I have made a mistake. A very small yet annoying mistake.

Two days ago I made a post about some Cherry profile keycaps I recently slapped on my Ergodox EZ. I had ordered them from Aliexpress and I was quite surprised by their price-to-quality ratio. They are very well made and I really like them, I think I may order another blank set or something. In that post, I detailed how I had been a loyal DSA user for quite some years, so the switch to Cherry was a quite a big leap for me. I had a thing about Cherry profile keysets when I first got into mechanical keyboards, I think in-part due to the fact that I had been so accustomed to using the Cherry profile on shitty electo-capacitive boards for so long that I associated the feeling with standard cheapness. It was hard for me to wrap my head around spending 250 bucks on a GMK set when XDAs or DSAs looked so much more comfy and unique. I’m glad to say I’m on the Cherry boat once more. Which brought me to where I am now.

I received the set of caps, pictured above, earlier on today. I was really excited for these. Back when I was a 60% user, I always wanted to get my hands on the PBT Sushi set. It looked so cool to me, and the fact that I could actually stare at my keyset and learn something new was an attraction. I’ve long since shifted to the world of split ergo boards, from the Nyquist to the Ergodox Infinity to the Erogdox EZ. I’ve tried going back but it just wasn’t happening. Evidently I had to leave my PBT Sushi dreams behind. Or so I thought… When I saw that there was a Cherry ergo set up for sale, even if it was from Choina and in a very boring colorway, I had the idea to use it as a springboard for Cherry sets I had missed out on. I bought the KDBfans Japanese Root base set so that I could combine it with the Cherry Ergo set I had already received. If this all worked out, my idea would open so many doors for possible future sets and layouts. I’m now going to explain the catch.

As depicted above, the catch was a shitty alignment of row heights. One thing that us DSA lovers don’t really have to worry about is row heights. You can pretty much place whatever you want wherever you want, and for this reason I think the DSA profile was always a natural step for Ergo modders everywhere. The funkier the layout the more you have to adapt a sculpted keyset to it. When I received the original whole set of caps, they arrived in segregated plastic chambers in a bag. It was only then that I was reminded about my cherry days and the reality of row heights. It wasn’t a problem for me, as the set I had ordered was specifically designed to be used on an Ergodox. The real issue presented itself when I mixed that set with another standard base set.

As it turned out, the set I already has was using an R3 for the number row at the top, as opposed to the usual R4 (I think?) that would be in its place. It was due to this detail that I was now sitting in the presence of an R4 row sandwitched between two R3’s. It looks like shit, it really does. I’m so disappointed. I think I’ll even have to remove the Japanese number row and just put back the mismatching R3 row, or even switch back to the original layout all together. It’s a real bummer.

I’ll be keeping an eye out for future Cherry sets, complete ones, but I’m pretty sure that if I even try to create my own sets again, they’ll be DSAs or XDAs.