Top 3 things to know when choosing keycap size
Playing keycaps is becoming a new and popular hobby among young people. However, to start participating in this subject, we need to equip ourselves with certain knowledge.
In this article, Break Woodart will provide you with basic information about keycap sizes and the top 3 things you need to know when choosing keycap sizes for your keyboard.
1. Keyboard size unit: The Unit (u)
When searching for keycaps on e-commerce platforms, have you ever seen the parameters 1u, 2u,…? That is information about keycap size.
Keycap size is usually measured in units (abbreviated as “u”). A normal standard alpha key is 1u in size, and the 2u key will be twice as long as the 1u key. However, are there many other keycaps of odd sizes like 1.25u, 1.5u, 1.75u, or even 6.25u? So how to know which position keycap has what size?
2. Define the layout and size of the keyboard
Not only a keycap, but your keyboard also has many types of layouts and sizes:
- Layout: ISO/ANSI and JIS are the most common keyboard layout types.
- Size: there are many different keyboard sizes, especially for custom keyboards, but the most popular keyboard sizes are Full Size/75%/65% and 60%, and 40% (supermini).
In this article, we will focus only on the standard ANSI 104 keyboard layout and size.
3. Standard keycap size
The image below shows the keycap size on a standard ANSI 104 full-size keyboard:
Here is a more detailed summary of keycap sizes on ANSI 104 keyboards:
Looking at the image above we can see, most of the letter keys, number keys, and some function keys have the smallest size of 1u, the spacebar has the largest size of 6.25u.
4. Conclusion
In fact, besides choosing the right keycap size for the keyboard size, we also have to choose the right keycap for the keycap profile type, switch, and a lot of other information. Hopefully through this article, Break Woodart can make it easier for you to choose the keycap for your keyboard.
If you want to refer to some keycap samples according to the standard keyboard size, you can refer here. These cute and cool keycaps are waiting for you to bring them home!
