Greetings from Aussie!

[jagex9090]

Hey y'all,

Been perusing the PC building community for awhile, and happened to chance on to the mech keyboard community, and I think I'm starting to understand the hype and possible addiction!! Thinking about getting my first mech keyboard, and am wondering if I should fully invest in an expensive artisan board like keycult, or start off with something a bit cheaper? Am really hyped about soldering switches and customizing my boards! Hope to hear all your thoughts about it!

[jamster]

Start with something cheap and readily available, rather than something expensive and with potentially long wait times. If you want to mess around with customisation, then you've already got a non-precious platform to desolder switches in to swap in your own.

[jagex9090]

Thanks for the input! I think I will find a decent MKB to mess around with, just hard to narrow down what I'd want haha!

[Maledicted]

Thanks for the input! I think I will find a decent MKB to mess around with, just hard to narrow down what I'd want haha!

Hi jagex9090 (Runescape? I was lucky to escape that addiction). Welcome to Geekhack.

I agree. I even vote you never bother with overpriced custom stuff like that. If you want to do any of your own soldering, you'll probably end up with a better QC job than most boards anyway doing it yourself, be it affordable kits, or swapping switches to something you prefer over what may have come in a board.

[jamster]

I hadn't looked up keycult before, just did and wow. Expensive.

Guess it depends on what you're into- personally I want functionality, and as far as customisation or uniqueness factors into it, I want to be involved in the creation of that myself rather than be a simple consumer buying an end product.

If you're thinking the DIY route already, I'd highly recommend it. It's an inherently slow and exploratory kind of progress where you learn things. I started soldering again with keyboards, and ended up moving on to building my own amps and speakers (from kits as I don't have an EE background).