U80-A Buying Guide
Confused about what to order or what you will need to build a complete RW U80-A keyboard? This guide is designed to help!
U80-A LAKE with GMK Nautilus
The Base Kit
This is what you absolutely need to get started, here’s the link: https://ramaworks.store/products/u80-a-seq2
The most complicated part here is picking which color!
Here is everything that the base kit arrives with:
Here’s what the U80-A base kit looks like once assembled:
The PCB has been placed inside for demonstration (note that you’ll have to install the stabilisers prior to installing the PCB)
Part 1 - Switches
This is a very personal choice, there’s a wide range of switches out there which can make choosing tough. There are quiet switches, loud switches, clicky switches, smooth switches - all kinds! The best way to hone in what you like is to try lots of different types of keyboards with varying switches, and best place to do this is at keyboard meetups. But this can be tricky to organise, or may not play into the right time for when you want your keyboard out on your desk - so you can also buy switch-tester kits, a few different places sell these these - here's a list of great places to get them:
US: https://rama.link/us-switchtester
EU: https://rama.link/eu-switchtester
ASIA: https://rama.link/asia-switchtester
Once you have selected which type of switch you, you can buy them from:
US: https://rama.link/us-switches
EU: https://rama.link/eu-switches
ASIA: https://rama.link/asia-switches
AU: https://rama.link/au-switches
Now this all may be really daunting to some, so we’ve made it simple and offered a solution. We created a kit of switches we’ve tried, loved and tested. These are well suited for the U80-A given their smooth and linear nature and think most will enjoy typing on these! The kit also includes the correct amount of stabilisers, so you can just jump straight to PART 3!
Here’s a link to the starter kit: https://rama.link/u80kit
PART 2 - STABILIsERS
For stabilisers, you’ll want PCB Screw-in. These are a type which screw-in to the PCB. Now, when they’re stock, they’re typically not so great and can create a lot of noise - but with some easy mods you can do at home they can be made nice and silent. Here’s a link to our guide on making stabilisers great: https://rama.link/stabguide
Here’s a list of where to buy them, if you are not going for our starter kit option provided above:
NOTE: You’ll need 4x2U and 1x7U
US: https://rama.link/us-stabs
AU: https://rama.link/au-stabs
ASIA: https://rama.link/asia-stabs
EU: https://rama.link/eu-stabs & https://rama.link/eu-stabs-2
PART 3 - KEYCAPS
There are a few different manufacturers of keycaps around the globe. There’s GMK in Germany, Signature Plastics in the US and ePBT in ASIA. Keycaps are typically made out of ABS & PBT. These offer different qualities to typing, but one is not definitively better than the other.
Most of the great colourful keycap sets out there are products of Keycap Groupbuys, this is when a designer or party present an idea or colourway to an audience, and the customers as a collective will fund the design to bring it to fruition - with the aid of vendors around the globe that facilitate and distribute the keysets. Some popular distributors of keysets are: NovelKeys (US), KBDfans (Asia), zFrontier (Asia), CandyKeys (EU), MyKeyboard.eu (EU) & DailyClack (AU)
You’ll need to make sure that the set you’re interested in has the below keycaps in the set, not necessarily the legends (the U80 is completely programmable so you can have each key do what you want), but the sizes:
We anticipate to be launching our KATE keycap set this year, and we look forward to releasing colourways that match this upcoming U80-A SEQ2 release (along with our previous releases and keyboard colourways). Keeping safe storage in mind - we are working on some really cool packaging concepts; which will allow you to neatly store and present your collection of keycaps. We're excited to show more over time!
For U80-A SEQ1, we offered PBT Heavy Industry.
