BOOP REDOX
The Process
The boop redox was a fun build. It took a lot of trial and error, but I finally settled on the components. I went for a poppy thock sound with medium resonance, a damped sound, and minimal give when typing.
The FR4 plate is what you put on top of the PCB for the switches to rest on. FR4 is a softer material compared to aluminium and carbon fiber, but has the stability of aluminium without the twang that it creates when typing. I tried the POM plate but it was too mushy for me, especially since the keyboard mounting system I choose was gasket mounted.
I have not played around with stabilizers that much. I have been partial to the Durock V3 stabilizers because my favorite keyboard YouTuber, Taeha, types used them in his streams. They are extremely finicky and hard to balance, so I will be trying other stabilizers in future builds, and I'll do a blog post about which ones I prefer.
Case foam for me makes the typing experience too mushy. I like a crisp click when I press down on the keys, and the case foam when I put it into the boop affected the typing experience.
I played around with a couple of switches for this build. I first used the Tealio V2 switches. It was thocky, but not quite right. The space bar was also bothering me because there was a rattle between the stem and the keycap. Then I opted for poison gas switches, more travel, and spring-heavy. I wasn't a fan of the springs in the switches, so I swapped the springs for Durock gold-plated 63.5g springs. These had much more resistance, making the board overall a better typing experience because the tactile switch was a little heavier and more poppy.
The keycaps are mostly for aesthetics unless you really want to have a thocky board. For me this board I wanted to be more aesthetically pleasing so I went with the doubleshot ABS plastic keycaps by PBTfans. These are semi-transparent which I really liked and a dark green which nicely contrasted the white powder coated case.
