Keyboard Builders' Digest / Editorial
Behind the scenes #209
Behind the scenes with March's top switches, KiiBOOM Phantom 98 and Dareu Cool68 reviews, open-source and commercial projects, keyboard art, meetups, new shops and discounts, etc.
Published April 10, 2026
Hey, what's up everyone!
Welcome back for another recap and behind-the-scenes write-up – with some cool projects from the DIY keyboard scene, but also promising closed-source commercial projects.
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.
I'm a bit overwhelmed these days and have a big backlog again, so the cut-off date for this issue ended up being sometime last weekend.
Some posts worth sharing
- March’s top mechanical switches are here. As usual, I managed to aggregate the community’s favorites based on real sales data coming from a bunch of nice vendors and manufacturers.
- Review: I tested KiiBOOM's wireless Phantom 98 keyboard. An acrylic beauty, nicely matching the cool Pixelpop Arcade keycap set.
- Extra review: The Dareu Cool68 is a 65% magnetic gamer keyboard with very nice housing design, featuring unique ambient light diffusers.
- A 36-key split keyboard with rotary encoders and hardware debouncing: Cirrus40 by schuay.
- Vostok Labs' 20/20 is an ortho split keyboard with nice handwiring.
- This yet-to-be-named unibody split is a handwired board by flixo.
- An open-source 58-key split with RJ45 sockets: Pando58 by Julian Yap.
- A 36-key unibody ergonomic keyboard: Hollow Wood designed by Mefred.
- The Hector36 is a compact wireless split keyboard by ezxzeng – with splay.
- A Piantor-derivative by Tom Strowger. 36-key low-pro alu split keyboard driven by wireless XIAOs.
Closed-source, WIP, commercial, etc.
- A custom 60% by sohke3. Related blog post (in Korean).
- A minimalist 42-key split by sshenron: PG1316S switches, single STM32F072 MCU, MCP expander via I2C connected by a USB-C cable, ESD protection.
- A WIP low-pro split with too many columns. Teased by rocketstrong1.
- Bluetooth macropad with ZMK. By E_kkk.
- The Roo is a minimal low-pro split by Turkish-Films.
- Steno keyboard by Lander03xD_.
- Hyperboard is an already working split with a half-baked repo at this point. With custom Rust firmware.
- A Voyager-clone by '''gbrITT'
- The Apple Magic TouchStremLP by disarmyouwitha is now officially released for Mac, Windows and Linux.
Handwired
- Nampek "numpad" by adachinkovsky.
- US8EK. A handwired Red Herring-like unibody split by Jaromír Malenko aka 'mr_jaro'''.
- The handwired split Album by Carl Blumenthal. With custom firmware for the Atmega32u4 MCU.
- SlurpBurgers' handwired ergo board incorporates a numpad.
Commercial
- Vortex's M50 is their first true split board.
Tips, Typing, Keymap, 3D
- 3dkeycap custom kescap set builder. An online tool that lets you preview a keycap set on different layouts or build a fully custom one with your own colors, profile, and legends. Related blog post.
- Joystick keycap by dingohot. Also for WASD. Via r/mk.
- Fixing plate rattle of low-profile stabilizers. A quick visual guide by IQUNIXstore.
- Parametric MX keycap model by CCW_92.
- Modular Choc V1 keycap model for 3D printing. By Master_Alfalfa1130. Some good ideas in the thread, plus files on makerworld.
- It's not annoying SA variance, it's a different profile marketed shadily as SA. Photos shared by FatRollingPotato.
- Annoying MTNU MoDo legend misalignment. Shared by Bastietm.
History
- Svalboard Story Time – by claussen.
Keyboard art
- Pixel/keycap art in a Detroit hotel. Shared by brotherbrine.
- Metal emoji keycaps by Terra Keycaps.
- Overflow keycaps by dingohot aka FunOrNothing. With files.
I know that keyboards without lettering are popular, but I created one overflowing with lettering with the opposite idea – FunOrNothing.
- I just liked this photo by waverit.
- Hulk Wood Bakeneko65. Maple case with purple heart plate. Handpainted illustration with resin coat. Shared by LightningXI.
- Another wooden keyboard – by IT_Guy_KC07.
In the mailbox
Another productive period, made some progress with working through my review backlog, but some new boards have arrived in the meantime, so…
New arrivals:
- Epomaker HE68 Lite. A compact, plastic Hall-effect board.
- IQUNIX EV63 – I love this one. HE, with the gorgeous side profile.
- IQUNIX MQ80 – also nice, low-pro alu.
In the pipeline: Epomaker Glyph, the huge plastic KiiBOOM Phantom 98 Lite(!), and maybe MoErgo's Go60.
Donations
- A long-time donor has gone.
- New donors, yay! Thank you TurtleKeebs and Raphael S.!
- 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
The 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.
Upcoming meetups
- Blooming Into Keebs, April 12, Irvine, CA, US
Vendor news & Discounts
First and foremost, feel free to use the KBDNEWS discount code at 194 keyboard shops worldwide! And do not hesitate to report any issues! :)
New shops and updates to the database of keyboard vendors:
- KeysFusion (CN) added. Selling mainly anime-based keycaps and artisans. Chase offered you a 5% discount (coupon code: KBDNEWS).
- Drop.com has gone now. The last date you could order something was March 25th. With the site updated, some configurators have gone too.
Developments
Jeez. Instead of developing new features, I've been constantly fighting automated attacks.
This week I already had a long session earlier. Resource limit errors due to botnet activity. Distributed attacks make banning IP ranges cumbersome, so I came up with a custom solution to tackle these requests as early as possible.
And earlier today, the site was down for about 10 hours for a different reason:
Namely, even Cloudflare was so overwhelmed by the attacks that it let slip through a huge amount of requests, triggering the WAF of my host (even though CF servers were whitelisted). Resulting in CF reporting timeouts – in reality it was simply banned. All this during the night here, so that's why it took so long for me to even realize what's going on. In addition, my provider had to reset everything manually.
But yeah, some new developments:
- Some scripts to make the workflow of the monthly switch overviews more streamlined. I try to improve these each month when I get to this task.
- Some improvements to identify malicious requests and stop them as early as possible.
- And I'm working on a new comparison tool as well.
Pro tip
Don’t pick fancy niche domains (like .news) for a free project—only if you’re actually making money.
What I’ve paid per year (2021–2026): 4.66 → 24.66 → 28.16 → 29.16 → 32.16 → 41.68… The increases are ridiculous—around +30% just from last year.
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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 Fri 10th Apr 2026. Featured in KBD #209.
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