I’ve logged a couple days’ use on my keyboard so far. I’m getting comfortable with it pretty quickly, but one thing I’ve noticed since the beginning is that the homing dots (under Backspace, Space, A, F, J, and ; on QWERTY) give me a constant low-grade unpleasant sensation. It’s a bit like having a few very small rocks in my shoes and never being able to take those shoes off. I do find the homing dots super useful, so I don’t just want to go sanding them off.
Has anyone else found good ways to acclimate to these? Or does it just take longer to get used to physical changes than to layout changes?
I like them, but everyone’s senses are different. It should be straightforward to sand them down with a little file. I don’t know the depth of the black coating so I’m not sure if the LED’s would glow through once you take them down to a depth you prefer, but I modify plastics with files all the time. If you need help identifying the right tools just let me know!
The black paint and UV clearcoat are…not thick. And scraping off the clear coat is likely to start causing the paint to become less durable. You might consider instead something thin on top of the dots.
I don’t actually know what “UV-resistant clear-coat” is, but I don’t think it will. I’m willing to offer up a couple replacement keys to one person who experiments with this, if it ruins their keycaps.
happy to do the thing, and shouldn’t need replacements. I will test the back side of an inner key (eg the side of the key furthest from the palm keys) where a finish bubble will be irrelevant. I have nail polish in clear and black in my kit, so it should be a quick thing to pull a key tomorrow and test.
If it works I can test on the homing dots on the modifier keys, which I don’t care about.
Edit to add: it would be useful to know if the finish is acetone soluble. If you have a spare key, might test nail polish remover on it and see if it strips the paint.
I’ve woken op this morning wondering if some careful use of a dremel and nail polish would get me custom labels on my keycaps. I’ll break out the good camera for pics of my process and results.
I’ve found that I don’t notice the homing dots very much when I have my fingers positioned slightly higher on the keys; I have my fingers oriented in the center of the caps to position my hands properly, then when I type, I’m hitting more of the upper half of the keys.
I have a dot of clear polish drying on the back of my Q key. There are photos in the camera I’ll share once I have the process complete. So far it looks simple enough and doesn’t seem to affect the finish.
Final verdict: it did not adhere at all when dry. My dot looked like a little fish scale and fell right off when I bumped the table sitting down before I even got a photo.
No damage to the key, but also didn’t help address the problem.
I’m also finding the homing dots uncomfortable. They’re both too “sharp” and too prominently placed to be comfortable for me. Comparing them with the homing indicators on another board, they other board uses bar-style indicators much closer to the lower edge of the key.
I love these dots, I had to use my laptop keyboard recently and wondered how I ever found it tolerable! I do have some pretty amazing bass guitar perma-calluses perhaps. Is maybe a better fix to just learn to play bass guitar!?
I also find the homing dots rather sharp to the touch. Especially the pinky ones feel almost painful on my fingers.
Maybe I just need to learn to play that guitar that I’ve had sitting for 20 years to build up some calluses on them.
I really can’t stand them. My fingertips are uncomfortable for hours after using the M01. I wish they were lines at the bottom of the key, like on typical keyboards.
Does this mean that on clear keycaps, it might be ok to file? Because I can already tell those homing dots, where they are, are going to drive me nuts soon. And I have clear keycaps on order.
