Keyboard Builders' Digest / Tips & Tricks
Doubleshot MDA?!
My impressions and a photodump of the doubleshot MDA "This Is Plastic" by MelGeek.
Published July 19, 2022
Although MDA is one of my favorite profiles, I wasn't aware of MDA sets other than dye-sub ones until I received a Mojo84 from MelGeek a few weeks ago. Thanks Rick!
(Btw, it's an awesome board if you are into the classic row-staggered layouts – but let's focus on the caps now.)
Sorry if this is old news but I thought I'd share with you my impressions of these doubleshot "This Is Plastic" caps.
On my work setup, I'd been daily driving an old MDA Big Bang v1 set for years (some comparison shots later).
I like sculpted spherical keycaps on my boards (flat, non-3D plates), but SA was too high, MT3 is fine for me but I miss the homing dashes, so MDA pretty much ticks all the boxes in my case.
But on putting my paws on this board, I felt instantly that something was different.
The lack of all those tiny orange secondary legends (compared to the dye-sub versions) was telling and made me suspicious at first sight.
Only huge legends instead of the fine secondary legends of other "This Is Plastic" sets.
And out of context (pulled off of the Mojo84) the sheer size of the alphas, just like the design of the novelties, is almost ridiculously beefy too.
However, it fits the design language of the Mojo84 pretty well.
Touch & feel: The feel is really different compared to my old Big Bang set. While the Big Bang v1 is more on the smoother side, this one is much more textured. Fine texture though.
Not the almost rough feel of MT3 caps, rather the delicate GMK texture – but still different.
And voilà: the same caps upside down, clearly revealing the doubleshot-ness.
Pretty interesting pattern – and it gets even more crazy…
As a start, this is a normal 1u (arrow) cap.
The "NO" PHOTO modifier…
And the "LOGO" (Enter) keycap. (Take a second look at the two outer stems!)
The "A" keycap's stem shape had to be adjusted because of the molding.
This is it. The legend is characteristically big and fat, utilizing the spacious top surface of the MDA profile.
Here is a full column of these MDA caps.
Another angle of one of my favorite profiles.
I dig this accent with the very light greenish shade – and the beefy legends too btw. If you don't touch type, the huge alphas will serve you well as a venerable/grumpy old man/lady with serious vision impairment. :D
(There's another colorway, the dark one, but I'm happy to have this light version.)
Do you see the size difference? Doubleshot J (left) next to the dye-sub Big Bang MDA v1 counterpart (right).
Other than the fat legends: the homing dashes are larger too. Which is good imo. Homing dashes are my favorites among the various homing solutions and I like this dash a lot.
The difference is palpable on the first touch.
Legend beefiness comparison. Can you find the doubleshot MDA one? There's a small hint… :D (And sorry, I had no clue which one is the Q of the MBK Myth Cherokee set. :D)
These are (almost) all different profiles btw, half of them are vintage ones. Feel free to ask me for the type of keyboard they were pulled off (e.g. on Twitter or Reddit).
While the MelGeek Mojo84 is a beautiful, well-built, and insanely stylish product (with probably the most professional packaging I've ever witnessed), I had to realize I can't type on these classic row-staggered physical layouts anymore (after all those years spent on ergo splits).
Regardless, I'm very grateful for MelGeek for for sending me this sample. You guys (and gals) did an excellent job with both the keyboard and the MDA set.
Yep, and also the color-matched Kailh "This Is Plastic" linear switches, which look pretty cool and feel just right. (I can't differentiate between most linears so I'm not the right person to judge those though. ;))
I have no info on the availability of this set but will update the post if I get a response from MelGeek. Until then:
https://www.melgeek.com/pages/mojo-84-waiting-list
And here is a gallery on imgur with the higher-res photos:
https://imgur.com/gallery/FCziW0f
Published on Tue 19th Jul 2022. Featured in KBD #88.
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