Sneakbox Disarray 70% with WoB keycaps
Saturday, July 24, 2021
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The Sneakbox Disarray started shipping a couple months ago, and I received mine about a month ago. I did an unboxing post with many photos. If you haven’t checked it out, you might want to read that post first: Unboxing the Sneakbox Disarray 70% keyboard.
I ended up building mine with the following configuration (no affiliation for any of the links):
- PCB: Staggered: Special Edition FR4 with Mill-Max 7305 sockets to support hot swapping the switches
- Plate: Brass
- Switches: Boba U4T 68g tactiles (Pearl)
- Stabilizers: Durock v2 with Krytox 205g0 and dielectric grease
- Keycaps: EnjoyPBT WoB (white-on-black) ABS
- Foam: Stupidfish foam between the plate and PCB, stock foam between the PCB and the case
Soldering the sockets
If you’re not familiar with Mill-Max sockets, they are essentially small, friction-based metal tubes that will hold the metal legs of the switch in place. They are soldered into the PCB instead of the switches. They’re not as optimal as Kailh or other purpose-built switch sockets, but they get the job done. There are some issues with switches with larger legs.
More info here:
The process of soldering the Mill-Max sockets doesn’t take much longer than soldering switches. However, you need to be careful not to get any solder into the socket, otherwise the switch will be stuck! A solder sucker is very useful for when that happens.
Final build
Some of the best aspects of this case are the rotary encoder and the visible internal components. It’s more expensive, both in terms of design and cost, to have the components visible like this, but the result is quite beautiful.
Here are a couple more images of the final build in different light:
A note on the USB-C port
I noticed that only some of my cables worked with this keyboard, as there is a ~1.2mm gap between the edge of the USB-C receptacle and the interior case well. This normally wouldn’t be an issue, but the case also has a relatively small space to accommodate the molding on the cable.
My solution was to purchase a relatively inexpensive USB-C extender to make it so any of my current or future cables will work. I purchased this one from Amazon (no affiliation).
Final thoughts
This is a fantastic case, and despite the fact that all of the Disarray boards were declared as B-stock, I nonetheless found the design, materials, and process to be great. I’m looking forward to more keyboards from Sneakbox in the future!
Related posts on Sneakbox keyboards: