Introduction

Akko has been featured prominently in the first half of this year on TechPowerUp, especially as I got accustomed to the brand's more custom designs and offerings. There have been multiple Akko keyboard reviews thus, and several Akko keycap sets have been used in different Building a Keyboard articles to date, too. Akko had recently branched out into the more DIY scene with its Akko Designer Studios MOD series, and I had originally planned to do an article using one of those new DIY kits paired with all the Akko CS switches. Of course, this was before the company decided to put out far more CS switches than I could reasonably cover, and the even more DIY kits came out, too. I have three kit, switch, and keycap combinations in the works thus, but decided to start with the new Akko acrylic DIY keyboard kit, which is the latest to have come out as this is written.


The Akko DIY kits can be split into two categories at this time, with the MOD series using an aluminium case and the new ACR series using acrylic stacks. The ACR series has three members as I write this—the ACR 64 (60% form factor), ACR 67 (65%), and ACR 75 (75%) being used here. It is named differently from the others since it should have been the ACR 81 based on the number of keys, and the ACR 75 naming might indeed be an extremely recent change, too. It is available in four colors, and I chose pink as it is different from the norm and works well with the hot-off-the-presses Akko Prunus Lannesiana keycap set, which is the first ASA-Low Profile set from the brand. This combination is being paired with the new Akko CS Sponge tactile switches to make for an all Akko build.