Home
This is going to be the place where I am going to organize all of the information I've found on the Massdrop CTRL keyboard.
The Massdrop CTRL is a 87 key "TKL" style keyboard based (loosely) on the Input Club K-Type (which Massdrop had a hand in helping to develop).
Physically, it has only came in an ANSI layout, however, the key press values can be remapped via a very popular firmware software called "QMK". This for many owners (myself included) is the "killer feature" of this board.
At time of first sale, it could be customized with with a dual color PBT keyset, and a choice of 4 Kaihua switches. Halo Clears, Halo Trues, Kalih Browns and Kalih Speed Silvers. All switch designs are based on Kalih's MX clones, however, the Halo branded switches have a "light pipe", a piece of clear plastic to direct the back light, whereas the other switches just have an open cavity for the LED to fit in. This does affect the back lighting ever so slightly.
Subsequent drops seem to have limited the switches you can include at checkout.
The stabilizers appear to be Cherry style, but probably not genuine Cherry.
Under the switches, the board is fitted with 119 RGB SMD LED's. 87 of these are on the keys, and the rest are for back lighting. See LED map. The LEDs seem to be 3528/6028 form factor LEDs (I personally haven't tried to replace any LED's on this board, however, after extensive searching online has shown "these are probably it"). The pins appear big enough that they be replaced using just a soldering iron with a fine tip in case you don't have a hot-air station.
The board is also fitted with Kaihua Hot Swap Sockets so that MX pinned switches can be hot-swapped. So far it seems to fit most MX clones and Kalih box switches.
If you care about back lighting, and if you are going to swap key switches, make sure you either get switches with completely clear housings (such as Zeals, or Ice Otemus) or get the SMD version of the switch (Gateron, Cherry). Most Kaihua switches (Kalih, Novelkeys, Hako, Halo) are setup for back lighting already.
As mentioned before, the board firmware is QMK, so "you can probably do that ®" (I used to say "your imagination is the limit" but the I realized there's a bunch of caveats to this 😆. However, don't get intimidated! You can do this!)
On the rear of the case, there are two usb-c ports, one left, one right.
However, you cannot do USB-C to USB-C like on a new MacBook Pro . Other laptop/hubs might work, but several people have had issues with trying to do this and been quite upset by it. Why? Trawl the Massdrop thread. Has something to do with voltages (sorry, I don't have this issue, as I don't have a newer MacBook Pro, so I kinda skimmed these)
More about the physical board when I make a "construction" section.