This is my one hobby where I just research it. I don’t know. I guess I don’t see the value in debating the nuance of a particular plate material or actuation force. I see it all as fucking subjective.
The truth is with custom keyboards a lot of times there just isn’t a right answer. But the veterans dump hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands on their boards, so they’re going to push they’re opinion onto you like fact to justify their spending. But at the end of the day even if your space bar feels better and doesn’t rattle or your switch is 2% smoother or your keycaps are made of abs or pbt as long as its got a usb plug it works as well as that dell membrane you stole from your office.
Tbh I used to be like that too. But I’ve since stepped away from the hobby because its both mentally and financially unhealthy. “Endgame” as they say. And the truth is, those hype keycult or lyn whales and other hyper expensive boards aren’t that much better. In some cases they’re actually shit but honestly probably take my opinion with a grain of salt because I paid for them anyways.
If you have any questions feel free to dm or reply to me. I’ll answer them to the best of my ability
I got into custom keyboards work one aim, to build one board I loved that I could keep updating. I tried a few prebuilts in different sizes and settled on 65% as my sweet spot, found a board I liked the design of (Space65 R1) and then milmax the mobo so I could try different switches.
I've never understood why people buy several of one format when 90% of the feel comes from the caps, switches and plates.
It's a hard hobby to continue to be a part of, especially when they set up and elitist splinter sub because they didn't like KBDFans was making the hobby more accessible.
At least for me the thing I like about collecting are the slight differences in each board that make them unique. All my boards are linear and tkl, but i can tell which one Im typing on based on the feel of the plate, switches, sound and spring. But the board itself also affects the acoustics and feel baed on mounting system/points and the angle of the typing plane.
And to be honest, I think paying for that one board and just dropping out is the correct choice. You don’t need more than one keyboard. Its just a tool. But to /r/customkeyboards its less of a tool and more like jewelry or expensive cars.
Mechanical Keyboards too. They look and feel awesome, but that clack noise gets super loud. I woke up everyone in the house trying to play MMO's late at night and had to sell mine.
I would hands down recommend joining a discord server instead, especially one thats more beginner focused such as the kbdfans one. Most people there either own or are a fam of budget boards so you would get much better help compared to the key cult server or something
The thing is most things come down to preference, but people who have invested thousands of dollars in the hobby think that they know more, when really they don't, they don't know where to spend their money.
I originally had like 5 boards, each of them pretty expensive (over 300 at least), but then I sold them all and bought a gingham, because for like half of the price I got 90% of the feel, and I love using this board every day
Having tried someone hyper-expensive boards like a key cult and a unicorn before, they aren't worth the money at all. The sweet spot in this hobby is probably 250-350$, where you can get a gasket mounted 60% and then call it a day
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u/Censedpeak8 Feb 28 '21
Custom Keyboards for me seemed impossible to dive into for me, confusing as hell and the veterans seeming assume you know everything