Question Trying to find a viable modern replacement for my gaming keyboard form 2012

[Cyber_Akuma]

My old Cherry MX Red gaming keyboard (Cooler Master CM Storm Trigger from 2012) is starting to bite the dust, and I can only try to clean and repair it so many times (especially since it's not easy to open or replace components) so I am trying to find a modern equivalent, issue is nothing seems to have some of the features I want, nothing gaming anyway. And non-gaming keyboards lack some gaming features I want.

Main things I want are it being a full 101 key keyboard, has backlighting (per-key RGB would be a nice plus), and a removable USB cable. Dedicated media and/or macro keys would be a plus but not required. Just about all gaming keyboards seem to lack having a removable cable, and just about all non-gaming centric mechanical keyboards with a removable cable lack the backlighting (to say nothing of lacking per-RGB programmable backlighting).

I also understand that there is some new type of keys replacing mechanical switches now? Optical and hall effect? Are those any good? I preferred Cherry MX Red anyway so I don't mind there being no force before you actuate the key. There seem to be almost no keyboards that use hall effect though, the SteelSeries Apex Pro appears to be the only one (at least, only gaming keyboard with them) but that and the backlighting is about all it has... no removable USB, no dedicated anything keys.... and a high pricetag. Plus there is the software, which from my understanding is very bloated and requires a freaking account/login to use just to configure your keyboard! The Corsair K75 was another one I was looking into, although I am unfamiliar with the software and it's mechanical instead of optical or hall effect, yet costs about as much as the SteelSeries hall effect keyboard.

Are there any other recommendations? Of Cherry MX Red (or any modern equivalent), optical, or hall effect? Are there any good ones that are more easily repairable than this old thing I have? (I recall some had socketed switches, but from my understanding those are proprietary and not some standard)

 

[Eximo]

You might be interested in building your own keyboard or at least taking a look at some semi-custom pre-builts

DIY KIT

Build your own mechanical keyboard, starting here!

kbdfans.com

There are plenty of Cherry compatible mechanical switches out there now, and also a few other standards.

And don't be afraid to poke around the weird side of Amazon and Ebay. Quite a few reasonably priced mechanical keyboards around, well under $100 that might fit your requirements.

 

[Cyber_Akuma]

The DIY ones seem like some of the most expensive options, most look like they are minimalist and don't have backlighting either.... the ones in that list that do are something absurd like $400.

 

[Eximo]

That has certainly been the trend, especially since it keeps costs down.

Not going to be able to find reviews for all this stuff:

But maybe take a chance on something like this? I doubt it has aRGB keys, but meets most of your requirements.

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

And there are plenty our there in the 100+ range that may or may not be better.

More than Cherry switches out there now, so you really have to sit down and do a deep dive to get what you are after off the shelf.

 

[JRRT]

I am showing my ignorance here, which I apologize for. But I am really curious. Is the RGB backlighting only for aesthetics or does it serve a more directly functional purpose. I am not criticizing you either way, just to be really clear. Presumably you use a gaming keyboard during your recreational down time, and I can see how something, even if it is "just" aesthetic, that enhances your experience during the probably limited time you can spend this way would have value. But I am interested in the possibility that it could (also?) have a productivity / functional purpose I don't know about. Especially since depending on how and why you use it, I have a suggestion that might, just possibly, be useful for you.

A bit of looking found this link that should let you get replacement key switches if it solves your problem:

Cherry Launches MX Experience Box Keyswitch Sampler

It has also rolled out singular MX Switch kits, each with 23 switches, in the same format.

www.tomshardware.com

Apparently is selling pretty reasonably priced sets of either 23 switches of a single type, or 10 switch sample sets with one of each kind they make. Before shipping it should work out to between $10.00 to at most $30.00 US depending on what you buy


It seems like it would be a time consuming but not super difficult project to make one of these, if you really only want to be able to use one, or even a few, backlighting color configurations for the keyboard that you use for specific things.
Like if you are playing emulators of old games, and they use different keys to substitute for various arcade game control buttons and the joystick depending on the emulator or game. So you want to be able to light up the right ones with a color code for what they do, so you don't get confused and loose due to pressing the wrong key.
Or if you want to see hot key combinations at a glance that you use in an office suite not quite often enough to memorize, and are a net loss of time to look up.

If it is something like this, and all of the keys on your current keyboard are physically intact, or you can find another source of translucent or transparent keys (recycling a broken keyboard from eBay, buying the right filament and borrowing a 3D printer), then if you can find a mechanical keyboard in good condition where the key switches are not mounted directly on the circuit board but on a separate supporting frame instead, you have a decent chance of being able to take it apart and reassemble it with an extra layer. Basically if you can find (or reuse) find small enough LEDs to fit the three under each key, you can potentially reassemble the non-RGB keyboard with replacement keys light can shine through, plus extra layers in the sandwich. LEDs under each key, and fine wire from every single LED to an array of connections and toggle switches. So a noticeably thicker keyboard with labeled toggle switches at the top. Which means making a custom case to hold the keyboard. Which probably means including one of the add on blocks of programmable custom function keys that are normally intended to sit next to a keyboard.

This is perhaps useful to you even if everything else is not, last I looked a few months ago there was something that looked good at crowdsupply.com but I think I have seen at least one reviewed at the CNC software website and probably here as well.

If course if you are a programmer, you could use a small controller or single board computer inside the keyboard that communicates with your gaming computer to control the RGB through software for a much better user experience.

All of these are a lot of work, though not necessarily much money, except for

 

[JRRT]

Wow, that got garbled somehow, but hopefully the ideas are still useful

 

[Cyber_Akuma]

I am showing my ignorance here, which I apologize for. But I am really curious. Is the RGB backlighting only for aesthetics or does it serve a more directly functional purpose.

Usually aesthetics but it can be both. It can help see the keyboard better if the room is dark and the programmable ones, depending how much control the programming gives you, can serve as a sort of functional feedback depending what it is. (e.g. one of those hall effect keyboards mentioned that a key can be set so it functions differently depending how hard you press it, such as WASD keys being set to make your character run if you press down further, with the color of the key changing to indicate this).

A bit of looking found this link that should let you get replacement key switches if it solves your problem

Yeah, the problem with that is if the keyboard is not socketed, you will have to desolder and resolder all the switches one by one. Many have done it, but I don't have the soldering skills... and honestly... the patience to re-do over 100 switches. Even of the socketed ones, if they are of the cheaper knock-off brands of switches they usually don't fit official Cherry MX switches.

There are many DIY keyboard sets out there so you can build your own with the kind of casing, backplate, switches, keycaps, etc you want, but generally those are lacking in features and usually tenkeyless, and end up costing more if you want to try to match a "gaming" keyboard feature-for-feature.

 

[DSzymborski]

The GMK has a full size and has hot-swap sockets and can usually be found for around $100. A lot of people have modded some of the cheaper keyboards available on Amazon and similar places quite effectively; names like Royal Kludge.

 

[Cyber_Akuma]

GMK? I tried to look that up but it seems like some kind of standard rather than a brand?

 

[DSzymborski]

GMK? I tried to look that up but it seems like some kind of standard rather than a brand?

Oops, sorry, meant GMMK (the Glorius keyboards).

 

[Cyber_Akuma]

Oh, I heard of that brand. I wasn't aware it was one of the good ones, I assumed it was a brand trying to cash in one the name/meme of the whole Glorious PC Master Race thing

 

[SorryBella]

The DIY ones seem like some of the most expensive options, most look like they are minimalist and don't have backlighting either.... the ones in that list that do are something absurd like $400.

Keyboard has HEAVILY changed in price since the early DIY days. Besides the aforementioned GMMK Pro (which isn't 100%), there's also Akko Model 5108, and Keychron Q6 and V6 line which are really good too. They are in my opinion the best place to start your keyboard customization journey besides what I called "Epomaker Clones" which are blanket statement for a bunch of similarly built and framed hot swap keyboard (typically Outemu socket or proprietary), owned by varied manufacturers like Royal Kludge, Gamakay, Redragon, etc. These are good starter too at sub 80$ but with it being tray mounted and limited to 125Hz polling rate, they're really only good for typing and basic understanding of noise profile isolation and lubrication.

 

[Cyber_Akuma]

GMMK Pro (which isn't 100%)

Yeah, I tried looking that one up and the 100% one is sold out.

there's also Akko Model 5108

Never heard of those, looked them up and their whole thing seems to be making all their (at least the full-size rgb ones I filtered) keyboards themed after an anime, game, etc. I wasn't looking for a keyboard that has all sorts of crazy characters and designs from an anime on the keycaps and keyboard itself.

and Keychron Q6 and V6 line which are really good too

Yeah, that's the one I was looking the most into.

One annoyance I noticed with all Akko and Keychron keyboards is that in place of the status leds for number/scroll/caps lock they have four additional buttons with... PlayStation symbols on them? I assume these are programmable macro keys, but does that mean they don't have status indicator leds for those lock keys?

Another downside... to me at least, of going DIY is that I was really hoping to get a Hall Effect, or at least an optical keyboard, but all of them are mechanical. Keychron has some optical models... but for some reason none of them are full size. Within the model line of ones where they have optical options they go up to Tenkeyless... and then the next model up that is full size is frustratingly mechanical only.

(Also I prefer shine-through and most of these DIY keycaps appear to not be, so I would also have to buy my own set of Keycaps that are shine-through for ones like Keychron)

They are in my opinion the best place to start your keyboard customization journey besides what I called "Epomaker Clones" which are blanket statement for a bunch of similarly built and framed hot swap keyboard (typically Outemu socket or proprietary), owned by varied manufacturers like Royal Kludge, Gamakay, Redragon, etc. These are good starter too at sub 80$ but with it being tray mounted and limited to 125Hz polling rate, they're really only good for typing and basic understanding of noise profile isolation and lubrication.

Yeah, I was looking at the Reddragon K556 as a budget option. It's not too easy to get accurate information on it either. Most of the reviews of the K556 are from 2-3 years ago, but they appear to have silently changed the design recently where the hot-swap sockets now accept 3 or 5 pin switches (so they might be compatible with Cherry MX now) and the hard-wired cable was replaced with a USB-C one.... yet they don't mention that on the product page so it could be a toss-up which revision I get.

Are there any optical or even hall effect DIY options?

 

[DSzymborski]

Not aware of any Hall effect ones. If you're on a budget, you're almost certainly looking at Cherry style switches. And since you're almost certainly going to be plate mounting, you can use five-pin switches just fine and chop off the two extras with a flush cutter. They're there for stabilization if you're mounting directly to a PCB.

 

[Cyber_Akuma]

Any options for optical DIY then if there are no hall effect options? Many of the ones with hot-swappable switches seemed to support both 3 and 5 pin anyway.

 

[DSzymborski]

DIY and optical is still kind of an obscure thing and I haven't done it personally, so I have nothing really to offer there.

 

[SorryBella]

I was really hoping to get a Hall Effect

As it stands its Wooting or nothing at all. Their Gateron Hall Effect implementation is second to none in terms of consistency and depth. There are some community resources to hand wire a hall effect keyboard with said switch (I said switch but really its just a piece of magnet, the actual key registration is done on the board with its Hall Effect Sensor) but most samples I've seen are for 2-3 key keypads for Osu!, not full sized keyboard.

For full size, Wooting has Wooting Two HE.

Wooting two HE - Fullsize analog keyboard

The Wooting Two HE is an analog mechanical keyboard with <1ms input response. The magnetic Lekker switches are adjustable up to 0.1mm for finger brushing sensitivity.

wooting.io

 

[Cyber_Akuma]

So Wooting's is better than the Apex Pro's hall effect? Wish they could keep their stuff in stock then.

 

[SorryBella]

Wish they could keep their stuff in stock then.

Still a small company in holland, can barely keep track of every batch progress from their overseas partner. There are no "Ready Stock" Wooting, gotta fight for manufacturing batches every day.

And yeah, it is a massive upgrade in feature compared to Apex Pro in terms of variable actuation and the Apex Pro still lack the multifunction keys that Wooting has, same with Rapid Trigger Function. If you need their fast reacting Rapid Trigger Function though, Razer made a workaround tweak to make it work with their optical keyboard in Razer Huntsman.

View: https://youtu.be/c64yGHLO-TU?si=eMkZBlzhjAWFFOyt

 

[JRRT]

This thread might help:

https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...all-those-gaming-keyboard-specs-mean.3811112/
I have some links that might be what you are looking for:
https://www.amazon.com/RK-ROYAL-KLU...are-us-8048339805346292000-20&geniuslink=true
Do I understand correctly that you looking at this one already, with keys switched out as needed since it's designed for it?

Also, these are really cheap stop gaps at least:

https://outdoorpowerdirect.com/products/turtle-beach-tbs-4820-01-impact-700-gaming-keyboard

https://outdoorpowerdirect.com/products/turtle-beach-tbs-4800-01-impact-100-gaming-keyboard

https://outdoorpowerdirect.com/products/turtle-beach-tbs-4860-01-impact-600-gaming-keyboard