Massdrop 101: Intro to Key Switches

CTRL + F to quickly skip to each tip/trick below: Tip #1 - Cheap Dust Cover (Shower Caps) Tip #2 - Upgrade Your Wire Keycap Puller to Plastic Tip #3 - Test Your PCB/QC Your Board Before Building Soldering-Specific: Tip #4 - Take Your Time. Set Yourself up for Soldering Success Tip #5 - Using the Right Size Soldering Tip Tip #6 - Soldering Loose Switches/Plateless Builds - Rubber Bands Tip #7 - Fixing Crooked Switches After Soldering Extra Tip - Test Your PCB After Soldering… BEFORE You Put Away Your Soldering Equipment Intro & Disclaimer A recent mistake. Mixed three sets of beige PBT keycap sets and spent a good while having to separate everything... “I wish I had known about this sooner…” I can’t tell you the amount of times that I’ve said those words out loud, or thought about them when it comes to the keyboard hobby. Whether it’s what someone in the community has told me, or something I found out myself, even things that may seem so simple as using...

What DaVinci Resolve looks like usually when editing sound tests. TL;DR This article is geared towards beginning content creators or those interested in content creation. If you're a content creation veteran, this may not be useful for you. These are just my opinions. What may work for me may not work for you! This is NOT for someone who is focused solely on making money from being a keyboard content creator or to maximize views, likes, or subscriptions. There is no foolproof strategy for success. Create, create, create. Take the leap and put out content, even if it isn’t perfect. Networking is key! Take Breaks When Needed. Article Sections (CTRL + F To Jump To These Sections) Intro Disclaimer What IS a Keyboard Content Creator? The Fear of Failure How 1: Create, Create, Create How 2: Find out what YOU enjoy How 3: Networking “Mistakes” How 1 (Create, Create, Create) “Mistakes” How 2 (Find out what YOU enjoy) “Mistakes” How 3 (Networking) “Mistakes” Not Taking...

Every now and then, one of the questions I’ll get from a reader of my articles circles around trying to figure out why I know seemingly way too much about mechanical keyboards. “Where did you learn all of this information, Goat?” While having been around as an active part of the community for several years now and talking with other people in various places has certainly helped me learn quite a bit, the simple answer that I usually toss to people who ask that question is that I read… a lot. Yes, that’s right, reading. Given that the modern mechanical keyboard scene started around 2007-2008, and with vintage enthusiasts having interests that stretch multiple decades backwards from there, a lot of the core, fundamental knowledge base of this keyboard community was carved into stone in the form of solo written articles, blog posts, and forum arguments. In fact, I’d go as far as to argue that a good majority of the history and foundational knowledge that makes up this hobby is in the...

Wouldn’t the proper phrasing for these be “artisanal” keycaps and not “artisan” keycaps? As I was looking through the ‘Mech Keys Guide List’ here on Drop a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised to see that there were effectively no articles detailing arguably one of the most unique and interesting niches of the mechanical keyboard community – artisan keycaps. In fact with each passing day I find myself sinking further and further into the depths of artisan keycaps and have gained an appreciation of them that far surpasses any expectations I could have ever had after getting my very first one. Despite artisan keycaps being fairly ubiquitous in this day and age, and with beginner friendly storefronts like Drop selling alongside prebuilt, accessible mechanical keyboard kits, I still find that those freshly diving into the keyboard hobby have a very skewed (mis)understanding of these kinds of keycaps, why they are priced the way they are, and all of the variety that exist out there...

Top Left: CustomNeko (Bakeneko With Through-Weight) With KKB BoW And Accents, Top Right: Cannonkeys Bakeneko60 With GMK Norse, Bottom Left: Ciel60 With KKB Abyss, Bottom Right: Jixte60 With GMK Analog Dreams “Simplicity is boring, but I still love it.” - Sukant Ratnakar. When I first got into the hobby back in 2017, there was no way that I would’ve thought that I’d enjoy a 60% layout keyboard. Sure, maybe a 75% (I didn’t use the nav cluster for non-work situations, and when I was at work, I needed a numpad) in order to retain the function row, or, at the very least, a 65% where I had dedicated arrows, but a 60%? Absolutely no way! I need dedicated arrows! I need a function row! It’s funny how preferences change, huh? For the next installment in my “Why I Love” series (the first was the “Why I Love Prototype Runs And Helping Keyboard Designers” article I wrote a few weeks back), please allow me a bit of your time to explain to you not only why I love 60% layout keyboards...

Thanks to StoryboardTech’s fantastic article, you finally learned how to solder! Or at least, you’re committed to learning. So, what’s next? Well, if you’re brave enough, why not learn how to desolder as well? And when you feel confident with that, how about Mill-Max? You don’t necessarily have to know or learn how to solder before learning how to desolder or Mill-max, but in my opinion, getting comfortable with soldering is a great step towards learning how to do the other two, and if you know how to solder, you can practice desoldering and mill-maxing to your heart’s content since you’ll already have the tools from learning how to solder! Well, at least most of the tools. Let’s start off with the good ol’ disclaimer section first, however. Disclaimer These are my own opinions and my own thoughts, and if I’ve learned anything in life, it’s that we all do things in slightly different ways. Whether it be deadlifting, desoldering, Mill-Maxing or even baking...

CTRL + F to quickly skip to each tip/trick below: Tip #1 - Cheap Dust Cover (Shower Caps) Tip #2 - Upgrade Your Wire Keycap Puller to Plastic Tip #3 - Test Your PCB/QC Your Board Before Building Soldering-Specific: Tip #4 - Take Your Time. Set Yourself up for Soldering Success Tip #5 - Using the Right Size Soldering Tip Tip #6 - Soldering Loose Switches/Plateless Builds - Rubber Bands Tip #7 - Fixing Crooked Switches After Soldering Extra Tip - Test Your PCB After Soldering… BEFORE You Put Away Your Soldering Equipment Intro & Disclaimer A recent mistake. Mixed three sets of beige PBT keycap sets and spent a good while having to separate everything... “I wish I had known about this sooner…” I can’t tell you the amount of times that I’ve said those words out loud, or thought about them when it comes to the keyboard hobby. Whether it’s what someone in the community has told me, or something I found out myself, even things that may seem so simple as using...