# Found a nice hot swap mechanical keyboard



## scottro (Sep 3, 2021)

Recently, I wrecked my Ducky mechanical, not realizing there was salad dressing on my plate.  (That eventually, made its way to a few switches that I use constantly, such as the Mod4 key). Not being up to the task of desoldering and resoldering switches, and not wanting to impose on friends who were, I decided to get a hot swappable keyboard. For those not familiar with the term, it means that you can just pop switches in and out without soldering.  These are usually expensive, especially if you get them pre-built, but a keyboard enthusiast friend pointed me to the Glorious line of keyboards. (That's a brand name, not an adjective.)

My trouble is that I want some less common options. For one, I wanted a 75% or TKL keyboard. (I gave up on the 75% when I saw this keyboard available in TKL layout). The other thing that kept me from buying at say, mechanicalkeyboards.com was that, as one night, my wife noticed the clicking of a keyboard, she has never been able to unnotice it since, and even regular red switches annoy her so I need silent red switches. They are comparatively uncommon--for example, at mechanicalkeyboards, everything with silent red switches were out of stock. 

Glorious (at https://www.pcgamingrace.com/) has two main boards, the more expensive professional which is about $169 without keys or switches, and 
the modular mechanical, which is about 60 dollars. (US prices and shipping). They didn't have the silent red switches, so I got those elsewhere. This cheaper keyboard takes 3 pin switches. The best deal I found on silent reds (Gateron, which my friend recommended), was at 
https://1upkeyboards.com/ and they were 5 pin switches. However, I was able to easily remove the two extra pins with a nail clipper. 

Amazon strikes me as getting more and more evil, so I try to avoid it, but they did seem to be the best place to get the keycaps. I chose doubleshot PCB and was able to get a set relatively cheaply. In the end, a hot swap TKL keyboard, with silent red switches, probably cost about $120, and very little labor. If you've not popped in keyboard switches, beware of bending the pins, it's very easy to do, though in all but the worst case, you can unbend them again. (I used a tiny screwdriver). It's nothing special to look at--I did have a spacebar with  Hokusai's View From Mt. Fuji, so put that on.  I usually don't even use the RGB backlighting, but it's nice to have. 

I have a shot of it at https://www.scottro.net/keyboard.jpg kthough again, it's not a spectacular looking keyboard. But for those who prefer non-standard sizes and harder to find switches, I thought this might be useful. I do remember a thread last year from someone who wanted to get a mechanical and was wondering was it compatible with FreeBSD.  

The media keys don't work with FreeBSD in dwm, but I never use them so that doesn't matter to me. This keyboard has a menu key where a lot keyboards put the right Windows key, and that does do the equivalent of a right click in a web browser, though not other applications. 

It's pretty quite and stable, I just used the stabilizers that came with it, and didn't add lubrication.  I assume their pro version which *does* have a 75% version, and an aluminum body, might be better looking, but I'm quite happy with this one. And if I spill something and ruin a switch or two, I can easily pull the damaged switch out and replace it.


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## kpedersen (Sep 3, 2021)

scottro said:


> The media keys don't work with FreeBSD in dwm, but I never use them so that doesn't matter to me.


Agreed. Media keys are always a little useless and to be fair, when using a clean vanilla install of Windows (no vendor bloat), the media keys generally don't work either. The only way to fix them is install some Lenovo software suite or equivalent. No thanks!

I don't suppose the media keys trigger anything in the `xev` program? (It should be part of standard Xorg but I think FreeBSD misses a few things)?


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## rigoletto@ (Sep 3, 2021)

kpedersen said:


> I don't suppose the media keys trigger anything in the `xev` program? (It should be part of standard Xorg but I think FreeBSD misses a few things)?


IIRC medias keys need sysutils/uhidd. There is a guide on wiki.


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## scottro (Sep 3, 2021)

I don't have xev installed.  (There is a package for it, but I didn't install it.)
 The media keys are something that has to be done in conjunction with some software that you could download. (Windows software).  I play most videos using mpv, which has its own forward/back volume, and so on, and all that works,  but that's the application, not the keyboard.


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