Hey y'all,

First & foremost, I've gotten into the mech keyboard hobby because of this wonderful community. I love you all, and my wallet despises each and every one of you.

I wanted to write this post as a lesson learned early in my keyboard journey. I've built six keyboards to date, and recently jumped into the specialty keyboard group buy market. I built my first groupbuy keyboard, a Sun68, with Holy Panda switches and JTK Sora keycaps. A beauty.

The hotswap PCB I bought with the keyboard has officially crapped out on me after a few months of use. I worked with the manufacturers (who were responsive and helpful) to flash, reset, and otherwise troubleshoot the PCB. No dice. Unfortunately, the PCB is gone and I am in the unenviable position of having a lovely keyboard that doesn't work.

I wanted to write this post to share a lesson-learned & a question to this community:

1.) If you entering the group buy market, and your wallet can afford the additional expense, I would recommend always picking up a back-up PCB as part of the groupbuy. I wouldn't be in this position if I had done so, and will do so moving forward (and have done so for my Ocelot macropad and Mammoth75).

2.) For those, like me, who finds themselves in this predicament, what avenues do we have to explore? I've checked all vendor websites, ebay, discord, reddit, etc. no luck so far.

Thank you all, and hopefully this helps someone else avoid the issues I face! Otherwise, keep clacking away!

Cheers,

CincyBOO