Mechanical Keyboards

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Is there a reliable way to find out keycap sizes? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by parmesancrabs@lemmy.ml to c/mechanicalkeyboards@lemmy.ml

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I have a DURGOD Hades 68 keyboard that I’d love to spruce up with some custom caps. However, I’m not sure where to start with making sure a cap set will fit my board.

I’d really appreciate some advice on how to figure it out? Searching online hasn’t been that fruitful - or I’m not asking the right questions!

Are there any recommended stores for ISO layouts too?

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[–] ninjirate@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Keycap sizes are pretty much standardized. The only thing you will need to keep an eye out for are your modifier keycaps (enter/shift/space/backspace/bottom row). Those are measured in "u" where 1u is an alpha key, so your modifiers might be 1.25u or 2u or the spacebar is 6.25u/7u normally. So when you find a keycap set you like just check that it includes the right number of mod sizes.

I took a quick look at the Hades68 keyboard and I couldn't find a specific link but I think this is the same sizing (from a tofu65)

So for looking for keycaps they will generally have a list of the keycap sizes. If you go to https://kbdfans.com/collections/pbtfans-in-stock/products/pbtfans-frontier for example you can see in one of the pictures it has all of the u sizing listed on the keys.

I would guess 95% of keycaps sets will fit 98-99% of standard keyboards (60%-75%) with anything over 75% needing an additional numpad add-on set. Unless you're getting into some of the weird formats like 40% or ortho you probably won't need to worry too much.

Hope this makes sense. Let me know if you need any other clarification.

[–] parmesancrabs@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thank you for the recommendation for the tofu comparison. I’m going to measure some keys and compare.

In that link you provided I noticed mentions of “r#”. I’m guessing I need to make sure they match the rows of my keys for the angle of the cap?

Do you have any other site that you consider reputable / have a wide collection? Thanks again!

[–] ninjirate@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For you the row will only really apply to the right hand side since the "a" key will always be on row 3 and every key cap set will have "a" at the same height. The delete/home/end or whatever you decided to put on the right hand side above the arrow key will might be mismatched slightly but overall I don't think it's a big issue. On my keyboard my "r4" key is actually a "r3" key but it's close enough and it's only 1 key that's off.

KBDFans is probably the biggest store, but they do a lot of group buy stuff and sell extras after the group buy. You could do amazon, the massdrop/drop sets are a good starting place for keycaps. Otherwise most keycaps stores are specific to your country so for me in Canada I've got deskhero, ashkeebs and a couple others but the US has Kono, Canonkeys a bunch of others. You can check your region here for a list of stores: https://www.alexotos.com/keyboard-vendor-list/

[–] parmesancrabs@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Got it, one to keep an eye on but a slight +/-1 variance in the row wont be anything critical.

This is really useful thank you, and that alexotos.com vendor list is spot on. Time to start measuring and browsing! 🙌