Introduction

The "Building a Keyboard" series on TechPowerUp has been an exercise to showcase various DIY components in the world of custom keyboards, and how you can make your own from parts that come together easier than assembling a PC. The experience is not that different than with LEGOs considering the proliferation of hot-swap switch sockets, the last ten entries have been all about various enthusiast-class products that appeal from a high build quality and excellent typing feel/sound signature aspect too. Yet, the reason for going this route, as opposed to purchasing a pre-built keyboard is to also express your personality. Where else do you get the real estate to nerd out artistically on a peripheral that still ultimately has to just work? Thanks to Epomaker, we will now go through a fun keyboard build.


I am not a cat person in the slightest, free to judge me all you want. They might as well be the heralds of Lucifer, yet cats are probably the largest source of memes. Take Bongo Cat, for example, which has a fun website all to itself. Epomaker noticed a few DIY mods and keyboard cases using single-piece wood and/or acrylic, then decided there was a market for a stacked acrylic case using the same theme. The successful group buy showed end users were equally interested, and the kit is up for pre-order now, as I type this. There's also a matching keycap set released alongside using the kitty theme too! I am pairing these two entities with the recently released TTC Heart switches, that Epomaker mentioned could rival the Kailh BOX Hush/Deep Sea silent switches, these have a fun aesthetic too as you will find out over the course of the next few pages!

Epomaker Mini Cat 64 Kit: Packaging and Closer Examination

Epomaker sent over an early production run sample of the Mini Cat 64 kit, explaining why the product box is bare cardboard without any aesthetic wrap over it. Expect the final retail version to have a cat theme. Opening the box, we see the kit placed between ample bubble wrap, protecting it on the way to you. The only accessory here was the keyboard cable itself, although there may well be paperwork included with retail units. The cable here is fairly plain in white and goes from USB Type-C to Type-A for connectivity.


The Epomaker Mini Cat 64 keyboard kit may surprise you if you are new to acrylic kits, especially with its lower profile and weight. This is, at its core, a 60% kit with 64 keys supported similar to the Ajazz AC064 we saw before. The review unit is extremely hard to photograph against a white background, considering the entire chassis is white in color, so I pulled out the black sheet for contrast, to help show you the aesthetic features in the form of the bongo cat face at the top right corner. These are laser-cut acrylic sheets which come stacked and screwed together. This does mean there are four screws on the side that will always be present, I wish Epomaker selected white-painted screws instead, to blend them with the chassis. The exact design is identical to other DIY designs used for this specific theme, including the bottom side angled further as you go left to right. The finish is quite good otherwise, with a smooth finish given to the acrylic panels, that also get rounded corners.


Flipping the kit around, we see more of the translucent acrylic in play. This will no doubt make for a bright light show, especially with what appear to be several additional bottom-mounted RGB LEDs. There is a raised section at the top to add a single keyboard elevation profile here, and we also see two circular rubber pads at the top corners to prevent the acrylic from being scratched as well as to minimize the assembled keyboard from sliding around on your desk. The kit by itself comes in at 327 x 170 x 30 mm in size, and weighs under 500 g empty. I also appreciate the lack of any branding on the top with Epomaker printed on the back panel instead.


A look from the side reveals the eight acrylic panels making up the stack, these are paired with an opaque white plate, making the entire stack translucent to diffuse the LEDs for side lighting. We also see the fixed elevation step here making this a medium profile case, as well as various screws holding the kit together. A cutout on the front, facing away from the user, provides access to the Type-C port on the keyboard PCB itself. A closer look at the kit confirms the use of 5-pin hot-swap switch sockets so you don't have to clip plastic pins off 5-pin mechanical switches. There is an SMD RGB LED for backlighting in each switch socket as well. The kit also uses plate-mounted stabilizers with salmon-colored stems and the bar itself is lubed manually to assist with the up and down movement. The front plate is textured and there is foam underneath to help dampen and support keystrokes.


Further inspection is best done by disassembling the kit, achieved by removing the Phillips screws on the front and back. After, you can easily completely disassemble the kit layer by layer. I only chose to remove the four on the back beginning with the top two that remove the two smaller panels and then the bottom two screws to allow a better examination of the brass threads used here. The PCB is also white, and chock-full of components. It comes marked "Nz64 RGB Rev 1.0" for which I couldn't find any useful information with a cursory Google search, and there is no way of directly telling whether this PCB is made for the Mini Cat 64 only or not. Solder quality is exceptional; this is clearly a machine-assembled product including on the Kailh hot-swap sockets employed here. Powering the functionality of the PCB is an STM32F401CC 32-bit Arm Cortex-M4 USB microcontroller with 256 KB of onboard flash memory. There is no wireless functionality here, and the absence of dedicated LED controllers initially suggests the Mini Cat 64 is not going to be the most powerful keyboard when it comes to customization. But then we find out this kit supports VIA open-source firmware and customization, so all bets are off! As usual, all the soldered components are on a multi-layer PCB.

Epomaker Kitty Keycaps

Unlike the Epomaker Mini Cat 64 that is still in the pre-order phase, the simultaneously released Epomaker Kitty keycap set is fully released, with retail packaging. To be fair, Epomaker's fairly generic packaging here, is also found on other first-party branded keycaps. The only way to identify what item you have, without opening the box, is a sticker on the front confirming these are indeed the Epomaker Kitty keycaps made of PBT plastic and using the XDA profile. I also appreciate the handy profile guide on the back for those not familiar with XDA. Opening the box reveals two layers of keycaps placed inside plastic molded sheets that have a single lid and two rubber bands to keep them secure during transit.


I do wish the keycaps were placed in a harder case since the plastic base for each layer is flimsy and prone to having keycaps come out unintentionally, while also making it hard to get the desired ones out. That said, at least everything comes placed in a fairly logical manner whereby the first layer contains keycaps for a 75% keyboard, and the second layer has the rest, collectively making for a 138-keycap set. There are also different-sized modifiers here to allow for increased compatibility with the vast majority of keyboard layouts and form factors complying to the US ANSI language. One thing that would have made life easier for future compatibility is if Epomaker also threw in extra space bar keycaps aside from the standard 6.25u unit here, but it's a small complaint.

The theme here is obvious, with a many novelty keycaps and modifiers following the kitty theme. I like the use of white alpha keys and then a pastel pink for contrast. Both allow for the same darker legends on them, and the font size is going to be a love/hate affair given how specialized it is. The keycaps themselves are made of thick PBT plastic (1.38 mm wall thickness) with dye-sublimed legends for added longevity. The various designs for the novelties are also dye-sublimed on, and they are executed well throughout. I suppose the cat in question here is named Chi, who takes center stage given the keycaps themselves are opaque, the LEDs on the kit itself will be more used on the acrylic case for accent lighting than for backlighting.