Hi dky. Welcome to Geekhack.
I haven't done any of the design end of things at all myself, but you may find this thread to be helpful:
Super Awesome Tools and Resources Made By Users!If I could start over:
I would avoid Cherry MX switches entirely. The only ones of the lot that I have felt that I would still consider to be ok vs alternatives are their red and clear switches. Their clickies are all pretty mediocre (on the low end of mediocre) and everything else ranges from alright to pretty terrible (I put MX browns in this category). Gateron seems to make some of the best conventional/commercial MX clone switches, all being better than their MX counterparts of those I have tried. The trend for linears and tactiles is more towards expensive/boutique custom/premium switches with fancy alternative plastics and/or factory lube, etc. For clickies, I think that for clickies, Kailh's box thick clicks are the best thing around that aren't a vintage/dead switch type from the 1980s, and I think a lot of people would agree.
I would also probably get a hot swap board right away (for switch configuration testing) until waiting until the apocalypse began to even bother ordering one. I did end up still putting together frankenboards out of new switches and OEM boards that I love, but the results weren't always exactly what I was expecting either.
A switch tester with as many switches as you can get will be helpful as well.
If you're buying out of your link as a list, I would also say that if you're going to be doing a lot of desoldering to swap switches, etc, you may want to invest in a good electronic Hakko desoldering pump. It makes the process much faster, and easier.
I honestly can't even think of any acronyms offhand, unless you mean something like TKL (tenkeyless). Maybe I'm just drawing a blank? I also am not the average keyboard enthusiast in that regard. My interests lie more with weird/cool old clicky boards and switches than the modern, and certainly not so much with designing anything from scratch (yet anyway, maybe down the road).
Reputable sources
People seem to like KBDfans, I have used KPrepublic and Aliexpress with success, and even Amazon. Mechanicalkeyboards is another, though I know little about it. Novelkeys is great for switches. People use DROP all of the time, of course. KONO is another one that must be reputable, I know I'll try to keep watching them for updates on the SILO beam spring switches myself. People really love Zeal switches, so there's their website as well. for springs, even though the owner is apparently a divisive character, I haven't had any problems with SPRiT for springs. I'm sure I'm missing a ton, not my forte.
Beginner stuff:
If you end up liking any vintage keyboards, or just want to try one of Hasu's crazy Teensy contraptions, you could try try to build your own Soarer's/TMK converter, a replacement controller, etc.
Desoldering switches on an existing board and swapping in something you feel you'll like more is a great start if you ask me, especially if it is some random Chinesium board you pick up on Amazon, Ebay, at a thrift store, etc, for almost nothing. Just watch out for Outemu boards as they often have their own proprietary hot swap sockets, and the switch legs on their switches are apparently a little thinner than that of other manufacturers, so that process would be a bit different than on other boards.
One thing I would probably like to try myself at some point is to hand wire a board, which is to say custom wiring a keyboard matrix without any PCB at all, with the switches already mounted in a plate.
Fan? Who needs a fan? Flux/lead smoke is good for the lungs. No, I probably should have taken that more seriously when I first started soldering.
That's cool to hear. I'm sure you'll fit in great here. There are people of people that seem to be pretty industrious in that regard.
I haven't even tried Topre myself. One day.
