Building a Tokyo60 from Drop.com

Finished Tokyo60 build

Another HHKB build, because the Drop Tokyo60 keyboard kit in the  Slate colorway was on sale. (I would have loved to have gotten Black, but it was out of stock.) Now I have a HHKB at home and at the office.

I added on the acrylic diffuser panel (and picked another one up for my prior Tokyo60 build), which Drop sells as an add-on for this kit. Drop states it “can be positioned on the bottom or between the aluminum pieces.”

Screenshot: the diffuser add-on for Tokyo60

Screenshot: the diffuser can be sandwiched

However, the screws that come with the kit aren’t long enough to go through both the aluminum bottom plate and the acrylic diffuser, which Joseph from Drop Community Support confirmed when I emailed them: “If you wish to use the difuser between the plates then you will need to provide the screws that are a tad longer than what comes with the kit.” Wow. Okay. These M3x10mm screws should work, but really, Drop should bundle the longer screws either with the keyboard kit, or with the optional diffuser.

So I’m just using it without the bottom plate for now. I first lubed the stabilizers with Krytox GPL-205 Grade 0 (205g0) Keyboard Linear Switch Grease using a Glorious Lube Brush:

Lubing the stabilizers with 205g0 and a Glorious brush

 

Then I assembled the board. I’m currently using mostly Rose Glacier switches, though I stuck in a few switch tester switches for some more commonly used letters, to try to get a feel for them in real world use (Zealio V2 67g [e], Holy Panda 67g [r], Gazzew U4T RGB 65g [t], Zilent V2 67g [i], Boba U4 68g [o]):

Assembling the keyboard with switches

With a nod to the Apple IIe I spent formative years hacking on, I wanted to try something different, and ordered the DROP + Matt3o MT3 Susuwatari set:

Drop’s keycap contents explanation image showing the keycaps from the full set

The only thing I kinda wish it had was monochrome shift/fn caps in the right sizes, and 1U “Alt” key modifiers (or Option, or ⌥). (The ⌘ symbol would be nice to have, too, but pretty rare.)

So far I’m liking this thing a lot. I’d kind of forgotten what it was like to type on these chonky old style keys (which continued on into college, with the DEC VT220 terminals we were still using in college). I may build a third HHKB layout (this, plus the Coyote, plus maybe a D60 Lite with this keycap set and Zealios (?) or Cherry MX Clear (?) switches...?).

Especially with the /dev/tty (MT3) profile keycaps, I the angle of this, stock, is a bit weird for me. So like with my “Coyote” Tokyo60, I’m adding keyboard riser feet.

Note: To determine if a keycap set is HHKB-layout compatible (make sure to look for MX switch compatibility if you’re (likely) using those switches, vs. the Topre switches in an actual HHKB), you’ll need to look for (1U etc. spec, roughly 19mm):

R1 keys: [Esc] [ |\ ] [ ~` ]
R2 keys: [ Backspace ]
R3 keys: [ Control ]
R4 keys: [ Shift ]() [ Fn ](1U) [ Alt/Option](1U)(x2) [ Command ](2U)(x2) [ Space ](7U)

Tokyo60 build from the top

Tokyo60 build from the side showing keycap profiles