**Customizing My Dream Keyboard: The Con 165 Build**

As I began working on my dream keyboard, the Con 165, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and anticipation. This build was going to be special, with custom ice cream switches that I had been eyeing for some time now. "The color matching underneath the keycaps as it is to me this is what I go for with builds even though no one's gonna see you know the the color matching underneath the keycaps aesthetically this is what i strive for," I thought to myself as I carefully selected each component.

Snap Back onto Magnetic Top

As I began assembling my keyboard, I realized that I didn't need any additional parts. "Just snap back on the magnetic top and just like that we are almost done." The ice cream switches seemed to be fitting perfectly into place, but I couldn't help but feel a sense of satisfaction with how everything was coming together. "But man it is looking nice the white the brass the color of our ice cream switches aesthetically this is what i go for with builds even though no one's gonna see you know."

Keycap Selection

For my keycaps, I had chosen the GMK Botanical set. This set caught my eye due to its unique and soothing design. "I think this is one set that came out really really good and looks as good as the renders which is often you know an issue when it comes to keycaps not looking like the renders but here the colors they're like a cooler green i really like the tones it's not like a bright green in your face here just nice and minimal and again it just fits the whole vibe and theme of the actual con 165 itself." The keycap set was a perfect fit for my keyboard, and I couldn't wait to see them in action.

Stabilizers

Next, I needed to address the stabilizers. I had chosen custom lubricated Everglide switches, which provided an exceptionally smooth typing experience. "For the people who may not be too familiar with the custom keyboard community is yes lubed linear switches are not going to sound the same as lubed tactile switches they're two very different things and yes they're not going to be audibly as satisfying to you that's because there is no slight bump these are linear not tactile." I was particularly excited about the smoothness of the switches, which felt "hands down the smoothest switch i have ever felt."

The Brass Plate

One component that raised some concern during assembly was the brass plate. I worried that it might deaden the sound of the switches, but in reality, it worked beautifully to maintain a consistent and satisfying typing experience. "A lot of things are going to play into sound tests you know obviously if i had like an sa key cap set on here they would be a lot uh thakier and a bit of a higher pitched response as the keycaps you know bounced off that brass plate." I was thrilled with how everything came together.

The Cable

Finally, it was time to add the finishing touches. I opted for a simple white custom coil cable from Glorious, which complemented the overall aesthetic of my keyboard perfectly. "I just wanted it to you know fit the theme like i said before uh but yeah very simple very nice and very different than any keyboard i feel like i built in the past." This was just one aspect of what made this build truly special.

The Final Product

As I stepped back to admire my handiwork, I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and satisfaction. The Con 165 was complete, with its custom ice cream switches, brass plate, and GMK Botanical keycap set. "Not only do these sound super good to me but they feel just super silky buttery smooth with these custom ice cream switches." This build was truly one-of-a-kind, and I couldn't wait to share it with the world.

Conclusion

As I wrapped up my video of the Con 165 build, I couldn't help but feel grateful for the freedom and flexibility that comes with building a custom keyboard. "Lots and lots of freedom flexibility and options so guys that'll wrap it up for my video of the con 165 hope you enjoyed if you want to see more builds let me know i got a lot of stuff in this past week so probably going to be some more builds on the horizon." If you're interested in building your own custom keyboard, I encourage you to give it a try. With the right components and a bit of creativity, the possibilities are endless.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up guys i'm random frank p and it's been a minute since our last custom keyboard build so today i'm gonna bring you through my nice botanical themed con165 from kinda keyboards con one not conan really loving the final result here just really nice and sleek all around so i'll bring you through the whole build process today kick back and chill for a bit and that's exactly what i'm going to be doing because usually you know i write a nice script i got it all worked out and i just record it when i'm doing my on-cam stuff but today i'm kicking back at the pc just doing a good old-fashioned voice over bringing you through the con 165 build so first off as you can see this is all our components and i'm just really liking the angular edges to the con one like it's not really something you see too often it's like a lot of keyboards nowadays are more like rounded uh but yet i really like the aggressiveness to this really unique design language so taking a look at it 65 percent build you got a nice brass plate on the inside the entire case is all aluminum has a nice five degree typing angle but one of the more interesting things this keyboard does versus other keyboards that i've built in the past is it uses this really unique magnetic mounting system where the top and bottom housing of the aluminum case are held together by just six magnets and you'll see when i pop them off here just those six have a really strong and you know ample clamping force to keep them together this also makes it really quick and easy if i want to pop off the top plate again again versus something like screwing in numerous screws however the brass plate is mounted to the bottom of the housing so it is a bottom mount case so we'll get all eight of these out and then we can begin to kick off our build but first let me strap on these bad boys so yeah i did pick up some white gloves mainly because i wanted to properly handle the brass plate i wanted to avoid patina which is not a tasty tropical fruit you know i don't want there to be any long-term corrosion lots of like smudges and oils from my fingerprints and stuff so using the white gloves for this and here is our pcb uh not hot swaps we will have to solder the switches in that's gonna be better for durability and stuff switches won't come loose so often bust out the soldering iron but next is our switches as you can see i have two different ones here with everglide aqua king switches and novel keys cream switches why do we have two because i'm going to be combining them and making our own specialty ice cream switch and this is known as a frankenswitch and how do we make them well when two switches love each other very very much now this process unfortunately takes a lot longer than just two minutes so what we have to do is take apart our everglide aqua king switches and our novel keys cream switches what we're gonna do is use the aqua king housing and just the stem from our novelty's cream switches that is gonna make our ice cream switch and i got the idea from kyle from too much tech shout out to him and by far like my aqua king switches that i've used in the past they are factory lubed and they are just very smooth as it is so you combine them with the stem from the very popular novel keys cream switch that when lubed and broken in also extremely linear here the love child it's just gonna be delicious so when i broke them all apart and obviously it took twice as long because it's two different switches i lubed them with tribosis 3204 and as i said aqua kings are already factory lubed so i applied an extremely minimal coating on the inside more so just making sure that the 3204 was just you know coated evenly but lightly on the inside of the housings here and same thing for our stem went through on all four sides nice light even coats and a little bit on the little thingy underneath because the cream stem is palm and then the housing for everglad switches is polycarbonate so having that lack of friction with the lube here this is going to make it even smoother in the end especially when you break them in over time this franken switch is going to be pretty costly because you're buying two different switches here but i think it's worth it once they're all tediously put back together since this is a bottom mount case i was slightly concerned with the just strictly brass on aluminum contact here with how it's mounted so i wanted to think of some way to i guess pad that and that's when i came up with this silicone door guard strip so you put this on the bottom of like a door to like prevent like drafts going underneath the door i figured this would be the perfect sort of thing because it's thin enough but also the silicone will do a good job of dampening i figured this would be a good little fit so i put them right around the top and bottom just for the brass to sit on so next step is getting the pcb ready and applying the band-aid mod to our pcb for the stabilizers and i never use a band-aid i'm always one to use a medical tape because it does the same thing and it's just easier to do same padding effect and i used some gs1 grease from kinetic labs i never used it before but i figured for my stabilizers i'll use that to lube them and the stabs themselves are screw in from everglyde they're nice and clear with the gold bar and then i also use dielectric grease on the actual bar itself and then pop them all in screw them all down and then it's time for the more boring aspect of the build which is the soldering i first put in the switch for each of the stabilizers and then i have a switch in each corner so i can start to solder them down just to get that solid contact point of the pcb and the actual plate creates that nice sandwich so it's not coming loose and i gotta say i absolutely despise these gloves all the metal pins on the bottom of the pcb were getting stuck in the gloves and it was pulling at them and they're a hassle all right let's fast forward through the soldering you don't care all right now it's already time for reassembly and since the entire case is pretty much hollow i wanted to fill it with polyfill probably fill is that stuff you see in your floor when you have a dog because they strut their toys and this gets everywhere but then we clean it up and we buy more toys because we love them but yes polyfill because i use a little bit for this build and i feel like this is more of like a recent trend i've been seeing it a lot on reddit lately picked up a massive bag on amazon for like eight bucks and i wanted to use this instead of like a foam pad or a silicone pad underneath only because with our plate being brass i didn't want to deaden the overall sound and characteristics of the keyboard too much that's what i kind of figured it would do so only use a little bit of the polyfill just to sort of absorb just a slight little bit of the hollowness of the aluminum and yes you can know i ditched those stupid-ass gloves man they were annoying now we're gonna reapply our screws but i'm not gonna do all eight again i'm just gonna do the outer four so i'm leaving the center four out again it's brass it's a stiffer plate don't really feel we need them just snap back on the magnetic top and just like that we are almost done but man it is looking nice the white the brass the color of our ice cream switches aesthetically this is what i go for this is what i strive for with builds even though no one's gonna see you know the the color matching underneath the keycaps as it is to me this is tops looking real nice i got a fever and the only prescription is more ice cream switches now rounding out our build lastly we're going to be putting on our keycaps gmk botanical as i said before and i think this is one set that came out really really good and looks as good as the renders which is often you know an issue when it comes to keycaps not looking like the renders but here the colors they're like a cooler green i really like the tones it's not like a bright green in your face here just nice and minimal and again it just fits the whole vibe and theme of the actual con 165 itself but of the overall build so really loving this keycap set also just want to go through real quick with some paper straighten our rows make sure they're all aligned and not you know looking all wonky then voila looking real nice we still have one last piece and that is yes the escape key i'm going with an artisan from dwarf factory and that's going to be this nice little succulent keycap i think they got this on drop they have a ton of stuff like this on drop right now and i just figured you know with a botanical set it would be a nice little you know accent piece it's nothing too crazy or obnoxious it's a nice little artisan always like adding these to the build all right i'll shut up now enjoy the final product oh yeah that's the stuff so not only do these sound super good to me but they feel just super silky buttery smooth with these custom ice cream switches and one thing i feel like i have to reiterate a lot of times when i do these custom keyboard builds also for the people who may not be too familiar with the custom keyboard community is yes lubed linear switches are not going to sound the same as lubed tactile switches they're two very different things and yes they're not going to be audibly as satisfying to you that's because there is no slight bump these are linear not tactile and every time i do these videos i see people asking why they don't sound tactile and it's like because it's a linear switch so obviously it's not going to sound like that but to me what's more important 95 of the time um is how they feel yeah sound is obviously a big component but when you're typing on them you want them to feel super good that's why i've always loved the linears especially a custom switch like this that is just hands down the smoothest switch i have ever felt and i think the ice cream variation here is definitely worth it to make that franken switch but super super impressive how they feel and i will say i was kind of worried that the brass plate would sort of you know deaden a lot of that sound but i feel like it did a really good job of keeping that smooth profile and yes a lot of things are going to play into sound tests you know obviously if i had like an sa key cap set on here they would be a lot uh thakier and a bit of a higher pitched response as the keycaps you know bounced off that brass plate but for me with this keycap set really no complaints and the one thing i did notice was the consistency of the switches in their sound profile across the entire board and for the stabilizers also very smooth extremely minimal rattle very happy with my tuning on these stabilizers really really loving this build quick recap for you guys con 165 gmk botanical our frankenswitch with the ice cream switches brass plate custom lubed everglide switches inside and the cable that i used was honestly just one of the white custom coil cables from glorious because you know i just wanted it to you know fit the theme like i said before uh but yeah very simple very nice and very different than any keyboard i feel like i built in the past that's why i like doing this that's why i like the whole custom keyboard community lots and lots of freedom flexibility and options so guys that'll wrap it up for my video of the con 165 hope you enjoyed if you want to see more builds let me know i got a lot of stuff in this past week so probably going to be some more builds on the horizon if you like this one give it a big thumbs up show your support feel free to follow me on twitter at randomfrankp at last if you haven't already hit that subscribe button hope you all enjoyed have a good daywhat's up guys i'm random frank p and it's been a minute since our last custom keyboard build so today i'm gonna bring you through my nice botanical themed con165 from kinda keyboards con one not conan really loving the final result here just really nice and sleek all around so i'll bring you through the whole build process today kick back and chill for a bit and that's exactly what i'm going to be doing because usually you know i write a nice script i got it all worked out and i just record it when i'm doing my on-cam stuff but today i'm kicking back at the pc just doing a good old-fashioned voice over bringing you through the con 165 build so first off as you can see this is all our components and i'm just really liking the angular edges to the con one like it's not really something you see too often it's like a lot of keyboards nowadays are more like rounded uh but yet i really like the aggressiveness to this really unique design language so taking a look at it 65 percent build you got a nice brass plate on the inside the entire case is all aluminum has a nice five degree typing angle but one of the more interesting things this keyboard does versus other keyboards that i've built in the past is it uses this really unique magnetic mounting system where the top and bottom housing of the aluminum case are held together by just six magnets and you'll see when i pop them off here just those six have a really strong and you know ample clamping force to keep them together this also makes it really quick and easy if i want to pop off the top plate again again versus something like screwing in numerous screws however the brass plate is mounted to the bottom of the housing so it is a bottom mount case so we'll get all eight of these out and then we can begin to kick off our build but first let me strap on these bad boys so yeah i did pick up some white gloves mainly because i wanted to properly handle the brass plate i wanted to avoid patina which is not a tasty tropical fruit you know i don't want there to be any long-term corrosion lots of like smudges and oils from my fingerprints and stuff so using the white gloves for this and here is our pcb uh not hot swaps we will have to solder the switches in that's gonna be better for durability and stuff switches won't come loose so often bust out the soldering iron but next is our switches as you can see i have two different ones here with everglide aqua king switches and novel keys cream switches why do we have two because i'm going to be combining them and making our own specialty ice cream switch and this is known as a frankenswitch and how do we make them well when two switches love each other very very much now this process unfortunately takes a lot longer than just two minutes so what we have to do is take apart our everglide aqua king switches and our novel keys cream switches what we're gonna do is use the aqua king housing and just the stem from our novelty's cream switches that is gonna make our ice cream switch and i got the idea from kyle from too much tech shout out to him and by far like my aqua king switches that i've used in the past they are factory lubed and they are just very smooth as it is so you combine them with the stem from the very popular novel keys cream switch that when lubed and broken in also extremely linear here the love child it's just gonna be delicious so when i broke them all apart and obviously it took twice as long because it's two different switches i lubed them with tribosis 3204 and as i said aqua kings are already factory lubed so i applied an extremely minimal coating on the inside more so just making sure that the 3204 was just you know coated evenly but lightly on the inside of the housings here and same thing for our stem went through on all four sides nice light even coats and a little bit on the little thingy underneath because the cream stem is palm and then the housing for everglad switches is polycarbonate so having that lack of friction with the lube here this is going to make it even smoother in the end especially when you break them in over time this franken switch is going to be pretty costly because you're buying two different switches here but i think it's worth it once they're all tediously put back together since this is a bottom mount case i was slightly concerned with the just strictly brass on aluminum contact here with how it's mounted so i wanted to think of some way to i guess pad that and that's when i came up with this silicone door guard strip so you put this on the bottom of like a door to like prevent like drafts going underneath the door i figured this would be the perfect sort of thing because it's thin enough but also the silicone will do a good job of dampening i figured this would be a good little fit so i put them right around the top and bottom just for the brass to sit on so next step is getting the pcb ready and applying the band-aid mod to our pcb for the stabilizers and i never use a band-aid i'm always one to use a medical tape because it does the same thing and it's just easier to do same padding effect and i used some gs1 grease from kinetic labs i never used it before but i figured for my stabilizers i'll use that to lube them and the stabs themselves are screw in from everglyde they're nice and clear with the gold bar and then i also use dielectric grease on the actual bar itself and then pop them all in screw them all down and then it's time for the more boring aspect of the build which is the soldering i first put in the switch for each of the stabilizers and then i have a switch in each corner so i can start to solder them down just to get that solid contact point of the pcb and the actual plate creates that nice sandwich so it's not coming loose and i gotta say i absolutely despise these gloves all the metal pins on the bottom of the pcb were getting stuck in the gloves and it was pulling at them and they're a hassle all right let's fast forward through the soldering you don't care all right now it's already time for reassembly and since the entire case is pretty much hollow i wanted to fill it with polyfill probably fill is that stuff you see in your floor when you have a dog because they strut their toys and this gets everywhere but then we clean it up and we buy more toys because we love them but yes polyfill because i use a little bit for this build and i feel like this is more of like a recent trend i've been seeing it a lot on reddit lately picked up a massive bag on amazon for like eight bucks and i wanted to use this instead of like a foam pad or a silicone pad underneath only because with our plate being brass i didn't want to deaden the overall sound and characteristics of the keyboard too much that's what i kind of figured it would do so only use a little bit of the polyfill just to sort of absorb just a slight little bit of the hollowness of the aluminum and yes you can know i ditched those stupid-ass gloves man they were annoying now we're gonna reapply our screws but i'm not gonna do all eight again i'm just gonna do the outer four so i'm leaving the center four out again it's brass it's a stiffer plate don't really feel we need them just snap back on the magnetic top and just like that we are almost done but man it is looking nice the white the brass the color of our ice cream switches aesthetically this is what i go for this is what i strive for with builds even though no one's gonna see you know the the color matching underneath the keycaps as it is to me this is tops looking real nice i got a fever and the only prescription is more ice cream switches now rounding out our build lastly we're going to be putting on our keycaps gmk botanical as i said before and i think this is one set that came out really really good and looks as good as the renders which is often you know an issue when it comes to keycaps not looking like the renders but here the colors they're like a cooler green i really like the tones it's not like a bright green in your face here just nice and minimal and again it just fits the whole vibe and theme of the actual con 165 itself but of the overall build so really loving this keycap set also just want to go through real quick with some paper straighten our rows make sure they're all aligned and not you know looking all wonky then voila looking real nice we still have one last piece and that is yes the escape key i'm going with an artisan from dwarf factory and that's going to be this nice little succulent keycap i think they got this on drop they have a ton of stuff like this on drop right now and i just figured you know with a botanical set it would be a nice little you know accent piece it's nothing too crazy or obnoxious it's a nice little artisan always like adding these to the build all right i'll shut up now enjoy the final product oh yeah that's the stuff so not only do these sound super good to me but they feel just super silky buttery smooth with these custom ice cream switches and one thing i feel like i have to reiterate a lot of times when i do these custom keyboard builds also for the people who may not be too familiar with the custom keyboard community is yes lubed linear switches are not going to sound the same as lubed tactile switches they're two very different things and yes they're not going to be audibly as satisfying to you that's because there is no slight bump these are linear not tactile and every time i do these videos i see people asking why they don't sound tactile and it's like because it's a linear switch so obviously it's not going to sound like that but to me what's more important 95 of the time um is how they feel yeah sound is obviously a big component but when you're typing on them you want them to feel super good that's why i've always loved the linears especially a custom switch like this that is just hands down the smoothest switch i have ever felt and i think the ice cream variation here is definitely worth it to make that franken switch but super super impressive how they feel and i will say i was kind of worried that the brass plate would sort of you know deaden a lot of that sound but i feel like it did a really good job of keeping that smooth profile and yes a lot of things are going to play into sound tests you know obviously if i had like an sa key cap set on here they would be a lot uh thakier and a bit of a higher pitched response as the keycaps you know bounced off that brass plate but for me with this keycap set really no complaints and the one thing i did notice was the consistency of the switches in their sound profile across the entire board and for the stabilizers also very smooth extremely minimal rattle very happy with my tuning on these stabilizers really really loving this build quick recap for you guys con 165 gmk botanical our frankenswitch with the ice cream switches brass plate custom lubed everglide switches inside and the cable that i used was honestly just one of the white custom coil cables from glorious because you know i just wanted it to you know fit the theme like i said before uh but yeah very simple very nice and very different than any keyboard i feel like i built in the past that's why i like doing this that's why i like the whole custom keyboard community lots and lots of freedom flexibility and options so guys that'll wrap it up for my video of the con 165 hope you enjoyed if you want to see more builds let me know i got a lot of stuff in this past week so probably going to be some more builds on the horizon if you like this one give it a big thumbs up show your support feel free to follow me on twitter at randomfrankp at last if you haven't already hit that subscribe button hope you all enjoyed have a good day\n"