Digital Goods Chapter 59: First Impressions of Customized Keyboard: Hands-on Review of GK75

It has been three years since I started with mechanical keyboards, and I have played with conventional switches, but the friend who brought me into the pit began to enter a strange field: customized keyboards. So what is customization? To put it simply, it can be understood as completely according to your own needs, to DIY a keyboard that only belongs to you. A keyboard consists of 4 parts: kit (housing + pcb + positioning board + sound insulation cotton), shaft body, keycap, and keyboard cable.

Recently, the peripheral manufacturer Xiaodu has a crazy kit festival, and launched a series of low-latency multi-chip 3-mode wireless kits. The product configuration covers 61/64/68/84/96/75/980/87/108, etc. The price is only in the early 200s. I took advantage of this wave of east wind to start with the small bug GK75 kit, and explored the customized keyboard for the first time.

Let's take a look at the schematic diagram of the structure and composition of the small bug GK75 kit.

As the facade of the keyboard, the shell establishes the appearance of this keyboard. It is divided into two parts, the upper cover and the lower cover, which are transparent and opaque.

The main function of the positioning plate is to fix the shaft body on the positioning plate, reduce the shaking of the shaft body during use, protect the shaft body and the circuit board, and the common materials are steel, copper, aluminum, carbon fiber, and glass fiber. The vibration frequency generated by the positioning board is also different, so the sound is also different, it all depends on personal preference.

The PCBA motherboard is the circuit board of the keyboard, which is divided into two types: hot-swapping and welding. Hot-swapping is to directly insert the shaft on the pcb, plug and play, suitable for novices. Soldering requires welding the shaft to the pcb with solder. Since novice soldering is easy to fail or even damage parts, it is not recommended for novices to start.

The Lite Gasket integrated cushion and bottom shell sound insulation cotton can prevent the cavity sound in the kit and ensure the consistency of the touch when hitting.

The case of this kit is black and light-transmitting, and the PCB is hot-swappable.

The positioning plate is made of copper, and the space bar positioning plate also uses independent positioning screws, which can be removed.

The back shell is also black and light-transmitting, and the 2.4G wireless receiver can be stored at the bottom of the keyboard, which is well received.

The rest is the keyboard cable and adapter.

Let’s take a group photo of the shifter, shaft body, and positioning plate, and then prepare to install the shaft body.

Installing the shafts is a labor-intensive task. Fortunately, GK75 only needs to install 75 shafts, which is less than a quarter of the workload compared with 104 keys, so it is also good.

Finally, put on the keycaps. The shaft and keycaps are all stolen from friends, and it’s cool if you don’t spend money, hehe.

In all fairness, my friend's aesthetics is indeed a bit more advanced than mine, and I like this keycap no matter how I look at it after it is installed.

After the completion of this customized keyboard, needless to say the appearance, the feel is better than expected. As a player who has just entered the pit, I said that I have learned a lot from this customization journey. As an unlucky kid who often suffers from messy desktops, I value the performance of the keyboard in wireless mode, especially the two items of wireless delay and wireless connection stability. This time, the whole series of GK75 adopts the latest low-latency multi-chip 3-mode wireless kit. The wireless module adopts Nordic low-latency anti-jamming chipset, which makes this set of GK75 have excellent performance in wireless delay and wireless connection stability. .

In addition, it also has a rich accessory system, which supports personalized modification, supports PC, glass fiber FR4 and other positioning plate accessories of different materials, the installation of knob modules, and the replacement of split space positioning plate modules; built-in 4000mAH large-capacity lithium battery, double-layer noise reduction filling , Light flick the Gasket flexible fixed connection structure, and other customized solid stacking materials, which are very rare and conscientious at this price.

In general, the little nerd GK75 gave me a very friendly first impression of the customized keyboard, and it is estimated that I will continue to toss in the future, after all, life is to toss.