_vastrox_ t1_isix2rb wrote on October 16, 2022 at 9:49 AM

They aren't brands. Many of these boards are designed by community members like you and me and are just sold through the known vendors to make it easier for the designer.
That's why you won't necessarily find a website for all those names.
Yes a lot of these boards are limited run items, simply because it's not economically viable to mass produce such niche products. Production of them is very expensive and the market is very very limited. To keep production costs to a somewhat manageable level for both the designer and the vendor they are only made in preorder batches.
It's not "just aluminium". They are CNC machined components that often times have very complex designs.
CNC machining is extremely expensive, especially for low-volume production like it's usually done with keyboards like this.
And even raw aluminium prices are currently through the roof due to the ongoing economical problems.
In some cases there is artificial scarcity and price gouging (like with Keycult or TGR boards for example).
But most of the smaller lesser known groupbuys are absolutely realistic prices.
As mentioned CNC machining for low volume production is expensive af and mass production is just not reasonable for a product that has such a small niche market.

If you want fast availability and shipping the super high-end boutique keyboards aren't for you.
Those are more something for collectors that have patience and no problem with waiting for a product for a year to get something unique.

And you honestly don't have to get one of those if you just want to build a good custom keyboard.
There are quite a few easily available options now that are still very much high-end.
This hobby has seen a rapid growth over the past two years and there are quite a few vendors that produce boards now that are good quality and usually in stock (or at least restocked frequently).

KBDfans, Keychron and Cannonkeys for example all have several beginner oriented keyboard series (both alu and plastic) that are easily available.

NintendogsWithGuns t1_isjwyxr wrote on October 16, 2022 at 3:31 PM

I have a degree in sculpture and specialize in digital fabrication. Unpopular opinion, but CNC machined aluminum is overkill for most keyboards. It makes sense on highly stressed components or complex shapes, but most people aren’t doing kickflips on their Zoom65. Investment casting is a lot more cost effective at scale and doesn’t need a ton of cleanup if you’re just going to electrophoretically coat it afterwards. There are plenty of factories in Vietnam that will cast high-quality parts at a lower cost than their Chinese competitors.

I’d personally rather see more innovation in PCB design though, as the custom scene really has been sleeping on things like USB pass through and whatnot.

_vastrox_ t1_isjy70q wrote on October 16, 2022 at 3:39 PM

Yes of course it's completely overkill for a keyboard.
Pretty much all keyboards around in this community are overkill.

But like you said for small scale production CNC really is the most sensible route if you want the case to be made out of metal.
Casting only makes sense if you are going to mass produce the product which doesn't apply to most custom keyboards simply because the market for them is too small.
No company in their right mind is going to invest tens of thousands of dollars into prototyping and manufacturing metal casting molds for a board that will maybe sell a thousand units at best.

As for the PCB:
Some designers have tried to do stuff like USB passthrough but many people here just don't really seem to want that kinda stuff on a high-end boutique board.
And since those PCBs are a hell of a lot harder to design and also more expensive to manufacture most custom PCB makers just decided to not go that route.

NintendogsWithGuns t1_isk32dt wrote on October 16, 2022 at 4:12 PM

I was referring to investment casting, which does not involve producing permanent molds. The molds are made of ceramic and are shattered with thermal shock to release them. It’s similar to sand casting, but with a much smoother finish. Common technique for manufacturing high-end cast iron, jewelry, and bronze sculptures.

_vastrox_ t1_isk6ely wrote on October 16, 2022 at 4:34 PM

I would guess that this would be much more expensive than just CNC machining.
Especially with the size and geometry that some of the higher end boards have on the inside.

And it would probably still required at least some finishing in a CNC machine.
Screw holes will have to get drilled and tapped and the mating surfaces between parts have to be absolutely flat to not create any visible gaps in the assembled part.

And with casting the QC process is usually much more involved than with CNC machining since a casting can fail a lot easier than a CNC program.

QWERKey-UK t1_isiyigi wrote on October 16, 2022 at 10:09 AM

>I’m getting frustrated with the general scarcity of MK related stuff and made up prices. How do you cope?

What do you mean by made up prices? Can you explain?

>A lot of brands don’t have an oficial website. And then you’re lost in asea of third party sellers/websites that look quite shady.

What brands don't have a website? Can you give an example? Most do that I can see. I think the issue is you seem to think of them as brands. They are not brands, they are at best small production studios, and often individuals. Some are more established than others, and grow... hence bigger outfits like KBDFans, or Cannon Keys, but you can't think of them as "brands". This is not like the gaming industry.

>Everything seems to be out of stock all the time.

You are probably looking at things that were a group buy. They were crowd funded projects that had a limited production run. Popular products will probably run again, but they cannot be mass manufactured in large quantities to be a constantly in stock product because the demand is just not there to meet such a supply. As a result, they are expensive to make, so a group buy allows a single person, or a small design studio to make such things by raising the funds first, which allows for the production costs. This is where all these amazing custom boards come from. They are all probably funded by group buys.

>Some cases have a high price for simple aluminium. I do not get this. Ifeel dumb not understanding this but it’s just aluminium.

Aluminium prices are really high. Not as bad as they were around March of this year, but to make an aluminium case is very expensive indeed. Add to this the cost of low production run CNC and it's not cheap. Plastics by comparison are dirt cheap, but even an acrylic case can be expensive if it is CNC produced.

>Are things really worth their price of is it just fabricated scarcity?

No, it is not fabricated scarcity. It's purely the economics of scale. By their very nature, custom boards are a niche market, and if you set out to make a no compromise, high quality keyboard from expensive materials and only aim to sell a few thousand of them, then the productions costs are very, very high indeed.

>These have taken some of the fun I was expecting to have as I don’t findit entertaining to collect “almost-impossible-to-get”/“waiting-forever-to-get-it” things inanything in my life, lol.

I suspect you are not only new to the hobby, but also quite young, and you are used to being able to just get what you want from Amazon etc. with next day delivery, so this whole world of custom made products, made in small numbers and financed by the people buying them is probably alien to you. It's not unique to this hobby BTW... anything that is a bespoke, small production run product will have all the same issues. Basically you can't just mass produce something to the extent that it will always be available if the market is not there to sustain such a high level of production. You have probably been watching all the YouTube videos, and seeing all the nice boards, and just assumed you could just buy this stuff like you would a gaming keyboard from Amazon. These are custom boards. They are designed by this community, for this community. They are not mass produced products. Your disappointment and disillusion is very common for newcomers, especially over the past couple of years since the pandemic "rush" into this hobby, and those who come here via YouTube videos without any real background into the hobby often fail to understand why things are the way they are, and often rebel and start saying it's all unfair, and a rip off. You have to realise that without the group buy boards that probably made you interested in the first place, this hobby would not exist. If it was all mass produced, always in stock stuff, then it would just be like the gaming industry. None of these things would be special or desirable... they'd just be another off the shelf product. There literally would not be a hobby to speak of without the low production run, group buy funded custom stuff.

>So I settled for buying an epomaker th80 and will eventually experimentwith some switches and keycaps. Even painting the actual case of thekeyboard if I get bored. But now I feel limited to whatever I can findavailable on Amazon for fast availability and shipping

This is how everyone starts. Do you think all of us who have been into this for years splashed out on a $700 keyboard? You buy a cheaper, readily available board. You modify it... experiment.... find out what you want from a board. You learn, study, and become knowledgeable. You save up money. If you are quite young, and therefore probably don't have a lot of money, then you probably feel left out, and as if there's no hope of taking part if the hobby. This is not true. You have a mechanical board, and you are planning on modifications and customising the board. Is that not what this hobby is all about? It's not about buying things. Buying things is not a hobby :) If you are young, you will not always be young and broke either.

Have some patience. This hobby is a long haul. Buying stuff is not what the hobby is about. Only those with a large disposable income can do that, and even then, they aren't engaging with the hobby. They're just buying stuff. If all you want is a quick fix of high end stuff to flex with.... then yes, you may well be in the wrong hobby I'm afraid.

>It would be nice to hear how you manage to have fun with the limitations I mentioned above or whether I’m wrong.

When I first got into all this, there WAS no hobby. There were no custom boards. The interest came from modifying whatever you could get your hands on. My advice to you, is work with what you have in order to learn and grow into the hobby. Get yourself a few cheaper boards to sustain you, then when you know what you want, take part in a custom group buy when you aren't desperately waiting for it... when you have other boards to mess around with. Spend more time learning to type as well, as after all, what's the point in having nice boards if you just hunt and peck type on them (i'm not saying you do BTW... just putting forward ideas), or just play games? Learn about building your own.. designing them etc. There's so much more to this hobby than just buying things. You have to love keyboards. I'll say it again. If all you want to do is jump on a popular bandwagon... buy a thing.... flex that thing to get upvotes and likes and "respect" from your contemporaries, you are so in the wrong hobby, as this is not a quick fix hobby, and nor should it be.

gecka t1_isiwryq wrote on October 16, 2022 at 9:45 AM

Designers need to be paid for their work, prototypes are necessary and expensive, manufactures need to be verified, vendors have to be confident in taking risk on the board, PCBs are expensive due to chip shortage (which is supposed to be improving), QC is difficult for small teams, the trend of brass weights makes production and shipping very costly.

This isn't even everything that makes the production of a custom board expensive, add all these up and you can see why it's an expensive hobby. Keep in mind many of these boards are running on thin margins too.

Your "simple aluminum" observation is like saying "the mona lisa is just paint on a canvas why does everyone care about it you can get those parts anywhere"

Guill3m t1_isj5jt5 wrote on October 16, 2022 at 11:41 AM

Yes, most of the time they are not brands as such. Lots are independent designers, with varying degrees of experience, some might be college students, some others are seasoned designers in other fields, most learned how to make a board for "fun", and usually this is done in their free time after their regular jobs. With the tight margins that most boards tend to run, paying someone to make a website that's barely going to be visited is not worth the cost, or the time investment that it requires from oneself even when you are hiring someone.
The higher priced items are going to be out of stock as they are run on small batches as that what many vendors can afford to do. It's easy to think "stock 1000 boards, they will eventually sell", but where does the initial capital to buy the production of those 1000 boards come from? But there are many vendors that have multiple switches and caps in-stock, as well as boards, many of they fairly budget oriented and a great place to start experimenting.
As others said, the process is expensive, specially for small-runs like it's usually done in this hobby. Designers should also be paid for the work they've put working on that board/product, as well as the vendors making that sale possible. Each prototype made is expensive, that cost needs to be compensated in the final price. Aluminum is expensive, the effects of the pandemic on transportation and supply are still very much present in the prices of many materials and components.
If this is worth the price is for you to answer. Some designers and vendors have lower margins, others have much higher margins, there's even some that are running without profits. Either case is fair as they value their time and effort differently. Intentionally limiting the number of boards to a low number can be to ensure they can fulfill orders reasonably fast with good QC, other might want to create a more exclusive product by having a smaller round, either case is fair. It's up to you to decide if that sticker price is something you can and want to afford.

> It would be nice to hear how you manage to have fun with the limitations I mentioned above

I like to build through-hole kits, there's usually a few in-stock on different places (or when they are done in a GB model they usually fulfill pretty quickly) and it's a cheap way to play around with different layouts and test switches.

Why are you in the hobby? What is that you want to get from it? For me it's that experimentation, to try different things and how certain mods affect different boards and switches.

magicmulder t1_isj6im6 wrote on October 16, 2022 at 11:52 AM

Part of many great hobbies is the hunt - you can’t buy a Mercedes Gullwing in every store (and if you could it would be ridiculously expensive) but you can be lucky and find a beat up one in a garage and rebuild it.

PrezPolk t1_isjiuh2 wrote on October 16, 2022 at 1:49 PM

So, I’d like to say that everyone’s comments here are totally on point. You have enthusiasts coming up with interesting designs, going through vendors who have made the necessary connections to get items made and shipped out to real people. It’s a very limited marketplace that values creativity, quality, and has many different ideas for what is “good”.

If you are interested in the hobby, the route I went through was starting with older keyboards. Owning and using an IBM Model M, or a good o Dell Bigfoot with Alps Black switches will allow you to try out and play with modding and allow you to play around with the idea of “how” a keyboard works. You’ll discover what you want a keyboard to feel like, what you want it to look like.

Or, start building a board from someone like MechWild or get a NovelKeys or GMMK board to play with different switches, keycap profiles, etc.

After falling in love with my IBM Model F keyboard, and programming a ProMicro to run my Blue Alps Leading Edge DC-2014, it helped me truly appreciate what a “good” clicky keyboard can be, and in turn made me hate just about every other clicky switch made since. It was then that I realized that I’d probably only ever buy MX linear or tactile switches for any of my new boards.

Idk, just some ideas for areas to explore in the hobby that aren’t prohibitively expensive and can help you focus on what you demand from a keyboard. At that point, you’ll know what you want and are willing to spend real money on and wait two and a half years to get. That may sound crazy, but I’m still waiting for my KAT Mizu keycaps, so….

Keyboards are like legos, they come in many kits and styles, and can all be equally satisfying to someone. Don’t get stressed out over out of stock runs, just recognize that something even better will eventually come along.

jk_pens t1_isjvl2l wrote on October 16, 2022 at 3:21 PM

>TL;DR: I’m getting frustrated with the general scarcity of MK related stuff and made up prices. How do you cope?

Having built over a dozen keebs, I have coped by:

building with the many boards, switches, keycaps that are in stock (Alexotos' vendor list is your friend in this regard)
selectively buying out of stock items on r/mechmarket
selectively joining GBs and being patient
choosing to not care about unobtanium things

It's not that different than any niche hobby where there's a range of mass-produced, small-volume, and boutique/artisan items available.

NoOne-NBA- t1_islkbci wrote on October 16, 2022 at 9:55 PM

"Custom" and "Affordable" are kind of mutually exclusive.

You have a choice in this hobby between getting mass-produced, off-the-shelf items, at an affordable price, or paying a premium for rarity.

There's a bit of a middle ground available, depending on what you consider "affordable".
You can look at places like AliExpress, see what they have available, then look into piecing together your own creation, using the parts you find.
That will still cost you considerably more than you'd spend on a budget board, but will keep you out of the bespoke price range, while eliminating the "out of stock" problem at the same time.

ShynnSup t1_isw56gx wrote on October 19, 2022 at 3:16 AM

Your observations are totally accurate, normal and logical reactions too. I dived recently into mechs myself and had a similar experience. The humanity in us tells us things could be better, if not we would still be living in caves. All is done to improve comfort.

This hobby is pretty uncomfortable... it still has some way to go before being something one would expect out of the 21st century.

Most people here like things the way they are. They have been here for a while, got used to it, and even fetish the cryptic nature of it all. Some time ago having your own custom keyboard was even harder than today, longer wait times, more expensive and less customizable options (materials and soldered pcbs instead of hot-swaps), so you can expect people here really really love their custom keyboards. For them, the less people know about the hobby the better, the less demand the better. It makes them and their keyboards feel special.

Today, newcomers have a lot more options than before, with more affordable prices, more stock, less wait times and a lot of customizability. Veterans feel bitter about newcomers having to go through much less pain than they did to get a custom keyboard.

This is why most replies you got are old.

Today, it is not true that most keyboards are designed by the community like you and me. But rather people who one way or another make a living with mechanical keyboards. Definitely not your average r/MechanicalKeyboards redditor.

Today you have well established brands which design and produce several keyboard models a year.

Today, it is not true that group buys are still relevant because there is not enough demand. The hobby did start on them, but right now vendors basically abuse the model to minimize risk and maximize profit. Here a good video which summarizes the current state of the matter.

Hopefully you find some relief in seeing that many people agree with the impressions you got. Group buys also have really bad consequences for the hobby such as the existence of 'cloned' designs at lower prices which basically infringe copyright laws by cloning designs of group buys that ended. Of course here everyone is ok with that and minimize the issue because that would mean group buys are bad, and how dare you? "That's what made this hobby possible in the first place!"

Don't let yourself be discouraged by these people, telling you maybe custom mechs are not for you just for expecting normal wait times and availability. That is where the hobby is going since years now. There are a lot of options out there and everyday there is more. Group buys will soon go extinct and always in stock options will become the common norm.

Having said that, I disagree with you on the price view. For sure there is artificial scarcity, specially with groups buys, but machining is expensive and so is aluminum, copper, and brass. Also, prices are more than affordable when you put things into perspective: A pair or sunglasses can cost more than a custom keyboard, most phones cost more, most watches cost more, many cloths including shoes cost more, many bags cost more, etc etc. There are countless everyday items than are extremely expensive and people happily pay the price. So keep things in perspective. Investing in a tool you will probably use five or more hours a day is more than justified.

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>It would be nice to hear how you manage to have fun with the limitations I mentioned above or whether I’m wrong.

HOW DO I HAVE FUN?

I would say the fun comes from many many sources regarding this hobby. Research is a big part of it. Watching videos, watching reviews, following designers and vendors on instagram, discord. Watching streams (Alexotos) Seeing new designs, new keycaps, new keyboards, new switches. Seeing what others have done, what they share, their combinations, etc. That's really fun for me.

I also have fun saving stuff I like. I save images, screenshots, etc. And this takes me to think about possible builds, what I am interested in, wanting to try x switches and wanting to experiment with different plate and case materials. For instance, I am a TKL person. I thought I would always want my keyboards metallic, because it feels elegant, manly, heavy, luxurious, but I am currently really really digging 60% keyboards with acrylic cases, which I never though I would, but it has grown on me, so I am thinking about how that build will go and making some research about the best 60% keyboard out there or upcoming.

Then fun is finally pulling the trigger and preparing for your build, is like expecting a baby. You might want to buy a new deskmat, some keycaps, some switches, some lube and some tools. I got the my switches before the keyboard, so I will be lubing those across weeks to get ready for when my keeb arrives. You might think lubing is not fun, well, you can now buy pre-lubed switches and pay someone else to lube them for you. I have to make time for my keyboard so it's a win-win situation for me.

When all the pieces finally arrive you have fun putting it all together, experimenting with different materials (if you ordered different plates), switches, etc. Trying different mountings until I stick with the one I like and maybe change it all over again in time.

Hope you can find some fun in the process too! Good luck!

Rare_Acanthaceae5890 OP t1_iswms3o wrote on October 19, 2022 at 6:18 AM

Thank you so much for your reply!

I am not in the US so I have to import everything! That’s why uncertain things are group buys and very in the future releases don’t work for me.

I will try researching! I am receiving my first keyboard tomorrow!

throwaway_314vx t1_isj7jto wrote on October 16, 2022 at 12:04 PM

The answer to the question in your post title is "Yes". You are getting the wrong impression. Completely. You don't understand anything about this ecosystem.

You don't understand who designs custom keyboards or why they do it
You don't understand how the custom work moves from designers concept to end user
You don't understand why items are scarce
You don't understand any steps involved in production
You don't understand why things cost what they do

You're just wrong on all accounts. And of course that's fine. Noone knows this the first few days into the hobby. But you're 3 months in.

If you've actually spent 3 months "reading learning and following" you've clearly been reading the wrong things, learning from the wrong people, and following the wrong "brands".

That might not be your fault either, but it probably is.

Get out of your bubble and get to where the meat hits the asphalt - which is Discord (which I am not a fan of but that's another story) these days. It used to be geekhack.org, so you can start there - if nothing else it gives you links to relevant Discords.

Rare_Acanthaceae5890 OP t1_isrsmsk wrote on October 18, 2022 at 5:59 AM

Hey!

Thank you to everyone for sharing their thoughts, knowledge and experiences.

Yeah I got carried away with what I follow in social media and thought everything was easier.

But this made me realised I am already partaking even when I’m getting basic stuff.

Also, thank you for the vendor and subreddit links and for teaching me things as terminology…

I am starting over learning about this…

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