Drop + OLKB Planck Mechanical Keyboard Kit V7 Discussions | Drop

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Drop + OLKB Planck Mechanical Keyboard Kit V7

Mech Keys

FULL DISCUSSION

smiaows

Jul 20, 2016

Just got my kit today. I don't have a soldering iron available until this weekend, but I put the whole kit together and will disassemble to solder when possible. Had very few issues with the build. The only main issue was that the stabilizer didn't fit into the top plate until I put a lot of force on it, which was worrying me as far as breaking the PCB. Luckily, plugged it in, it did its beep and so I think I'm alright. Putting in the switches was tedious (and nerve-wracking, as the switches seem near impossible to remove once in the plate) but eventually got all 48 (49?) in there and verified two pins from each coming through the back. Looking forward to learning how to solder.
I'm definitely happy I didn't have any of the problems that others seem to be having so far with top plates being nonfunctional at best. The rubber feet also sit snugly on my desk, so movement doesn't seem like it will be an issue.
Obligatory comparison to K70.

UPDATE:
I got tired of waiting after about two minutes and decided to go ahead and pick up a soldering iron from Home Depot for like $20. Learning to solder was definitely a strange process, the very first one went actually really well, and then got sort of hit and miss from there. All the connections did end up working (took me somewhere between 15-30 minutes having never soldered before) and I got the keyboard put back together. My first impression of typing on the Planck was very strange. I kept missing several different keys, and I'm still working on becoming more accurate at hitting x, c, v, and b, which are all particularly troubling. I know that I will eventually get better at this with time, it's an adjustment like most things.
Coding on this keyboard seems like it will be particularly difficult (at least with the default layout) and I will probably be trying to devise a custom one to work out an easier way. If anything interesting happens with the keyboard I'll update again.

Jul 20, 2016