A truly DIY board
Southpaw75 by FR4Boards
The Southpaw75 is a DIY board but not in the same sense as other custom mechanical keyboards. Other keyboard kits are DIY too, don’t get me wrong. But this is 90% DIY, with the remaining 10% effort just short of cutting your own plate and printing your own PCB.
You have to solder diodes onto every switch. Yes. All of them. Even the hotswap sockets, if you so choose to use them instead of soldering the switches on directly. My client wanted hotswap so, yippie… tonnes of soldering work.
I have to admit the entire process was fun though. It feels like you are literally building a keyboard from the ground up. It feels like you owned this creation. It feels like you could troubleshoot everything that will happen to it and you’d know what’s wrong with it at a glance. Like being a mechanic to your own vehicle. That’s what it felt like.
“You have to solder diodes onto every switch. Yes. All of them”
I cannot say the same for these switches that my client wanted to use though. These are the Boba U4Tx. The silent tactile variant of the ever popular Boba U4T.
I never liked silents in the first place. Silents had this mush during the bottom out phase and the tactile feedback is never quite satisfying. That’s what I signed up for right? The loud clack/thock with a hefty oouuumph feedback. Feels like the more you type on the keyboard, the more productive you are. But silents take all these away. Never liked them, never will.
And these. These are not only silent, they are tactile. It’s not that I don’t like tactiles. I do in some boards but I consider them second to linears. And silent tactiles are the worst of the bunch. Paired with the thick XDA PBT keycaps, the board feels exactly like a membrane keyboard. Yup. Exactly.
My client agreed with me and swapped out the caps for another profile and to him, it felt better after. I can’t say for sure because I didn’t try them.
“The standoffs for the board were supposed to be M2s but M2.5s were shipped. I had to purchase them locally. Simply bad QC.”
Final Thoughts
You can’t expect much out of this keyboard given its price. It’s a southpaw keyboard, meaning the numpad is on the left and makes for some very functional use.
Unfortunately, I had the short end of the stick. The standoffs for the board were supposed to be M2s but M2.5s were shipped. I had to purchase them locally. Simply bad QC.
For those who are really bad with soldering, this board is definitely not for you. Not only do you solder the switch sockets, the diodes and controller have to be soldered on too. It’s a tumultuous task to ask for anyone to sit through almost 2 hours of soldering. This board is only QMK compatible, so bad news for VIA convenience.
It doesn’t come with a case, so dust, dirt, grime will all get onto this keyboard. No aesthetics to talk about either. Or perhaps its aesthetic is no aesthetic. Big brain. But not a fan of no aesthetic being an aesthetic at all. I like cases because there’s so much art and creativity that goes on with them.
It’s my client’s build so I can’t complain. But if it were me, I would not get this keyboard at all. It passes as a functional keyboard but nothing much else to talk about here.
It doesn’t even use USB-C. What??