcane) themed Menura. By CaptLynx.
- Handmade keycap art by Craftkeycap.
- Weekly side profile shot by Suitable-Mouse. Something MelGeek. I dig MelGeek designs.
- Ferris Sweep case by vyrus1618.
- Artisan keycaps by MiserableMinimum, made out of silicon wafers (the thin slice of material used in computer chips).
Weekly Diderot effect
- KDS-B is a brutalist keyboard stand by tazisacat.
In the mailbox
Kinetic Labs is spoiling me: a bunch of switches and deskmats.
Goodies from Kinetic Labs
Donations
- New recurring donors: SadWitch and Alexander B. Thank you!
- New donations from Felix, Frederico, Jens, Kyrre. Probably already in response to my call for action. You are awesome!
- Two recurring donors have canceled their donations. Just noticed that one of them was not even displayed in the donor list because of a glitch. Sorry, I've corrected the mistake afterward.
- As always, many thanks to my awesome regular supporters and everyone who helped this project thus far.
For all the donation options check out the donation page!
Meetup database
As always, this meetup database serves as both a calendar and an archive, so feel free to send me upcoming events or even ones from the recent past to make this collection as comprehensive as possible.
Recently added
- STLMK Spring Meetup, April 13, St. Louis, MO, US
Vendors & Discounts
Feel free to use the KBDNEWS discount code at 169 keyboard shops! And do not hesitate to report any issues – like Edward did this week. Thanks! :)
New shops and updates to the database of keyboard vendors this past two weeks:
- Chad (thanks!) made me aware of modulo industries (US) – creator of ThinKeys who sells low-pro switches and caps. Shop runner Dennis offered you a 5% discount with the KBDNEWS coupon code.
- Tez Cable is going out of business (source). 70% closing sale.
- I mention switchtest.shop in my switch write-up as a new supplier of switch testers. The shop was coded from scratch, and according to Mike, it is in a very early stage. Still, feel free to check it out.
Marked as closed: DoyuStudio, FFkeebs, From Scratch cable, frostgear, gonehacking, etc.
Developments
Lots of small tweaks have been made to the switch scripts. As a result, compiling the report has decreased from 25-30 hours in previous months to about 15 hours now. However, most of this improvement is due to not having to search for switch specs, as more and more models are already in the database.
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That's all for today. Thanks for checking by. As always: Keep learning and building!
Until next time,
Tamás
Published on Thu 13th Mar 2025. Featured in KBD #188.
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