8 ms·

Mechkebs are fun, been an user for years, right now sitting on a 1.5k build from 2018 I enjoyed the hobby, not amymore Since around 2016, the money grab situa

Mechkebs are fun, been an user for years, right now sitting on a 1.5k build from 2018 I enjoyed the hobby, not amymore Since around 2016, the money grab situation became a joke, it all started with Drop (former massdrop) and it all went downhill.. i get that the community was really small and we were forced to use forums to organize drops and so on.. but now the community is by the milliions and stuff are even more expensive than before.. Fake "limited supply", copies of copies of switches that at the end offer no difference, same old keycaps vendors that have months if not years of intentionally delayed orders to justify their insane pricing, US/EU resellers of china pieces for 1000% margins, hidding inventory, snob creators, corruption in raffles, people being hyped by snob 'keyboard celebrities', censure in discords servers when you bring this up and i could go for hours with this list It just sad...

jeromenerf 5y ago
I have never been interested in the "online community" part of this mk fad but I have been happy to buy off the shelves from hhkb maybe 20 years ago, the Unicom, then EZ/sza. It’s expensive for sure but there are functioning suppliers for quality boards.
Uberphallus 5y ago
Mechanical keyboards are great. Fell in love with an M 20 years ago, and wanted the same feeling. There are great models under $100 that will last you forever. I have 3: 1 at work, 1 at home, and 1 BT for the media center. That's it. Never replaced them, I just got them not to move keyboards around. The rest I agree. It's like the audiophile business. Drop basically turns every consumer product line into an exclusive, elitist, better than you, brag in front of your bros marketplace with absurd margins. Keycaps are the worst offender, they're the cheapest thing in the whole keyboard to manufacture yet they get sold for... hundreds??!? Hard pass on all that.
- jolux 5y ago
  Boutique keycaps are expensive because small-run injection molding is always expensive. I'm not at all sure they're the cheapest part of the whole keyboard, I would bet the case is probably cheaper.
  - Uberphallus 5y ago
    > small-run Yeah, that's the excuse, but seems like every batch is small-run, limited release, exclusive collectors edition, but somehow more and more stock keeps coming back over time. They're expensive even by Warhammer standards, but at least Warhammer figures have detailed work from an artist on them. > I would bet the case is probably cheaper. You're right on that, actually.
    - jolux 5y ago
      >Yeah, that's the excuse, but seems like every batch is small-run, limited release, exclusive collectors edition, but somehow more and more stock keeps coming back over time. I can all but guarantee you that fancy custom keycaps are rarely going to be done in runs big enough to have the economies of scale drive down the cost of tooling. Particularly with double shots and the like, those molds are extremely expensive. I don’t doubt that the products are luxury priced, but I think you might be surprised by what the costs are here.
      - hakfoo 5y ago
        I don't think it's necessarily tooling economies of scale, but probably custom-order costs-- rather than cranking out 5000 standard US QWERTY sets, you have to swap between five different toolings and run 50 sets of each. Even if tooling's free, there's a cost in the short runs and switching. From what I've seen, a typical new keycap set is 90% existing tooling in a new colour-wave, and 1-10 completely new legends, usually that define the theme (there are seemingly 300 sets with Hiragana sublegends, but this one will have a Windows-logo key replaced with the Strawhat Pirate flag!) I suspect there are efficencies to be found by pooling overlapping orders and reducing nonstandard kitting. Saying "everyone gets the 3/£ keycap" adds 20 cents per order, rather than making a few UK users buy a low-economies-of-scale kit at $25. I've been fond of Maxkey's caps-- they seem to have achieved that accidentally. They seem to sell one basic cover-all set in different colours, and as a result they have pretty good supply and modest prices (their sets sell for about USD100, I suspect anything similar from Signature Plastics would cost 150 or 200, and have a 12 month turnaround)
- bobcostas55 5y ago
  Just go on ebay, you can find great pbt double-shot keycaps for ~$20 or even less, usually shipped from China. The enthusiast shops only carry the most expensive stuff.
- cattlemansgold 5y ago
  Care to share your favorite sub $100 keyboard?
  - WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
    In terms of cheap, I run the redragon K40 at $40.
  - jonfw 5y ago
    ducky keyboards are around the $90-$120 range mostly, depending on the model you get. I think they're a great option for a high quality but non-exotic keyboard
  - chestervonwinch 5y ago
    Not OP, but I've been using a Durgod Taurus K320 TKL for two years as my primary work keyboard with no problems. I like it quite a bit.
  - Uberphallus 5y ago
    Been running Noppoo Choc since it came out, got two of them. Newer Noppoo Lolita Spyder had the same feeling but didn't award being bought. At work a colleague has a Drevo Tyrfing V2, too much LED but it has a good touch too.
szszrk 5y ago
That explains a lot to me, as a (almost) user. Wanted to buy one, loved hackers keyboard, but the whole thing was more expensive then a modern mobile ryzen 4xxx mini pc with lots of ram and m2 ssd, wifi6 and so on. It also not locally available so basically no real warranty for me. Got one of those curvy ergonomic divided keyboards from MS and forgot about the whole thing, while saving $500.
goatinaboat 5y ago
I enjoyed the hobby, not amymore. Since around 2016, the money grab situation became a joke, it all started with Drop (former massdrop) and it all went downhill.. I have been a mechanical keyboard user for decades and I have no idea what you mean or who or what this is talking about. There are people for whom keyboards are a hobby?? What is "Drop"? If I want a mechanical keyboard I just buy it directly from Cherry, the quality is high, the prices are fair, the customer service is great, I've never had any problems.
- nvoid 5y ago
  >What is "Drop"? https://drop.com/ https://drop.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_(company)
  - goatinaboat 5y ago
    Thanks. How was this one company able to distort the market? Is this an American thing? Here in the UK mechanical keyboards are readily available with no such issues. I don't think we suffer from any "money grab" situation.
    - 867-5309 5y ago
      seconded. also in the UK and never heard of Drop. perhaps the Americans should order from Europe instead of China?
      - ValentinPearce 5y ago
        It's like most things. You can buy most things at a decent to good quality easily, but if you want something bespoke, it costs more. I like building things, so I'm making my own keyboard. I decided on a switch type. I like a strong tactile switch so MX Browns are too soft for me so I'll pay a bit more for something that suits my taste. My PC is in the living room, I like having a pretty living room, so I'll pay a bit more for a pretty keyboard case, a pretty rotary encoder and pretty keycaps. I'm French and the problem to me is that the hobby of building custom keyboards is increasingly popular in the US and in Asia but very little of it is European. This means few keycap sets have the big ISO enter key that doesn't exist on ANSI keyboards. Pretty keycaps are expensive. Shipping to/from the US and Asia is also expensive. I also use a non conventional keyboard layout (Canadian Multilingual Standard) which has small differences with more standard layouts and though I can type mostly without looking at my keyboard, I still look a it sometimes and it's confusing to have something completely different printed on the key. I've started working with blank keycaps but those aren't much easier to find. Especially in some profiles. (You can have an idea of profiles here : https://www.keycaps.info/stack https://www.keycaps.info/stack) Another factor to the cost is that a lot of the parts are produced for limited runs. I'm not exactly sure how it's organised but a designer submits a new design, if enough people are interested they order a bunch of them with a little extra but they can't easily buy a lot of stock to keep selling. I feel like a lot of the designers do it a side thing and can't afford to invest in it. Compare it to cars, where people will buy extremely powerful cars, with crazy interiors and using enough petrol to power a small country when a good old second hand Voxhall would be enough for their needs.
lycopodiopsida 5y ago
I am into the mechkebs as a hobby (have a KA2, Kyria, Model01, Redox and parts for Dactyl Manuform laying around) but it the first time I've ever heard of Drop, fwiw. I think that mechanical keyboards are an interesting (if expensive) hobby, but standard keyboards with only mechanical switches and and funny keycaps are too expensive for what they are providing. They are a bit nicer to type with, but switches are in general not the problem of a keyboard. The layout and ergonomics are. You have to switch to an ortholinear split with a firmware to see how different the ergonomics of a keyboard can be if we push it further and do non let legacy drive our decisions.
- CiceroCiceronis 5y ago
  It’s interesting you mention this, as I (somebody who has always used basic keyboards) just recently bought a split ortholinear mechanical keyboard for this exact reason. Curious to see what the experience is like. The ideals of improved ergonomics and typing efficiency were much more interesting to me than fancy keycaps... but looking cross-sectionally at the keyboard space while researching my purchase, I found that the opposite was mostly true in terms of what attracted the most attention. Strange.
  - lycopodiopsida 5y ago
    >looking cross-sectionally at the keyboard space while researching my purchase, I found that the opposite was mostly true in terms of what attracted the most attention. Strange. It is not that strange - people who aim for ergonomic builds are a small community of an already small (if increasing) community. Most people do not want something like a new keyboard to mess too much with their motor memory.
    - sethammons 5y ago
      That fits for me. I got two mechanical keyboards at the same time. One mirrors the Microsoft Ergo: cloud nine. The other is unique in the layout: ergodox ez. On this, my typing speed dropped to a third of normal. With the cloud nine, i typed at full speed minute one. The twice as expensive ergodox ez sits in my closet.
alpaca128 5y ago
> same old keycaps vendors that have months if not years of intentionally delayed orders Got any source on this? I don't disagree with the rest of your claims, but this sounds completely wrong; for example GMK is actively expanding their production capacity and already offers a selection of keycap sets without shipping delays. Orders are delayed because the "same old" manufacturers are flooded with an ever-increasing demand for customized low-quantity productions, each of which introduce an overhead. And the appearance of new, cheaper manufacturers only seemed to make the demand explode even more.
TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
Six or seven years ago, I was very active on /r/mechanicalkeyboards. I think it was basically those folks who MADE it all a joke. The GOOD news, though, is that the surge in popularity has made a lot of decent, inexpensive mech's available on Amazon and AliExpress. All that being said, I love my WASD CODE's.
baybal2 5y ago
What makes it a problem to orders switches yourself? Mechanical switches are not a rocket science, and any electromechanical OEM would've been happy to work on them with such premiums. I myself been thinking of ordering double action switches, so you don't need debouncing them. I even contemplated adding some ultra low power latches to be overmolded inside, so you get a single output out of the box.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
spamizbad 5y ago
I love how Cherry Browns became déclassé key switches, due to their popularity and everyone ran to the other extreme (extremely stiff tactile switches) and are now running back to the other extreme (softer tactile switches like the Browns) with special lube and keyfilms to improve their sound and subtle typing feel.
kps 5y ago
Not to mention destroying vintage computers because they only want the keyboard.
- the_only_law 5y ago
  This one has always annoyed me and really annoys some people I know. I had the opportunity to buy a DisplayWriter (full system) a few years ago and when doing research on it was horrified to find out it was popular to gut the keyboard and replace the circuitry with a modern custom keyboard controller.
Antoninus 5y ago
Agreed, this is my experience as well. Like most things, find 1 that you like and use it for a long time. For me it happened to be the HHKB Pro 2.
julian_t 5y ago
Oh yes, it's similar to a lot of other 'enthusiast' things, like high-end audio, cameras and guitars. I got into keyboards because I wanted a lockdown project. I figured I could learn a little about electronics and firmware, learn how to solder, and even perhaps make something that would be useful at work. Keycaps can be a complete rip-off, and my keyboard is fitted with a mixture of caps that I've scrounged from various places. And when we finally get back to the office, a super-noisy mechanical keyboard will help my project of being allowed to WFH as much as possible ;-)
hardwaregeek 5y ago
I've learned that with all the mechanical-head-pens hobbies that it's best to read a little, decide on one good enough product, and stick with it. Stop reading the forums, stop second guessing yourself, just be happy with what you chose. I settled on a Code keyboard with MX Clears. It's durable, useful and I'm happy with it. Sure I could upgrade but there's little to no reason. Same with headphones. I gave up on all the fancy audio and use AirPods. Yes, they sound worse. Yes, Bluetooth hurts audio quality. But who cares? For most of these hobbies the benefit you get from your first purchase will never be replicated. From there it's all diminishing returns.
- tasuki 5y ago
  How much does bluetooth hurt audio quality?
  - GOATS- 5y ago
    When audio is being transmitted via Bluetooth, the audio is transcoded to another codec to be played back on the receiver. Lossy transcodes always hurt audio quality, however telling the difference between the source content and transcoded audio isn't as easy as you might think.
- eirki 5y ago
  This is very good advice. It's often so tempting to get on that threadmill after making the first purchase.

jeromenerf 5y ago

I have never been interested in the "online community" part of this mk fad but I have been happy to buy off the shelves from hhkb maybe 20 years ago, the Unicom, then EZ/sza. It’s expensive for sure but there are functioning suppliers for quality boards.

Uberphallus 5y ago

Mechanical keyboards are great. Fell in love with an M 20 years ago, and wanted the same feeling. There are great models under $100 that will last you forever. I have 3: 1 at work, 1 at home, and 1 BT for the media center. That's it. Never replaced them, I just got them not to move keyboards around. The rest I agree. It's like the audiophile business. Drop basically turns every consumer product line into an exclusive, elitist, better than you, brag in front of your bros marketplace with absurd margins. Keycaps are the worst offender, they're the cheapest thing in the whole keyboard to manufacture yet they get sold for... hundreds??!? Hard pass on all that.

jolux 5y ago
Boutique keycaps are expensive because small-run injection molding is always expensive. I'm not at all sure they're the cheapest part of the whole keyboard, I would bet the case is probably cheaper.
- Uberphallus 5y ago
  > small-run Yeah, that's the excuse, but seems like every batch is small-run, limited release, exclusive collectors edition, but somehow more and more stock keeps coming back over time. They're expensive even by Warhammer standards, but at least Warhammer figures have detailed work from an artist on them. > I would bet the case is probably cheaper. You're right on that, actually.
  - jolux 5y ago
    >Yeah, that's the excuse, but seems like every batch is small-run, limited release, exclusive collectors edition, but somehow more and more stock keeps coming back over time. I can all but guarantee you that fancy custom keycaps are rarely going to be done in runs big enough to have the economies of scale drive down the cost of tooling. Particularly with double shots and the like, those molds are extremely expensive. I don’t doubt that the products are luxury priced, but I think you might be surprised by what the costs are here.
    - hakfoo 5y ago
      I don't think it's necessarily tooling economies of scale, but probably custom-order costs-- rather than cranking out 5000 standard US QWERTY sets, you have to swap between five different toolings and run 50 sets of each. Even if tooling's free, there's a cost in the short runs and switching. From what I've seen, a typical new keycap set is 90% existing tooling in a new colour-wave, and 1-10 completely new legends, usually that define the theme (there are seemingly 300 sets with Hiragana sublegends, but this one will have a Windows-logo key replaced with the Strawhat Pirate flag!) I suspect there are efficencies to be found by pooling overlapping orders and reducing nonstandard kitting. Saying "everyone gets the 3/£ keycap" adds 20 cents per order, rather than making a few UK users buy a low-economies-of-scale kit at $25. I've been fond of Maxkey's caps-- they seem to have achieved that accidentally. They seem to sell one basic cover-all set in different colours, and as a result they have pretty good supply and modest prices (their sets sell for about USD100, I suspect anything similar from Signature Plastics would cost 150 or 200, and have a 12 month turnaround)
bobcostas55 5y ago
Just go on ebay, you can find great pbt double-shot keycaps for ~$20 or even less, usually shipped from China. The enthusiast shops only carry the most expensive stuff.
cattlemansgold 5y ago
Care to share your favorite sub $100 keyboard?
- WrtCdEvrydy 5y ago
  In terms of cheap, I run the redragon K40 at $40.
- jonfw 5y ago
  ducky keyboards are around the $90-$120 range mostly, depending on the model you get. I think they're a great option for a high quality but non-exotic keyboard
- chestervonwinch 5y ago
  Not OP, but I've been using a Durgod Taurus K320 TKL for two years as my primary work keyboard with no problems. I like it quite a bit.
- Uberphallus 5y ago
  Been running Noppoo Choc since it came out, got two of them. Newer Noppoo Lolita Spyder had the same feeling but didn't award being bought. At work a colleague has a Drevo Tyrfing V2, too much LED but it has a good touch too.

szszrk 5y ago

That explains a lot to me, as a (almost) user. Wanted to buy one, loved hackers keyboard, but the whole thing was more expensive then a modern mobile ryzen 4xxx mini pc with lots of ram and m2 ssd, wifi6 and so on. It also not locally available so basically no real warranty for me. Got one of those curvy ergonomic divided keyboards from MS and forgot about the whole thing, while saving $500.

goatinaboat 5y ago

I enjoyed the hobby, not amymore. Since around 2016, the money grab situation became a joke, it all started with Drop (former massdrop) and it all went downhill.. I have been a mechanical keyboard user for decades and I have no idea what you mean or who or what this is talking about. There are people for whom keyboards are a hobby?? What is "Drop"? If I want a mechanical keyboard I just buy it directly from Cherry, the quality is high, the prices are fair, the customer service is great, I've never had any problems.

nvoid 5y ago
>What is "Drop"? https://drop.com/ https://drop.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_(company)
- goatinaboat 5y ago
  Thanks. How was this one company able to distort the market? Is this an American thing? Here in the UK mechanical keyboards are readily available with no such issues. I don't think we suffer from any "money grab" situation.
  - 867-5309 5y ago
    seconded. also in the UK and never heard of Drop. perhaps the Americans should order from Europe instead of China?
    - ValentinPearce 5y ago
      It's like most things. You can buy most things at a decent to good quality easily, but if you want something bespoke, it costs more. I like building things, so I'm making my own keyboard. I decided on a switch type. I like a strong tactile switch so MX Browns are too soft for me so I'll pay a bit more for something that suits my taste. My PC is in the living room, I like having a pretty living room, so I'll pay a bit more for a pretty keyboard case, a pretty rotary encoder and pretty keycaps. I'm French and the problem to me is that the hobby of building custom keyboards is increasingly popular in the US and in Asia but very little of it is European. This means few keycap sets have the big ISO enter key that doesn't exist on ANSI keyboards. Pretty keycaps are expensive. Shipping to/from the US and Asia is also expensive. I also use a non conventional keyboard layout (Canadian Multilingual Standard) which has small differences with more standard layouts and though I can type mostly without looking at my keyboard, I still look a it sometimes and it's confusing to have something completely different printed on the key. I've started working with blank keycaps but those aren't much easier to find. Especially in some profiles. (You can have an idea of profiles here : https://www.keycaps.info/stack https://www.keycaps.info/stack) Another factor to the cost is that a lot of the parts are produced for limited runs. I'm not exactly sure how it's organised but a designer submits a new design, if enough people are interested they order a bunch of them with a little extra but they can't easily buy a lot of stock to keep selling. I feel like a lot of the designers do it a side thing and can't afford to invest in it. Compare it to cars, where people will buy extremely powerful cars, with crazy interiors and using enough petrol to power a small country when a good old second hand Voxhall would be enough for their needs.

lycopodiopsida 5y ago

I am into the mechkebs as a hobby (have a KA2, Kyria, Model01, Redox and parts for Dactyl Manuform laying around) but it the first time I've ever heard of Drop, fwiw. I think that mechanical keyboards are an interesting (if expensive) hobby, but standard keyboards with only mechanical switches and and funny keycaps are too expensive for what they are providing. They are a bit nicer to type with, but switches are in general not the problem of a keyboard. The layout and ergonomics are. You have to switch to an ortholinear split with a firmware to see how different the ergonomics of a keyboard can be if we push it further and do non let legacy drive our decisions.

CiceroCiceronis 5y ago
It’s interesting you mention this, as I (somebody who has always used basic keyboards) just recently bought a split ortholinear mechanical keyboard for this exact reason. Curious to see what the experience is like. The ideals of improved ergonomics and typing efficiency were much more interesting to me than fancy keycaps... but looking cross-sectionally at the keyboard space while researching my purchase, I found that the opposite was mostly true in terms of what attracted the most attention. Strange.
- lycopodiopsida 5y ago
  >looking cross-sectionally at the keyboard space while researching my purchase, I found that the opposite was mostly true in terms of what attracted the most attention. Strange. It is not that strange - people who aim for ergonomic builds are a small community of an already small (if increasing) community. Most people do not want something like a new keyboard to mess too much with their motor memory.
  - sethammons 5y ago
    That fits for me. I got two mechanical keyboards at the same time. One mirrors the Microsoft Ergo: cloud nine. The other is unique in the layout: ergodox ez. On this, my typing speed dropped to a third of normal. With the cloud nine, i typed at full speed minute one. The twice as expensive ergodox ez sits in my closet.

alpaca128 5y ago

> same old keycaps vendors that have months if not years of intentionally delayed orders Got any source on this? I don't disagree with the rest of your claims, but this sounds completely wrong; for example GMK is actively expanding their production capacity and already offers a selection of keycap sets without shipping delays. Orders are delayed because the "same old" manufacturers are flooded with an ever-increasing demand for customized low-quantity productions, each of which introduce an overhead. And the appearance of new, cheaper manufacturers only seemed to make the demand explode even more.

TheRealDunkirk 5y ago

Six or seven years ago, I was very active on /r/mechanicalkeyboards. I think it was basically those folks who MADE it all a joke. The GOOD news, though, is that the surge in popularity has made a lot of decent, inexpensive mech's available on Amazon and AliExpress. All that being said, I love my WASD CODE's.

baybal2 5y ago

What makes it a problem to orders switches yourself? Mechanical switches are not a rocket science, and any electromechanical OEM would've been happy to work on them with such premiums. I myself been thinking of ordering double action switches, so you don't need debouncing them. I even contemplated adding some ultra low power latches to be overmolded inside, so you get a single output out of the box.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

spamizbad 5y ago

I love how Cherry Browns became déclassé key switches, due to their popularity and everyone ran to the other extreme (extremely stiff tactile switches) and are now running back to the other extreme (softer tactile switches like the Browns) with special lube and keyfilms to improve their sound and subtle typing feel.

kps 5y ago

Not to mention destroying vintage computers because they only want the keyboard.

the_only_law 5y ago
This one has always annoyed me and really annoys some people I know. I had the opportunity to buy a DisplayWriter (full system) a few years ago and when doing research on it was horrified to find out it was popular to gut the keyboard and replace the circuitry with a modern custom keyboard controller.

Antoninus 5y ago

Agreed, this is my experience as well. Like most things, find 1 that you like and use it for a long time. For me it happened to be the HHKB Pro 2.

julian_t 5y ago

Oh yes, it's similar to a lot of other 'enthusiast' things, like high-end audio, cameras and guitars. I got into keyboards because I wanted a lockdown project. I figured I could learn a little about electronics and firmware, learn how to solder, and even perhaps make something that would be useful at work. Keycaps can be a complete rip-off, and my keyboard is fitted with a mixture of caps that I've scrounged from various places. And when we finally get back to the office, a super-noisy mechanical keyboard will help my project of being allowed to WFH as much as possible ;-)

hardwaregeek 5y ago

I've learned that with all the mechanical-head-pens hobbies that it's best to read a little, decide on one good enough product, and stick with it. Stop reading the forums, stop second guessing yourself, just be happy with what you chose. I settled on a Code keyboard with MX Clears. It's durable, useful and I'm happy with it. Sure I could upgrade but there's little to no reason. Same with headphones. I gave up on all the fancy audio and use AirPods. Yes, they sound worse. Yes, Bluetooth hurts audio quality. But who cares? For most of these hobbies the benefit you get from your first purchase will never be replicated. From there it's all diminishing returns.

tasuki 5y ago
How much does bluetooth hurt audio quality?
- GOATS- 5y ago
  When audio is being transmitted via Bluetooth, the audio is transcoded to another codec to be played back on the receiver. Lossy transcodes always hurt audio quality, however telling the difference between the source content and transcoded audio isn't as easy as you might think.
eirki 5y ago
This is very good advice. It's often so tempting to get on that threadmill after making the first purchase.