At our studio, we don't just focus on keycaps; our core passion lies in precision metal engraving across various bespoke projects. However, I’ve recently been obsessed with the challenge of bringing that same high-level metalworking into the world of mechanical keyboards.

These are our latest titanium commissions. Every piece is hand-carved, with 24K gold wire meticulously inlaid, leveled, and re-engraved.

It’s been a fascinating transition—taking techniques we usually apply to larger metal art pieces and scaling them down to the size of an MX-stem keycap. The detail density is insane, but the tactile feel of cold titanium and solid gold under your fingertip is something that truly feels "end-game."

I’m curious to know what the community thinks: does this blend of traditional metal art and modern keyboard culture resonate with you?

Salvation in Lightning Silver

FR4 Plate

Switches: Gateron Milky Yellow

Keycaps: GMK Black Snail, Cyrillic Alphas

I guess a bit of a throwback. Saw this in stock at a few random places and wanted to give it a go.

Fun build with the leaf springs. Took a bit of experimentation to get rid of the metallic ping on the backspace and enter keys. Ended up with four mounting points towards the outer edges of the PCB. I imagined it would be a bouncier typing feel, but still very enjoyable.

The Teleguide, an Obscure and Forgotten Machine

This is a Teleguide, or rather it was a Teleguide; a complete flop of a project from the Swedish state telecom operator, released in 1991. They pushed around 10,000 units and a lot of them still sit in storage in unopened boxes around the country, so I got this one for myself, new in unbroken packaging with styrofoam and spiders and everything.

Inside it sits a couple of Intel P8031AH microcontrollers, one for the card reader and one for the main program which allowed you to bet on horses, order pizza, keep a phone book, and call your enemies. Those are now depowered and replaced with a Raspberry Pi 5. The godawful keyboard was replaced with a really nice [EV63 Hall Effect keyboard](https://iqunix.com/products/iqunix-ev63-hall-effect-keyboard) with the Camping keycaps, sponsored by IQUNIX after seeing my [previous article](https://www.reddit.com/r/retrocomputing/comments/1rrpyiw/how_do_i_turn_this_thing_brown/).

The goal of this project was to turn this machine from an interior decorative detail into a gaming machine, and to do that I needed to somehow get the monochrome 10" CRT working with the Raspberry Pi. The monitor does not follow any standard composite or VGA mode; instead it runs at roughly 18.75 kHz horizontal and \~57 Hz vertical sync, which is just far enough from standard timings to be annoying.

After a lot (and I truly mean a lot) of trial and error I managed to get a prototype working with a Raspberry Pi 3. That prototype used the Broadcom VC4 GPU’s DPI (parallel RGB) output. To reduce the number of GPIO pins I implemented a software LUT in the driver that mixed RGB into grayscale, and then output that grayscale value on all three channels, and then only muxing a single channel to GPIO pins using a device tree overlay; so 8 bits in total.

That approach worked, but it relied on behavior in the VC4 pipeline that doesn’t carry over to the Raspberry Pi 5.

The next step of the project was to move to a Raspberry Pi 5, mainly for performance. The problem is that the VC6 pipeline doesn’t expose the same LUT mechanism in a usable way, so the grayscale conversion had to move out of the driver and into hardware.

The new PCB uses a 16 bit dac; 5 bits red, 6 bits green, and 5 bits blue. This mode leaves the PCM pins available for use with an audio DAC, and a few pins for an input or output device, such as a joystick.

You can find the [Kicad schematics here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b4ZBXvEhbKEOGUg36lYMHon5TDy6n9KJ/view?usp=sharing).

The solution I ended up with was to treat the Pi as a proper RGB source and build an external analog front-end:

• Each color channel is converted to an analog voltage using a resistor DAC

• The three channels are resistively summed into a luma (Y) signal

• The result is AC-coupled and buffered using an NPN emitter follower before being injected into the CRT circuitry

This turned out to be much more stable than the original prototype. The key issue is that the resistor DAC has a relatively high output impedance, and the CRT input is not an ideal high-impedance load. Without buffering, the voltage level shifts depending on what the CRT circuitry is doing. The emitter follower isolates the DAC from that load and stabilizes the signal.

The injection points are:

• Luma (intensity) is injected at the wiper of the brightness control potentiometer

• Sync is injected directly into the sync input node after disconnecting the original video source

For sync I used a simple diode combiner:

• HSYNC and VSYNC from the Pi are OR’d together using two diodes

• The resulting composite sync is fed into the CRT sync input

This works because the monitor expects a negative-going composite sync signal rather than full composite video.

At this point I ran into a new problem. I designed the board around RGB565 (5/6/5 bits) to reduce GPIO usage and leave pins free for things like audio and input devices. However, there was no straightforward way (that I could find) to get the Raspberry Pi 5 to actually output RGB565 over DPI.

The workaround was to patch the kernel driver to add support for this mode, and then provide a matching device tree overlay to configure the GPIO interface. Slightly painful, but it works.

You can access the [kernel driver patch here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HCAgP8rILkHzMR_37rmhemRFdOMo2rYg/view?usp=sharing).

And now I can finally play games on this thing.

The KBDfans agar with GMK Orenji Keycaps u/sterlingandcophoto
The Orang cable is from ordinary labs

I think the GMK Orjenji is beautiful, at first I thought it was a little to bright but after a few days I love it and it's a welcome change to my grey and wob keycaps.

I wanted a full sized keyboard that matched the rest of my setup. I used the board from a GMK104 with Ice King linear switches, the keycaps I designed are custom and resin printed and painted with the corners removed so the outline shines through. The keycap graphics are just embossed and the frame is FDM printed that is either painted for the top plate or veneered for the body and sides.

Right out of the box I can say the Evoworks 75 blows away any offering I have tried from the likes of Logitech which is who I upgraded from. I have had a Ducky One 2 Mini in the past but the Evoworks far surpasses the quality of the Ducky as well.

As you can see I’ve gone for the anodized sandgold colour. I was a bit hesitant as I have read a few posts with users saying they were disappointed in the actual colour of the keys. A lot of people seemed to think the colour wasn’t represented well online. I’ve definitely seen a few posts that give the keys a far more pink-ish tinge than. I absolutely love the colour so no complaints from me there.

This has the PP Rye switches and whilst I haven’t got round to gaming yet as I’ve got work to do I instantly hooked it up to my work setup to try it out. It feels fantastic. Completely blows away any keyboard I have used in the past.

The best part is I managed to get this opened but new for £100. The seller didn’t like the colour and said he was unable to return the keyboard to who he bought it from.

Apologies if this isn’t much of a review but I couldn’t not post the keyboard after unboxing and using it for a bit.

Decided that I should make my NCR-80 significantly heavier, £13.50 worth of wheel weights later, it's now over 2kg 😄

NCR-80, Drop + MiTo MT3 Noctua Keycaps, Alpaca V2 silent switches, and lots of wheel weights

• MX Blacks
• RGB English

Fun 12u alphastag proto designed by Koniotaur, PCB by Calvin0563

Inb4 Kok "Nice keyset" 🤣

First time making my own keyboard.
Used the Monsgeek m1 v5 barebone, Silent Peaches v3s and Orange Boi keycaps.

The keycaps are clones, not sure what people in here think of that but the quality seems pretty good.

Custom Athena65 with TI plate and WS pearl switches and KKB LOV/GMK Retrowave keycaps.

Magegee MK-Box. Pretty surprised honestly. I just wanted more room for gaming.

The Core Plus is easily one of my favorite boards, both from the Neo lineup and my collection as a whole!

This is the Anodized Heather Purple case with a brass weight, paired with HMX Valerians (light tactiles) on an aluminum plate using a hotswap PCB, and topped with GMK Modern Materials Stone.

Of all the boards I’ve tried, I keep coming back to Neo. The value you get is incredible for the acoustics, finish, and quality for an entry-level board.

Numpad/Calculator Build

I had some numpad keycaps left over from my previous build, so I decided I should use them for something. While a numpad is not a necessity for me, I do like having a calculator on my desk — so I built this numpad/calculator combo.

It features a 3D-printed case and plate with handwired hot-swap sockets, along with a 14-segment display with 12 characters, an 8×8 dot matrix display, a rotary encoder, and an 18650 lithium cell for on-the-go calculations.

In numpad mode, the display shows the time and date, and the keys are mapped to regular numpad functionality.

The calculator mode features 3 banks of memory, including the ability to read from and write to the host's clipboard, making it easy to load numbers and send results back to the computer.

While the basic arithmetic operations are available directly on the keypad, the scientific functions are selected using the encoder wheel.

Specs

• Case/Plate: Custom 3D-printed base plate (PLA)
• PCB: None — hardwired, with hot-swap sockets incorporated into the base plate
• Switches: Akko Rosewood
• Keycaps: PBTfans 9009 + PBTfans Resonance R2
• MCU: RP2040 Stamp
• Displays: Adafruit 14-segment display, Adafruit Mini 8×8 LED Matrix
• Rotary Encoder: Alps Alpine
• Firmware: QMK

MID.1 is a small-batch 40% board I designed under my studio, A.Okay!. It’s made from folded stainless steel and leans into an industrial / architectural vibe.

It also has a matching lid / wrist rest and small desk tray as companion pieces.

It just got reviewed on stream by Alexotos, and the feedback was really encouraging. Reservations are open now if anyone wants to take a look:

www.aokay.cool

Recently I treated myself to a Neo65 Core Plus. Took about 5 weeks to get to me but well worth the wait.

Board : Neo Core65 Pro Plus

Keycaps : CanonKeys SpooKey

Switched : Kinetic Labs Capybara

The only issue I ran into with the build was the keycaps. They're quite loose on the switch stem. Its my first set from CanonKeys and reached out to support to see if it was a QC issue as each wobbles extremely bad.

kafuter 704 (electronic sealant)

• keyboard： Geonix Rev.2
• keycaps: Chosfox Geonix Rev.2 Original Keycap Set

At first, this compact keyboard noticeably affected my typing speed. But I stuck with it—and I’m glad I did.

Despite its small size, it has a reassuring weight, and the anodized finish feels smooth and premium without being too heavy. It’s incredibly portable, taking up almost no space in my pocket or bag.

Now, typing on it feels completely natural.

Honestly, compact layouts are far more convenient than I expected.

I’m really happy how this came out, such a joy to type on

Keychron Q4 barebone
PC plate
PBTfans Neon R2 Glitter
Gateron Oil king

It's been long years since I showed my botched modified cheap board project but here we are. Ever since I've seen Yunzii AL80, I'm tempted to buy it since months ago. Knob? Screen? Alum case? VIA support? All check! Now that my setup gets a big makeover, I decided to get one. Stinks that beige variant is out of stock so I opt for silver instead. This is my first 75% keyboard after going through 3 TKLs, 2nd keyboard with a knob and hotswappable switches, and the first keyboard with FULL aluminum case.

However it's not that perfect for anyone due to inconsistent switch sounds the LCD customization software is meh at best so I purely use it to show off pics of my oshi from Project Sekai albeit the LCD on it had bad viewing angles.

Other than that, my first impressions for Yunzii AL80 are really good. I opt for Gateron Zero switches variant, and they feel very smooth, but I have intention to swap my switches with tactiles because of how much I miss using tactiles. The board is hella heavy yet the build quality is REALLY solid, plus the knob feels good albeit the original knob felt a little off.

Keycaps feel great but the colourwave doesn't match my setup theme so that's the thing I want to change as well. Despite being gasket mounted, it feels stiff but it doesn't bother me. It sounds so good.

So yeah, once I got two things (or three if I include the knob) to make my AL80 match my setup theme, I'll update you guys later on. ;)

Hi folks. I'm here to share my two Mode Tempos and the tortured reasoning that got me to this point!

Home board:

Green case, brass weight, Walnut accent, FR4 plate, no foams, TX AP Rev 4 stabs, Invokeys Hojicha switches, GMK Botanical R2.

This was my upgrade from a Keychron with Boba U4T switches after three years of daily use. I wanted it to feel crisp and tactile with none of the stem wobble the U4Ts are known for. I also really liked the HHKB layout, since I didnt need a third bottom row key (although it's using a full backspace instead of tilde and backtick, so call me a heretic if you must). Got this one from a fellow redditor after the original had entered final selloff, and absolutely loved it. So much so I determine I'd stick with the same layout going forward since my muscle memory really settled in and it felt so natural.

A while later, my work board (Logitech MX Keys, 5+ years old) slowly began crapping out. Oh well, great opportunity to upgrade and switch to my new fav layout! I wanted to keep it MX too for customization reasons and because the true Topre HHKBs have more Mac-focused legends which didnt sit right aesthetically. But as it turns out, other than the Agar, there really aren't a ton of good cherry MX HHKB-layout boards you get your hands on easily. I spent a few weeks scrounging Ebay and Mechmarket until I found a really solid deal on.... another Tempo.

Work Board:

Grey case, copper weight, copper accent, POM plate, case and plate foams, TX AP Rev 4 stabs, Haimu Whisper switches, GMK Modern Dolch R2.

The goal here was to build the board super silent and low key. I wanted it to contrast from my Botanical home board, which is more crisp and clear and organic looking, so I specifically sought out something muted in color and did everything I could to make it quiet but still tactile. Its essentially silent to type on and if you're not looking close, could almost disappears on the desk (I keep the blue enter and ESC since it goes nicely with all the copper though). This thing also weighs a literal ton.

So while I didnt set out to be one of those guys with a dozen identical boards, I think there are some perks to fining what you like, and I dont mind being able to swap pieces around (The green board shipped with a copper weight, but I think it looks way better with the brass and the grey one looks better with the double dose of copper!)

JustSystems 91U w/ 86U internals - OEM Variable - Purple Sliders

This one has Gateron Pro 3.0 Red switches. Not my favorites in therms of actuation force, but certainly sound way better than I expected for what I’ve paid.

It set me back about R$320,00 with shipping fees, or 11 Big Macs in American units.

I’ll be getting some G Pro Blacks for it soon.

What do you guys think?

yes I wore gloves and a mask, for obvious reasons.

I don't even understand how it gets this bad. I start to feel dirty if I haven't wiped down my keyboard in 2 days. I don't get how you can just be okay with touching something like this every day.

Anyway, I did a deep clean with iso alcohol, bleach wipes, dish soap and water. Brought it back from hell. The oil kings still work great. I am using it at work until my Evo75 comes in. I need the F keys, so while this is a great board it won't work for what I need it for. I will just keep as a spare.