PALE AND PRETTY AS THE MOON
– Unknown author
Since it has come into my collection, the JER-mini has quickly become one – if not the – most photographed of my boards. And there is a good reason for it: it just looks absolutely beautiful!
Clean lines all around, an interesting “chin” element on the front (more on that later) and the left-side macro column make it a simple, easy on the eye board. Also very positive is that thanks to the extra space on the left side due to the macro column the logo could be placed on the front without loosing the full 65% layout as seen on boards like the Iron165, TGR-910, etc. Normally the logo is rather plain and unnoticeable but thanks to the previous owner1the infill maestro himself, Jae from TopClack/Prototypist mine is infilled with black acrylic paint which gives it a much needed visual boost.
The JER-mini is designed as a homage to the KMAC mini
To give you an idea of the unboxing experience of the board, here is a video by Mr. Keebs
Special “Pale White” finishing by ALF studio. It’s a brand new white anodizing procedure exclusive from ALF studio. This “Pale White” finishing feels extremely smooth but more durable. When you touch it, you can appreciate our intentions and craftsmanship. Due to the high cost, the “Pale White” finish option is only available in this sale and will not be available in the future GB.
– JER mini “Pale white” GB Thread on Geekhack
The pale white colorway was a 10 boards limited sale before the full GB for the board ran, so I was really lucky when I was offered the chance to buy one in the aftermarket. As the picture below shows, white boards are kinda my thing and the JER-mini fits perfectly in this niche of my collection. Also 65% is one of my favorite layouts for keyboards because it combines the compactness of a 60% board with the availability of an arrow cluster.
My biggest grief with the board is that the PCB is currently only supported through BMC2Bootmapper Client and not in QMK. Especially with the availability of the extra macrocluster, a better macro support like it’s possible through QMK would be highly appreciated. There also seems to be a little quirk if you use ISO layout: the key besides the short left-shift seems to share it’s position in the matrix with the bottom most macro key. As an ISO pleb user you can thus only use three of the macro keys while the last one will always function as a second < > | key.
Since I plan to desolder the board at some point in the future to rebuild it with different keys and hopefully a different plate, I might look into figuring out the matrix and porting it into QMK. This probably still wouldn’t fix the key issue but at least the rest of the keys would be more functional this way ;).
I’ll leave you with a nice in-depth review by JYMV which also includes a bit of a typing test with Gateron Yellows, which should be close enough to my build in terms of sound.
Build Information
Color
Pale White
PCB
JER-mini
Plate
Grey anodized aluminium
Switches
Revo Whites (lubed with Krytox 104, springswapped 63.5g SPRIT lubed with 106)
Macrocluster: Gateron Inks (lubed with 205g0, springswapped 63.5g SPRIT, lubed with Krytox 106)
Spacebar: Tangerine (lubed with Krytox 104, springswapped 68g slow SPRIT, lubed with Krytox 106)
Stabs
GMK Screw-In, clipped, lubed with dielectric grease
Gallery
JER-mini – Desk shot
JER-mini – Into Oblivion
JER-mini – Metropolis
JER-mini – The white gang
JER-mini – Bathing in light
_E8A0209
