Long lead times are no surprise to anybody enjoying the keyboard hobby, and the build for my personal M60-A took quite a while to come to fruition. Part of the build delay was a result of manufacturing wait times, the other part was extreme procrastination on my end to get everything unboxed and started.
Board — M60-A Olivia Edition, purchased at RAMA WORKS
The M60-A is one of the first boards I had my eye on when I started looking at keyboards. I hadn’t tried putting a hotswap PCB build together before, so this was a nice, easy way to give it a shot in the 60% format. RAMA does a great job with packaging and presentation, and though the M60-A is far from what many would consider a “luxurious” board, the experience of receiving and opening this box was very enjoyable.
The Olivia edition is a unique colorway of the M60-A that’s been styled to compliment Olivia’s iconic GMK Olivia set. A gray-colored “Moon” aluminum base accompanied by a rose gold “hihihi” backplate is such a satisfying combination for this board.
The M60-A also has a spot inside the board for an 800g-ish internal weight or an internal dampener to absorb some of the sound. I won’t be trying those today in this build, but definitely will for future RAMA builds.
Switches — Silent Alpacas, purchased at Prime Keyboards (modded with Krytox 205g0 and TX Switch Films)
Another silent linear switch option for me in this build. This time I opted to stick with the default manufacturer’s springs, which is a 62g gold plated spring. I’m far from a switch expert, but having gone through three different silent switches, the Silent Alpacas don’t feel too different from Roselios (in my Bauer build) or Silent Inks (which I’ve been using thoroughly for the past few months).
I won’t lie and say that color scheme didn’t play a part in choosing this switch for this particular build, because it absolutely did. The pink stem was based on Minterly’s SA Bliss keyset, which is a rosy pink that paired nicely to the Olivia rose gold in my eyes.
Switch lubing was a straightforward, yet tediously long process for me. I divided the lube job over a few days, though I did re-watch a few YT videos from Taeha to ensure I remembered the process. It had definitely been an extended period of time since I last lubed switches — I blame being a two-time parent! I found myself applying a *touch* more lube than I usually do, and I’ve been happy with the results thus far.
Switch films were an addition I hadn’t planned on doing, however a quick search on Silent Alpacas led me to a post cijanzen made on keebtalk, which recommended switch films for the switch wobble. One line that stuck out to me from his post: “They really do go from one of the worst to one of the best switches with just one modification.” I’m happy to report that he’s been absolutely right, in my experience.
Stabilizers — TKCxNK_Olivia++ Stabilizer Kit, purchased at Novelkeys (modded with Krytox 205g0)
These stabs are different than the other stabs I used in my first two builds. As a limited edition colorway of the C3-screw ins, this particular set of stabs are not translucent, so lubing was a little bit of a challenge. I ditched the dielectric grease this go around and stuck with 205g0 to try it out, and I found it a lot easier to manage overall when applying onto the housings + wires. Another helpful video from Taeha helped ensure I was doing an adequate lube job, and as a result I haven’t had any stabilizer ticking (yet!) on the modifiers + space bars.
Keycaps — GMK Oliva++ Light base kit (purchased from NovelKeys)
Although far from being the first keyset in my hands, GMK Oliva++ was actually the first set I ever ordered in group buy. Purchased back on 30 Nov 2019 from NK, this set was what initially attracted me to the custom keyboard hobby.
Time to Build
The build was a lot simpler than my last build, as I wanted to try out a hotswap PCB for the first time. The M60-A PCB is thankfully very easy to work with. It looks quite amazing and Wilba did a great job designing this one from an aesthetic point of view.
Testing the hotswap PCB proved much tougher than usual, for some reason. I want to say that the hotswap sockets were angled in such a way that made it difficult for me to trigger a keystroke with my particular tweezers in VIA. After going through about 1/3 of the keys, I stopped testing because I felt like I was pushing too far inside the hotswap sockets and was risking damage to the PCB. Luckily, I had no issues with the PCB once the build was completed, but proceeding with a build without testing the PCB is hardly ideal.
As expected, switch lubing + filming took the majority of prep time with this build. I broke up the lube job in increments of 20 or so over a few nights, as to not marathon through it and fatigue myself. One benefit to that process was that it was much more manageable to lube 70 switches when broken up, but one con was I definitely worried about my consistency from night-to-night. I think by the end of the 3rd night, I decided to tough it out and lubed all remaining switches while I had Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones going in the background.
Once finished, I lubed the stabs and installed those on the PCB first. It was a little tough to screw on, especially with the small rubber o-rings, but I eventually got there. After getting the stabs attached to the PCB, I screwed the PCB to the M60-A case, as there is a built-in plate where the switches fit on.
Popping in the Silent Alpacas was easy enough. After testing in VIA, I did have to remove a few and fix some of the pins — I was carelessly inserting them and ended up bending pins on 5 or so switches.
Once the switches were tested, I opened up the GMK Olivia++ set and threw it on the M60-A. There’s something about minty fresh keycaps that just makes the typing experience that much more satisfying. As the keyboard was made specifically with this keyset in mind, it looks really amazing together.
The last part of the equation to tie the keyboard all together was a rose gold aviator + black coiled cable. Although I now prefer straight cables, this one isn’t too bad and was made specifically for this set, so I had to give it a chance.
I compiled a small bit of data to see how long it took for the actual parts of this build to arrive. A big part of the delay in building a keyboard is usually the long wait times the GB-model takes. Here’s an example of the turnaround time for this specific M60-A Olivia build:
Although GMK Olivia++ was the first item I ordered and took nearly a year to arrive, it was actually the RAMA board itself that took the longest to get delivered. The stabilizers were also a pre-order and took the shortest amount of time to be manufactured and shipped out. The switches were an in-stock purchase so turnaround was minimal and negligible in the grand scheme of things.
One thing to note is that the dates themselves may be misleading, as the order dates aren’t always reflective of when the manufacturing actually happens. Personally, I don’t mind waiting for GB purchases to come in since I’m in no rush, but looking at these dates shows just how far the hobby has to go in order to reach shorter timelines for new enthusiasts.
Overall, this was a pretty simple build. With no separate plate to install and no soldering to perform, the actual construction of the board was done within an hour or so once all the switches/stabs were prepped. I’ve been using the board for about two weeks now and the Silent Alpacas feel pretty good — I’m pleased with the lube + film job I was able to do on these quiet switches. Stabs still feel pretty buttery and no evident ticking yet. I don’t think I have a refined enough Spidey-sense to distinguish typing feel yet, but the M60-A feels a *lot* better than the Practice65, but not quite as nice/luxurious as the Bauer.
Finally, here a few shots of the completed build:
I’m excited to tackle my keyboard backlog again, as I still have a few more boards + macropads to get around to. Hoping to keep myself accountable and get the next build project going soon enough!
If you got all the way to the end of this blog post, thank you! I still have a ton of games I still need to finish in my FF Platinum playthroughs — I can’t seem to finish up FFX no matter how hard I try — but I hope to find time to do those + more fun reviews, all while juggling work, wife-time, and the two kiddos.
