Understanding keycap profiles
Keycaps play a vital role in mechanical keyboards, contributing not only to aesthetics but also to the overall typing experience.
To better understand the profile used in the Dygma keyboards, let's take a look at some of the keycap profiles:
- SA Profile (Spherical All): This high-profile profile with a rounded top is known for its classic, elegant look and is often preferred for its sculpted design.
- DSA Profile (Distributed Structure All): This profile has a uniform keycap height across all rows and is popular for its clean, modern appearance. It is ideal for those who enjoy a flat typing surface.
- OEM Profile: The most common and widely used profile, slightly curved and sculpted. It offers a comfortable and familiar feel.
- XDA Profile: This medium profile has a flat, cylindrical top and is known for its uniform keycap height across rows. It offers a sleek and modern appearance.
- Cherry Profile: Named after Cherry MX switches, this profile is slightly lower in height. It provides a balance between comfort and aesthetics.
Size and profile of the Dygma Defy keycaps
For the Dygma Defy, we chose Cherry profile keycaps because of their ergonomic and low-profile design. The decision was driven by a desire for a sleek keyboard and user comfort with sculpted keycaps.
The Defy has 54 1U keys arranged in this way:
- 14 on row 1
- 14 on row 2
- 14 on row 3
- 12 on row 4
This is important because some keycap sets might not have enough 1U keycaps to fill the whole keyboard.
Here's a video that explains it in great detail:
Size and profile of the Dygma Raise Keycaps
We chose OEM Profile keycaps for the Dygma Raise and Raise 2 because they are more widely available.
Keycaps for the Dygma Raise and Dygma Raise 2 are easier to find; the only difference is in the thumb cluster.
Still, you can use standard MX keycaps; you'll just need to either keep the thumb cluster or find keycaps with the correct size.
Here are the sizes of the keycaps for the ANSI and ISO keyboards. Keep in mind that the bottom row of the thumb cluster uses low-profile choc keycaps.