Hi, my name is Manuel. I have loved everything related with peripherals since I was a kid. Now that I am older and have my own money I can spend it as my mom says on “nonsenses”. I love keyboards and I have owned differente types of them, however I never had the time or money to be buying and trying different switches, stabs, cases… Now that I am looking forward to build my very own custom keyboard (ck) I am realizing of some stuff that really makes me feel uneasy.
While surfing through the reddit, some of the well known keyboard websites I realised that building your ck is very very expensive. Because of that I went straight to aliexpress, bought myself a hotswap keyboard which had a case that I liked. Looked for some switches, I bought Silent Tactile TOMs, and a set of keycaps of PBT, which as far I know is the best between PBT and ABS, the most common plastics keycaps are made of. Also I bought a coiled cable that costed me only 5$, compared to other sites where the price of a simple coiled cable are more than 20$. And a foam.
I build a “custom keyboard” for only 53$, which leads me to lots of questions. Why simple 60% whiteout cases from etsy or kbd, and similar shops sell them for nearly 50 or 60$. Yes, there are better materials, but is it not overpriced? Why sets of keycaps you could buy in aliexpress for 20$ less are sold way pricier in these shops, I am aware of dropshippers but it is way overpriced and sadly and surprisingly very concurred by people looking to buy their custom keyboard.
Is the keyboard market way overpriced? I see pcb plates listing for 60$ and I do not see a very critical difference. The only thing I am okay on spending money are switches and stabs, but why I should spend nearly a 100$ on a wooden case? Or 60$ on “artisan keycap” which is probably dropshipped or made for less than 5$? Why is etsy so used if there are lots of dropshippers? Even shops as kbd and someothers sell way overpriced keycaps sets that I do not think are very different to the ones I could buy on aliexpress?.
Am I too pinchpenny? Are there heavy arguments of why I should spend lots of money on a simple case? Or even on a set of keycaps?. A build as Wooting 60HE could be done with the plate and the same switches, and maybe using some config firmware programs?
If anyone is wondering about the keyboard I built, here it is…
My board is a pretty damn solid one- Akko Cream Blue Pro, basic lubing + modding, Softle Keyboard, and a set of keycaps for $200~.
Many of these things are difficult to make cheaper. No economy of scale, human wages, etc. It can take maybe an hour to solder the keycaps for a human, that’s easily $20+, then there’s things like their insurance, etc, and then the parts as well, then profits. $100 is very reasonable.
no economy of scale? We have probably hundreds of 75% keyboards out there that looks basically the same with a different badge slapped on the bottom of it. Do we need 100 GB for each of those? Or can we just all go do what Keychron did and improve upon it?
Does lube really cost $12 for a tiny bottle? How is it that no one has ever sold a giant lube bottle yet for people who have like 12 keyboards. These small things that no one questioned is kinda baffling.
Here are the barriers of entry for people who want a mech keyboard : price too high, too much information for them to look up, GB is over, no pre-assembled keyboard. If average people were told the in-stock keyboard costs $100 instead of $250-300, yeah they wouldn’t mind buying it over a corsair K95, given that they don’t have to read 10 pages worth of instructions on lubing switches, tuning stabs, etc.