Ducky One 2 – Hot Tips

I recently acquired a tiny hipster mechanical keyboard, the “Ducky one 2 Mini RGB”, a “60% mechanical keyboard” (look it up). After spending a couple hours working out the kinks, I am hereby documenting my findings so I can reference them 3 weeks from now when I forget:

(NOTE: This is not a product review or recommendation. This is a reference for myself and other people who have already bought one and are trying to enjoy it and not regret their decision.)

First of all, to get my Macbook running OS X MacOS to recognize the keyboard I had to update the firmware (which required a Windows computer.)

Upon getting it working, I immediately started to panic because I did not have dedicated arrow keys, which it turns out I use for a lot of things (mainly moving the cursor around which doing word processing or working on command line.) Most keys that were removed in order to make the keyboard smaller are available via “function” key (hereafter “FUN” because that’s what we are having). These include the arrow keys, PageUp, PageDown, Home, and End.

By default there is only one FUN key, on the right side next to the Windows Key. This is not cool because the FUN arrow keys are also on the right. There however is a solution:

Turn CAPSLOCK key into a FUNCTION key:

1. First make CAPSLOCK is “off”. (so “off” not “ON”)
2. Press and hold “Fn + Alt + k” for 5 seconds until CAPSLOCK and a couple other keys are illuminated.
3. By default the CAPSLOCK key should be white. Press it until it turns “indigo”, then hit ESC.
4. Your CAPSLOCK key should now function as a FUN key.

RGB Backlit Modes

The keyboard also has a bunch of different RGB backlit modes:

• Rotate Modes: FUN+ALT+T
• Decrease speed: FUN+ALT+J
• Increase speed: FUN+ALT+L.
• Turn off all lighting by holding FUN+ALT+T for 3 seconds.
• Some of the modes allow you to change the color by using CAPSLOCK + Z, X, or C keys, or CAPSLOCK+SPACE to turn the keyboard into a “palette” from which you can choose a color.

Setting Custom Color Profiles

Custom color profiles are used to set individual keys to specified colors. As far as I know it does not affect or save whatever full keyboard “color mode” you have. You can still change that via FUN+ALT+T. To set custom color profiles:

1. Hold FUN+ALT+CAPSLOCK for 3 seconds
2. Select either G (CM1) or B(CM2)
3. To remove currently preset colors tap the keys you want to un-color.
4. The CAPSLOCK key will display the currently selected color. You can change the color selected by using CAPSLOCK + Z, X, or C keys, or use CAPSLOCK+SPACE to turn the keyboard into a “palette” from which you can choose a color.
5. Press the keys you want to set to that color
6. When you’re done save the custom profile with CAPSLOCK+LEFT SHIFT.

Changing Custom Color Profiles

1. To change between custom profiles hit FUN+ALT+G or FUN+ALT+B.
2. If you hit it once it will switch to that profile.
3. If you hit it again, it will switch to that mode in “breathe” mode.
4. A third time will turn it off.

While the rest of the internet changed their WASD keys because of the video games, I found it useful to change the FUN arrow keys (I,J,K,L) and the Page-up, Page-down, Home, End, and FUN keys white. Because I am a FUN GUY.