Keycaps and Final Assembly

Knowing I had an orange keyboard kit on the way, I realized too late that I actually did not have any spare orange keycap sets. In fact, orange is one of the hardest colors to get keycaps for! It's no wonder then that Wind Studio goes for all-white keycaps in the marketing for the Sin65 in the orange color. I contacted a few people I know and one happened to have a JTKeycaps CS:GO set in orange and white that I borrowed for this article. They also sent over an all-orange set with front-facing legends, however that set was for a standard US ANSI layout and did not have modifiers in a different size as necessary for this 65% keyboard form factor. Be warned then that you may have a hard time finding keycaps for the less-common kit colors and even then the colors may not match up. This set happens to use thick ABS plastic with doubleshot injected, but opaque, legends.


Installing the keycaps was simple enough, although I did go back to the Sin65 product page to see what four keys were used by default on the right-most column. All the photos made it seem like it was Print Screen, Page Up, Page Down, and Delete. This is a decent combination but I would have liked Wind Studio to not leave any ambiguity. As it turns out, those were the keys anyway! Seen above is how the keycaps, switches, and the Wind Sin65 kit look when everything is put together. You can see how the brighter orange keycaps don't exactly match the darker, more burnt orange kit. I still quite like the looks if I say so myself, and the kit itself oozes luxury.



Using the keyboard was a real pleasure too. I had just finished testing yet another "gasket mount" keyboard with poorly implemented gaskets and isolation, so being able to do so myself with plenty of dampening all around the keyboard was quite nice to do. Putting the entire keyboard together took under an hour even while taking photos at each stage and I dare say the average reader here will have no problems doing so as long as they have all the parts necessary and have decided on which mount to go with. The typing experience and sound signature will depend heavily on how you go about assembling the kit as well as of course the switches and keycaps chosen. The CreateKeebs SOTC linear switches are excellent—high up on my preference for linear mechanical switches now—and these can be seen as a medium force linear switch similar enough to the popular Cherry MX Red. The total travel distance is slightly reduced from the usual 4 mm to 3.7 mm here but everywhere else you will notice a familiar, but smoother and more pleasant typing experience, courtesy the 48 gf actuation force at 2 mm and a 55 gf peak force—you are very likely to bottom out here. Seen above is also an example sound clip of me typing on this keyboard assembly at ~75 WPM. For context, you can find sound clips from other keyboards here, including those with linear switches. Bottoming out also helps test the efficacy of the gasket mount and how well supported your keystrokes are. Indeed, even a heavy typist will find the gaskets and the various foam sheets do an excellent job in also dampening the keystrokes and mitigating the higher frequency pings off the aluminium plate to make it one of the better typing experiences you can have.


At this point I decided to make sure the keyboard was working as intended. There are no LEDs on the PCB so the use of opaque switches and keycaps doesn't really matter in that regard. Aqua test confirmed NKRO was working as intended and, more importantly, Switch Hitter showed I had installed all the switches properly on the first go itself. This is also a testament to the high quality hot swap sockets and switches to where none of the pins bent when installing them. It also showed the exact functionality of that last column of keys on the right to be Insert, Page Up, Page Down, and Delete so I then contemplated swapping out the Print Screen keycap for Insert to keep things consistent.


Instead, I decided to take advantage of the open-source firmware on board. The wired versions of the Sin65 are compatible with QMK and VIAL so it was quite simple to just re-map Insert to Print Screen which I use more often anyway. VIAL is also quite powerful and allows you to create layers to make the most of this smaller form factor keyboard, lest you be missing out on the functionality provided by a TKL or full size unit. I do recommend taking some time to set up the keyboard to your liking but, once again, no one is realistically going to buy a premium keyboard kit such as this one without already knowing they want to use this 65% form factor for ergonomics/aesthetics/design/portability/space savings etc.

The Wind Studio Sin65 is clearly the star of today's show in being a highly customizable keyboard kit. Not only are there multiple colors to choose from, you can also opt for different PCBs and mount types in addition to assembling the kit yourself exactly how you prefer it. There is a lot to like here and I wasn't surprised to know the Sin65 wasn't an inexpensive piece of hardware either. In fact, given the state of keyboard group buys today, the current asking price of $288/308 for the wired/wireless kits in either color feels more than reasonable. This is not for someone just getting into keyboards and is closer to an end game set that you have customized to your liking. If you find the Sin65 relevant to your interests, head over to the group buy page to reserve one before it ends on October 19.