Mechanical Keyboard Club! (original) (raw)

A lot of my pre-orders and group-buys have been delayed, so there haven't been a lot to update on the keyboard front.

But I did just receiver the Riva V2 keyboard:

IMG_0415.thumb.jpg.d2e77c00ef262ea9c14ccac80f63e703.jpg

It's a interesting board, although, it might just be interesting to me.

The main reason I bought it, is because it's designed around being a plateless board, which mainly meant it was a pain in the ass to solder the switches.

But it's also a WKL 60% keyboard that allows for a full sized right shift. Not something you see every day.

The only thing kinda dishonest about the keyboard, is that it was marketed as being a leaf spring mounted keyboard. This isn't really true in anything but the most charitable interpretations, as it's mounted via some protrusions from the PCB, which isn't much of a spring. It's essentially a sandwich mount with the PCB being the mounting point rather than the plate. It's fine for me, as I prefer a stiffer typing experience, but if you expect a typing experience akin to Angry Miao or MM Studio, you're better off elsewhere.

Another weird issue is the cable routing from the USB daughterboard to the main PCB. The cable is tightly routed through the bottom weight, and that lead to be cleanly breaking on of the cables, as it got caught between the weight and the bottom case.

The switches are KNCKeys ClackBits switches, a linear switch with a very long 13.9 mm pole. They do need to to be lubed, but once that's done it's a very nice switch for the heavy-handed typist .

The keycaps are ePBT x GOK Kuro/Shiro caps. I mainly bought them for being the only set I've seen, where the sublegend is also available on the international keycaps. So you don't have weird missing sublegends when you don't use an American ANSI layout. Bu the quality of the caps do lead a lot to be desired, as the longer modifiers are bent to hell. It's nothing some how water and force can't fix, but in 2024 it shouldn't be a problem.

Edit: Yes, I have noticed that some of the switches are on crooked in the picture. It has since been remedied.