Keycaps and Final Assembly

Keep in mind that Ducky sent over a green version of the ProjectD Outlaw 65 kit compared to the standard black or silver it's currently sold in. Then there's also the part where Ducky sells a lot of keycap sets but nothing in green yet. As such, I wasn't surprised to see a keycap set in the box which wasn't necessarily going to match the rest of the keyboard. I could have gone for a green set used before but figured I might as well show off what Ducky sent. This is the Horizon keycap set in Cherry profile—further fitting given the switches before. This set has 133 keycaps made of thick PBT plastic and with doubleshot (triple-shot, in fact) injected legends. This allows for brighter colors and three different colors too, thus allowing for a wide selection of keycaps for different keyboard layouts while retaining the durability and longevity of the keycaps and legends alike. There are also a few accent/novelty keycaps to choose from but note that the keycaps are opaque as a deliberate design choice. On the plus side, you do get a nice keycap puller included in the set to go with the switch remover tool provided with the keyboard kit.


Installing the keycaps was simple enough and here too Ducky helps by printing the standard and Fn key layers in the manual so you know exactly what four keys were used by default on the right-most column—Delete, Page Up, Page Down, End. This is a decent combination although I would probably go with Print Screen, Page Up, Page Down, Delete myself. Not that it matters much since it can be re-programmed anyway as we shall see below. Seen above is how the keycaps, switches, and the ProjectD Outlaw 65 kit look when everything is put together. Ducky also sent over one of its aftermarket coiled and split USB cables so I decided to use this cable for the photos and testing rather than the one which ships with the kit which I separately verified as working fine. You just need a working USB 2.0 (USB 3.2 Gen 1) connection from your PC which is easy enough.



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. Putting the entire keyboard together took ~75 minutes even while taking photos at each stage and I dare say the average reader here will have no problems doing so either. Just follow the easy instructions and don't rush. 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 new Cherry MX2A Red RGB is the best Cherry switch I have used to date. It's still not my favorite linear switch though with some Kailh and Gateron versions already besting it in terms of smoothness, let alone more aftermarket/custom offerings. Cherry has done a good job in making for a highly stable switch though, so while it's still somewhat scratchy at times it's not wobbly at all and you are guaranteed to have tighter tolerances when it comes to switch actuation and the spring weight itself. It's otherwise the same as the medium force MX Red from before with a rated 45 cN actuation force at 2 mm and a 4 mm total travel distance. You can train yourself to not bottom out but chances are you will end up doing so anyway. This is where the keyboard kit comes in with its plate, gaskets, and multiple foam sheets. 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 FR4 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 LEDs on the PCB which light up immediately when connected, although the opaque keycaps used here means they are limited to being more for accent lighting than backlighting. 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.


Knowing that the kit supported open-source firmware thanks to that USB microcontroller on the PCB, I decided to open up VIA and it immediately recognized the keyboard once I provided access. The video above also quickly walks through using the ProjectD Outlaw 65 with VIA, including with the various layers on offer as well as the extensive key mapping options. You can choose to have different layers with various functions of your choice thus, including volume and media playback controls, macros, or program shortcuts. You can also choose to have onboard control over various pre-programmed lighting effects. Once you've finalized the key map, simply save to the keyboard and that's it. You don't need to have any software running in the background as with most other mainstream keyboards today.


In case you did want to play around with the LEDs and see how they perform, here's a photo and video showing the keyboard as I've assembled it. The LEDs are bright enough and you could always go with backlit keycaps if you want a fancier light show. A lot of premium keycaps these days go for more vivid base colors rather than relying on LEDs for backlighting, so your options may be limited if you go for a different colored kit other than the safer black option.

The Ducky ProjectD Outlaw 65 is 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 plates and gasket styles. It's not as customizable as, say, the Wind Sin65, but you do get a much easier installation and a great assembly manual which makes this far more accessible for someone who has never done this before. The end result is also a cool looking keyboard which you can then use with the switches and keycaps of your choosing and don't forget the LEDs on board too. Open-source firmware support is also a must-have for the target audience and Ducky does not disappoint. In a way I do see ProjectD as Ducky showing what it can do and I would like to think the less expensive Tinker65 keyboards would also be worth considering for those on a more limited budget. As it stands, the Outlaw 65 kit costs $299 from authorized retailers listed here, including Mechanicalkeyboards.com in the USA where it's available in black or silver colors as of the date of this article. This isn't a kit for everyone given the pricing, let alone the part where you have to first assemble the kit yourself, but for those who want a project for a Sunday afternoon, for example, this is well worth looking at.