My Corsair K70 Lux keyboard that I've had for 6 years has started acting up. I think it's the original K70 Lux, not the v2 but what I liked about it, other than the solid metal frame, was the 100% vanilla 104 key layout, no Fn key fuckery for things I don't use and never have. After 30 years I'm just stuck in my ways. It had some media keys in the top right corner in space that had to be there regardless, and the nice thing at the time I bought it was you could store your lighting profile in memory on the thing so you didn't need software running, and that lighting config would persist if you went and plugged it into a different machine. Apparently it's been an issue for a while and I've been blaming windows for just being stupid, though it still is stupid but not as stupid as I thought. But it seems that some of the issues I've been having like music/videos randomly pausing, no matter if it was on youtube, spotify, vlc, windows media player, whatever, or menus randomly opening up while i'm gaming, or windows not always opening the start menu unless i hit the button 15 times, much of it has been caused by my keyboard. But it got really bad over the weekend and it was enough for me to finally clue in that it was the keyboard and I was smart enough to unplug it to confirm the odd behaviors stopped. So this left me a bit disheartened because this K70 Lux keyboard I love so much that cost me almost 300$ when new and then almost another 80$ to about 1-2 years ago when I had to source the set of PBT keycaps for it when the original ABS keycaps all started falling apart, cracking and coming loose on 2/3 of the keyboard, and dam did the PBT caps make it feel even better.
So Saturday in a pinch I went and picked up, reluctantly at the time another Corsair keyboard, the basic k70 core that was 100$ at CC and it just doesn't feel like the same keyboard at all. It has some weight I guess, and maybe there's a metal plate inside, but the plastic outer shell doesn't feel the same to me. I did get the basic Core model so I won't complain about the switches feeling soft but I definitely do prefer cherry mx brown switches and I was just grabbing something interim in the hopes I could put my k70 Lux aside to repair another day. But I'm a bit disappointed with the k70 core in other areas too. The RGB profile can be stored in memory on the keyboard, but if you unplug it and move it to another machine, it's starts with whatever default lighting config and takes a few seconds to flip over to what was programmed. Feels like a step back on a model that's 6 years newer and should be a step forward. The usb cable on it feels cheap compared to my other one as this ones just a skinny plain rubber sleeved cable, not a huge issue. But I do like the minimal profile as far a full size keyboard goes as it's pretty compact but I kind of would have liked if I could carry over the palm rest from my other one to this one. Might have been nice for Corsair to have their own standard palm rest attachments in a way but not a huge issue, just a small detail that could have been I guess. But what is bugging me with this one is they put a knob in the top right corner, which oh cool it acts as a volume knob by default and you can click it to mute, sure that's not useless.... unless you don't have iCue running because that knob seems to only work with iCue running....
But anyway, all this has set me off on a search for a new keyboard, custom or otherwise and wow there is soooo many options if you want 60%, 75%, TKL, whatever, but 100% custom keyboards are almost non-existent, or limited to small runs of group buys or something I've missed out on. I found a monsgeek M5 diy which seems too affordable to be the quality I'm looking for. I also found another one and while it was full size, there was some fuckery with the arrow key layout or something that I didn't like but the more I look, the more I think the perfect keyboard just doesn't exist for me and I'm going to have to compromise.
All this to say, I think the closest I'm getting is something like the Keychron Q6 (without knob) that it seems I can get as a barebone and it's hotswappable which would be great. They do have a couple extra keys above the numpad that I'd have to live with and maybe I'd make use of them. The default layout I see seems to indicate it has an Fn key for stuff but it supports QMK so my hope is if I go that route I can override that key that way and have it be the normal windows right menu key. I figure by buying the barebone then I can buy my cherry mx brown switches that I prefer. Might get cherry mx brown rgb switches but I noticed the keychrons caps aren't shine though and while they do provide measurements and sizes of the caps in a pdf I found, I haven't found a place to buy keycaps yet that doesn't just sell a whole kit although I did find these caps that I think I like if they'll fit right
In the meantime, last night after some testing I took apart my old K70 Lux because I think I narrowed it's issues down to just the multimedia keys in the right corner. I had searched for info on issues with them, hoping to find that someone had similar problems and maybe some diy repair info. I came up blank with the exception of an old review that said they couldn't be taken apart without damaging (which was wrong) and that there was a daughterboard for the media keys and stuff in that corner so having narrowed that area down I figured I'd tear it down and disconnect that daughterboard. The review was only partially right though, because the media keys are actually connected to a membrane that's hidden behind that daughterboard. I removed the membrane and have it plugged into my system right sitting at the side and so far no issues so that's a good sign. I'm waiting for the keycaps to dry because they were grimy so I washed them. The rest of the keyboard itself could use a good clean but I'd have to desolder keycaps to tear it down further but maybe if disconnecting the media keys does definitely solve the issue I'll look at some cherry mx brown v2 rgb switches since I figure if I'm going to desolder switches to clean the chassis I may as well solder in new ones and some of the leds in the originals have gone off color over time anyway so why not
anyway, sorry for the long post. I realize I probably ranted a bit. but if anyone knows where I might look for a wired 100% vanilla 104 key with 0 extra functions or knobs on a nice solid metal frame I'd love to know. I did very much enjoy reading sswilsons recent thread though on switches and what not and it did give me a few places to look at but no joy on finding what I want 100%. I also went through another recent post that had me looking at modernfkeyboards for a minute too
So Saturday in a pinch I went and picked up, reluctantly at the time another Corsair keyboard, the basic k70 core that was 100$ at CC and it just doesn't feel like the same keyboard at all. It has some weight I guess, and maybe there's a metal plate inside, but the plastic outer shell doesn't feel the same to me. I did get the basic Core model so I won't complain about the switches feeling soft but I definitely do prefer cherry mx brown switches and I was just grabbing something interim in the hopes I could put my k70 Lux aside to repair another day. But I'm a bit disappointed with the k70 core in other areas too. The RGB profile can be stored in memory on the keyboard, but if you unplug it and move it to another machine, it's starts with whatever default lighting config and takes a few seconds to flip over to what was programmed. Feels like a step back on a model that's 6 years newer and should be a step forward. The usb cable on it feels cheap compared to my other one as this ones just a skinny plain rubber sleeved cable, not a huge issue. But I do like the minimal profile as far a full size keyboard goes as it's pretty compact but I kind of would have liked if I could carry over the palm rest from my other one to this one. Might have been nice for Corsair to have their own standard palm rest attachments in a way but not a huge issue, just a small detail that could have been I guess. But what is bugging me with this one is they put a knob in the top right corner, which oh cool it acts as a volume knob by default and you can click it to mute, sure that's not useless.... unless you don't have iCue running because that knob seems to only work with iCue running....
But anyway, all this has set me off on a search for a new keyboard, custom or otherwise and wow there is soooo many options if you want 60%, 75%, TKL, whatever, but 100% custom keyboards are almost non-existent, or limited to small runs of group buys or something I've missed out on. I found a monsgeek M5 diy which seems too affordable to be the quality I'm looking for. I also found another one and while it was full size, there was some fuckery with the arrow key layout or something that I didn't like but the more I look, the more I think the perfect keyboard just doesn't exist for me and I'm going to have to compromise.
All this to say, I think the closest I'm getting is something like the Keychron Q6 (without knob) that it seems I can get as a barebone and it's hotswappable which would be great. They do have a couple extra keys above the numpad that I'd have to live with and maybe I'd make use of them. The default layout I see seems to indicate it has an Fn key for stuff but it supports QMK so my hope is if I go that route I can override that key that way and have it be the normal windows right menu key. I figure by buying the barebone then I can buy my cherry mx brown switches that I prefer. Might get cherry mx brown rgb switches but I noticed the keychrons caps aren't shine though and while they do provide measurements and sizes of the caps in a pdf I found, I haven't found a place to buy keycaps yet that doesn't just sell a whole kit although I did find these caps that I think I like if they'll fit right
In the meantime, last night after some testing I took apart my old K70 Lux because I think I narrowed it's issues down to just the multimedia keys in the right corner. I had searched for info on issues with them, hoping to find that someone had similar problems and maybe some diy repair info. I came up blank with the exception of an old review that said they couldn't be taken apart without damaging (which was wrong) and that there was a daughterboard for the media keys and stuff in that corner so having narrowed that area down I figured I'd tear it down and disconnect that daughterboard. The review was only partially right though, because the media keys are actually connected to a membrane that's hidden behind that daughterboard. I removed the membrane and have it plugged into my system right sitting at the side and so far no issues so that's a good sign. I'm waiting for the keycaps to dry because they were grimy so I washed them. The rest of the keyboard itself could use a good clean but I'd have to desolder keycaps to tear it down further but maybe if disconnecting the media keys does definitely solve the issue I'll look at some cherry mx brown v2 rgb switches since I figure if I'm going to desolder switches to clean the chassis I may as well solder in new ones and some of the leds in the originals have gone off color over time anyway so why not
anyway, sorry for the long post. I realize I probably ranted a bit. but if anyone knows where I might look for a wired 100% vanilla 104 key with 0 extra functions or knobs on a nice solid metal frame I'd love to know. I did very much enjoy reading sswilsons recent thread though on switches and what not and it did give me a few places to look at but no joy on finding what I want 100%. I also went through another recent post that had me looking at modernfkeyboards for a minute too
