Need help finding a keyboard (or keyboard & numpad)

Max

08 Aug 2014, 21:55

Hi so I want to first preface this with I am willing to spend a decent amount of money on a keyboard that meets my whole criteria but if it doesn't I wouldn't want to spend as much. That being said my budget would be up to ~$250 USD.

Here's what I'd like:
Least amount of input lag
Small for more room for my mouse pad
N-key rollover
Cherry Mx red switches (red or black)

I'm fine with ISO or ANSI.

This is kind of the ideal layout for what I'd want.
tkl.png
tkl.png (19.19 KiB) Viewed 1902 times
http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/# ... 0029ab6138

Thanks,
-Max

User avatar
Muirium
µ

09 Aug 2014, 01:41

A left handed keyboard, eh? Take a look at this thread:

http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/lef ... t8528.html

I wonder what you're doing for arrow keys, though. Usually they're the last thing people like to chop off their custom layouts. And I don't see an Fn key for putting them on a layer, like the HHKB.

Image

Max

09 Aug 2014, 02:39

Thanks for the tip, I checked out that thread earlier the layouts there aren't exactly what I'd like. I did post on that thread showing a layout that would work for me, which I made from modifying scottc's post.

Here it is:
Spoiler:
lefty.png
lefty.png (19.58 KiB) Viewed 1861 times
Also I'd like to point out that there are arrows on the standard numpad, if you don't have numlock activated you can use the arrow keys, home, page up/down, end, and delete then if you press it you have the numbers & period.

There have been some keyboards in the past that have allowed a layout similar to what I'd like but they have always had the arrow keys etc on the right side.
Spoiler:
Aorus K7:
Image
Microsoft Sidewinder x6:
Image
Ultimately what I think I'll end up doing is; getting a 75% keyboard and modifying the case to house a number pad, and then sleeve both cables together. They would still be separate cables, I'd have two USB males at the end, but they wouldn't move around.

So I'm thinking a keyboard like KBT race II, and a Keycool numpad. I can get Cherry Mx reds on both and the KBT race II is supposed to have a 1000hz polling rate. Although it looks like both are discontinued/out of stock at the moment, so I'm not entirely sure what to do. Do you know of some numpads with Mx reds and/or some 75% keyboards with Mx reds and a 1ms/1000Hz polling rate?

User avatar
Muirium
µ

09 Aug 2014, 02:56

As far as I know, practically anything should have that fast a polling rate. A millisecond is a long time for a digital peripheral. My guess is that 1khz is bog standard. It's one of those things that gets slapped on a feature list for marketing reasons (Razer tends to be the worst BS merchants for all that) just to seem like an exclusive feature that others lack. Wireless keyboards will dial down the matrix refresh rate when they don't detect activity for a while, for power saving reasons. But wired keyboards all work at a fixed speed. I don't know for sure, but I expect this is right around 1khz for everybody.

MX reds are fairly ubiquitous these days. Typically what you wind up paying for are build quality and caps.

User avatar
Muirium
µ

09 Aug 2014, 03:03

Here we go, from the documentation for Soarer's Controller, the firmware I run on my custom 60%:
scanrate

Scan rate is set in milliseconds, in other words it's actually the interval between scans.
The default is 1ms, giving a scan rate of 1000Hz.
Valid values are from 1 to 8, allowing scan rates between 1000Hz and 125Hz.
There's little reason to change this unless scanning is unreliable, or you need to extend the debounce time.
1000 Hz is quite easy to achieve, even for us home builders.

Max

09 Aug 2014, 03:36

Muirium wrote: Here we go, from the documentation for Soarer's Controller, the firmware I run on my custom 60%:
scanrate

Scan rate is set in milliseconds, in other words it's actually the interval between scans.
The default is 1ms, giving a scan rate of 1000Hz.
Valid values are from 1 to 8, allowing scan rates between 1000Hz and 125Hz.
There's little reason to change this unless scanning is unreliable, or you need to extend the debounce time.
1000 Hz is quite easy to achieve, even for us home builders.
That's nice to see. I know that a lot of mice have issues when their polling rate is at 1000Hz, but if the default is 1000Hz on keyboards I'd guess that they've sorted out the kinks.

So what are some 75% keyboard with red switches?
Who are some numpad manufacturers with red or black switches?

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