Hello... New to the community, but learning quickly

[limitz]

Hi all.

Discovered mechanical keyboards just two months ago, but have been loving the ride since. Originally frequented /r/mechanicalkeyboards, but gravitated here due to the depth of content. Was kind of tired seeing stock keyboards receive dozens to hundreds of upvotes. Just got a little boring.

Already went through 4 keyboards (CODE Green, Shine 3 Black, Shine 3 Blue, CODE Clear), and returned 3 of them (damn shipping costs ate a hole in my wallet). Ultimately settled on the CODE-104 in Clear and have been enjoying the hell out of it.

In the two months, I've already bought 4 keycap sets (Penumbra, Midnight, DSA Dolch, and GMK Dolch), and preparing for my first build (the SpiRiT). I've been updating MassDrop daily in hopes of another ErgoDox kit dropping, and I've already learned the Chinese vocabulary for all major components to use Taobao properly. Paid stupid money for one keycap set on eBay, and don't regret it at all. All-in-all, it's been an amazingly fun two months, though I still can't believe how expensive this hobby is. I think your average person would  if told how much money one could spend on a "just a keyboard."

Ultimate goal is to design my own keyboard from the PCB, but that'll be a project for another day.

Enjoying the stay here, and hope for many more years of keyboard joy.

[deltuhhh]

Welcome! So you decided to learn Chinese Vocabulary just to use Taobao? That's pretty interesting lol.

[limitz]

Yeah I was tired of seeing things constantly out of stock in US based retailers. Keyboards that sold out here, were readily available from Taobao retailers. For example, before mechanicalkeyboards.com got their restock of Shine 3's, it was hard to find them in stock in other stores. However, Shine 3's are very common on Taobao, with much better variety.

Since then, I've noticed the selection on Taobao generally much better. Also I figured that most of the keyboards are made in Asia anyway, might as well get closer to the source.