Blue Alps 60%

Muirium · 15 Sep 2015, 15:09

HzFaq wrote: ↑I hastily removed that comment after I realised the the N and M weren't being obscured by some kind of glare or flash . I have a few sets of lovely caps, but the only one that fully fits my purpose are Portuguese, which isn't a massive problem but I would prefer some nice UK ones.

Hell, if his board had caps like those — and a full size backspace and HHKB style Fn — I'd talk him into putting a Teensy inside and calling it a day. That's great!

But won't someone please think of the Portuguese…

sth · 16 Sep 2015, 12:47

i might be able to run a GB for ANSI + split backspace AEK layout plates but i don't think that would be very helpful in most of the EU.

Muirium · 16 Sep 2015, 13:10

Sure it is. Haven't you noticed how many of us prefer ANSI too?

sth · 16 Sep 2015, 13:19

Muirium wrote: ↑Sure it is. Haven't you noticed how many of us prefer ANSI too?

i think the greater issue is locating caps.

Muirium · 16 Sep 2015, 17:33

I have 1 AEK and 2 AEK IIs, all ANSI. Surprisingly common over here (well, in Germany).

sth · 17 Sep 2015, 09:13

Perhaps you'd like to send some caps my way then

pyrelink · 08 Apr 2017, 18:16

I finally got around to putting my Alpine Winter/Badwrench Modifiers on my Blue Alps 60%

ramnes · 08 Apr 2017, 18:32

This is a really nice Alps board! What are those alphas?

pyrelink · 08 Apr 2017, 18:34

Alphas are from the Alpine Winter set and the modifiers are from Badwrench's Inifinity Modifier set

Hypersphere · 08 Apr 2017, 18:56

@pyrelink: Do you notice a difference in sound and/or feel between the different sets of keycaps you have put on your blue Alps 60% board? If so, which set do you prefer?

pyrelink · 08 Apr 2017, 19:24

I would say that the sound might be a tad bit lighter with these caps as opposed to the nice PBT of the AEK2 caps.

As you would expect, these feel just about the same as any SP DCS keyset, so nothing crazy.

The AEK2 caps are a pretty thick PBT and really do feel nice to type on, but they have that quirk of the "nibs" on the home row being on the D and K keys instead of F and J. Which even if I swapped positions on the keys so it felt right when touch typing, I would (frequently enough to piss me off) screw up passwords when looking at the keyboard when typing them in.

That quirk aside (which is pretty nit picky) I think the AEK2 caps are by far the best feeling and sounding I have tried. They have a good texture, and produce a nice thock - even on such an open case/board as this one.

I still have parts for another full Alps 60% that I need to put together, as well as a set of SGI Granite keycaps (if I can find them) and a set of Tai-Hao Alps keys to try. Maybe I will put together a nice roundup/comparison of Alps keycaps sometime in the future.

Hypersphere · 09 Apr 2017, 14:34

@pyrelink: Being a perfectionist myself, I do not consider it nit-picky to be bothered by the non-standard homing keys from the AEK2. I also like the sound and feel of the PBT caps from SGI boards, but I don't like the look of the Italic font. My favorite alpha caps are the dye-sub PBTs from IBM 5140 boards, but I wish they had homing keys. For the spacebar and mods, I use black blanks from Matias -- I don't mind having ABS on these keys, and I prefer black over the beige or gray found on vintage caps.