5 ms·

I see a lot of red flags here. They claim it’s “over-engineered”, but it looks like the opposite. The cheaping out: 1) 2 layer board with two modules (one of

I see a lot of red flags here. They claim it’s “over-engineered”, but it looks like the opposite. The cheaping out: 1) 2 layer board with two modules (one of them a DIY arduino board). Given the price tag they could have spent $2 in going 4 layers and add some ground planes. 2) Charging extra for N-key rollover? Seriously? Who though that would look good? 3) No cable? The overspending: 1) Fully machined two part case. There’s a LOT of excess everywhere. More weight doesn’t make thins stronger. There were easier ways to build a case like that. 2) Every single piece aside from the switches seems to be fully custom made. “Custom” is only good if it brings value, for a lot of the pieces involved there seems to be little if any improvement. 3) from the pictures it looks like they surface finished the insides of they case, and even the support plate. Why would I care to add a brushed look to an internal part?

rowathay 5y ago
Basically, this is “Juicero: The Keyboard.”
- Animats 5y ago
  Juicero was cheaper. This is "Starting at €1,262".
alpaca128 5y ago
> Why would I care to add a brushed look to an internal part? The custom keyboard community includes people who indeed care about such details. Also it's not unusual to get no cable with such kits; Custom cables are popular too. I'm not sure how this compares to known brands in that price range as I'm not exactly an expert in case manufacturing, but I've seen designs that I find more appealing.
- xondono 5y ago
  > The custom keyboard community I like to consider myself part of that community. I don’t have the cash to spend into a collection of keyboards, but mine still cost me around $300, which I think is fair given the customizations. This is the fist time I see a brushed support plate.
jerlam 5y ago
"Custom" meant to me that the item was customized for the user. Here it's being used to mean that the item was customized for the manufacturer, which is completely different. Any color of keycaps you want as long as they're black, no printing available on the non-querty keys, but six types of switches. Also bad if I need any spare parts, because they're nonstandard, and would be hard to source and expensive. These are more like exotic cars than working tools.
kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
A ground plane would be pointless. The only high speed portion would be the USB data lines and they're on the controller board.
- xondono 5y ago
  Ground planes are not only for high speed, the EMI performance of going 4-layers is easily one of the cheapest gains to be made in modern electronics. The other gain in this scenario is that you could tighten up the rebound times, which reduces input latency. Can you pull it of with two layers? Yes, of course, but if you are charging $1000 for the thing I expect you to go 4 layers.
chevill 5y ago
I mess around with a lot of custom modern and vintage alps keyboard stuff. I'm pretty familiar with the Keymacs project although I don't own one yet because its pretty expensive. I'm going to be attempting a very similar build modelled after the same Symbolics board in the near future using wood for a case and most likely MX switches due to the difficulty of sourcing keycaps for Alps. >I see a lot of red flags here. They claim it’s “over-engineered”, but it looks like the opposite. Fair criticisms for some of it, but parts of it are over-engineered and the term over-engineered is usually a marketing gimmick anyways. This keyboard was a labor of love for the creator. He wanted a thing to exist and he went about learning, making, testing, and tweaking for many years. He makes everything by himself besides the PCB (which would be foolish to do). The majority of the cost of this keyboard is in the keycaps, which are the part that is over-engineered IMO. They are possibly the best keycaps on the market by a long shot. Each key is hand-poured by this one guy (at least when it was first on the market) and it takes a very long time to make a set. People begged him to sell just the caps but he said given the labor intensive process he thinks a lot of people would laugh at the price he would have to charge. This case was specifically designed for Alps switches. Vintage alps switches are considered by many people to be the best mechanical switches ever created. The case here might not be milled from a giant, solid block of metal, but with Alps switches you don't necessarily want that. Most people are looking for something with acoustic properties that make Alps sound as good as the vintage boards from which they came. The Keymacs case isn't the most expensively manufactured case in the world, but it has great acoustics and sounds better than most modern Alps cases, which in turn means it sounds better than almost all modern keyboards period to those who like the clicky/clacky keyboard noises. I happen to think it still looks very nice though. There's a lot of people that are obsessed with old Lisp machine keyboards, specifically Symbolics keyboards. This isn't an exact replica, but it is more a reimagining of a specific model of Symbolics keyboard, only with the added benefit of it being compatible with a much better mechanical switch than the original (although some of the old ones had very good switches too). The creator is well aware that at the price he's not going to sell these to anyone aside from die hard alps/Symbolics fans. Last I heard he was looking into options to manufacture things in a less labor-intensive way but the cost is pretty justified given the amount of work he puts into it. >No cable? Fair point but the people buying a board like this are probably using a $100 custom cable with aviator connectors. >Every single piece aside from the switches seems to be fully custom made. For this keyboard layout the PCB and keycaps pretty much had to be custom made. The whole point of the board is using the Symbolics layout. My understanding is that if you try to get a set made by GMK/EPBT/ the other big keycap manufacturers they are limited by the molds they have for specific sizes/profile and the price being reasonable is based on being able to move a large number of sets. The switches are basically the only thing that didn't have to be custom made as a matter of necessity.

rowathay 5y ago

Basically, this is “Juicero: The Keyboard.”

Animats 5y ago
Juicero was cheaper. This is "Starting at €1,262".

alpaca128 5y ago

> Why would I care to add a brushed look to an internal part? The custom keyboard community includes people who indeed care about such details. Also it's not unusual to get no cable with such kits; Custom cables are popular too. I'm not sure how this compares to known brands in that price range as I'm not exactly an expert in case manufacturing, but I've seen designs that I find more appealing.

xondono 5y ago
> The custom keyboard community I like to consider myself part of that community. I don’t have the cash to spend into a collection of keyboards, but mine still cost me around $300, which I think is fair given the customizations. This is the fist time I see a brushed support plate.

jerlam 5y ago

"Custom" meant to me that the item was customized for the user. Here it's being used to mean that the item was customized for the manufacturer, which is completely different. Any color of keycaps you want as long as they're black, no printing available on the non-querty keys, but six types of switches. Also bad if I need any spare parts, because they're nonstandard, and would be hard to source and expensive. These are more like exotic cars than working tools.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

A ground plane would be pointless. The only high speed portion would be the USB data lines and they're on the controller board.

xondono 5y ago
Ground planes are not only for high speed, the EMI performance of going 4-layers is easily one of the cheapest gains to be made in modern electronics. The other gain in this scenario is that you could tighten up the rebound times, which reduces input latency. Can you pull it of with two layers? Yes, of course, but if you are charging $1000 for the thing I expect you to go 4 layers.

chevill 5y ago

I mess around with a lot of custom modern and vintage alps keyboard stuff. I'm pretty familiar with the Keymacs project although I don't own one yet because its pretty expensive. I'm going to be attempting a very similar build modelled after the same Symbolics board in the near future using wood for a case and most likely MX switches due to the difficulty of sourcing keycaps for Alps. >I see a lot of red flags here. They claim it’s “over-engineered”, but it looks like the opposite. Fair criticisms for some of it, but parts of it are over-engineered and the term over-engineered is usually a marketing gimmick anyways. This keyboard was a labor of love for the creator. He wanted a thing to exist and he went about learning, making, testing, and tweaking for many years. He makes everything by himself besides the PCB (which would be foolish to do). The majority of the cost of this keyboard is in the keycaps, which are the part that is over-engineered IMO. They are possibly the best keycaps on the market by a long shot. Each key is hand-poured by this one guy (at least when it was first on the market) and it takes a very long time to make a set. People begged him to sell just the caps but he said given the labor intensive process he thinks a lot of people would laugh at the price he would have to charge. This case was specifically designed for Alps switches. Vintage alps switches are considered by many people to be the best mechanical switches ever created. The case here might not be milled from a giant, solid block of metal, but with Alps switches you don't necessarily want that. Most people are looking for something with acoustic properties that make Alps sound as good as the vintage boards from which they came. The Keymacs case isn't the most expensively manufactured case in the world, but it has great acoustics and sounds better than most modern Alps cases, which in turn means it sounds better than almost all modern keyboards period to those who like the clicky/clacky keyboard noises. I happen to think it still looks very nice though. There's a lot of people that are obsessed with old Lisp machine keyboards, specifically Symbolics keyboards. This isn't an exact replica, but it is more a reimagining of a specific model of Symbolics keyboard, only with the added benefit of it being compatible with a much better mechanical switch than the original (although some of the old ones had very good switches too). The creator is well aware that at the price he's not going to sell these to anyone aside from die hard alps/Symbolics fans. Last I heard he was looking into options to manufacture things in a less labor-intensive way but the cost is pretty justified given the amount of work he puts into it. >No cable? Fair point but the people buying a board like this are probably using a $100 custom cable with aviator connectors. >Every single piece aside from the switches seems to be fully custom made. For this keyboard layout the PCB and keycaps pretty much had to be custom made. The whole point of the board is using the Symbolics layout. My understanding is that if you try to get a set made by GMK/EPBT/ the other big keycap manufacturers they are limited by the molds they have for specific sizes/profile and the price being reasonable is based on being able to move a large number of sets. The switches are basically the only thing that didn't have to be custom made as a matter of necessity.