Mirroring the info from Discord, which again is my main prioritized location for pushing updates and notifications:
As you may have seen on the Cannonkeys newsletter and/or Apiary stream, this board will be 750 USD with a 100 unit cap per vendor.
Laughably, a massive portion of the price tag is the sheer production cost from machining out such a design. Don't say that I didn't warn you regarding the price beforehand...
There will be two color configurations:
- Silver case, grey weight, black plate
- Grey case, silver weight, black plate
Both configurations will be of identical materials - aluminum case and plate, steel weight.
Cannonkeys will sell on their storefront via their usual rolling raffle system on October 24, 11:00AM Eastern time.
Due to massive demand from the CN market, the Deskeys batch will be sold through Taobao in FCFS fashion on October 25, 11:00AM Beijing time (12 hrs after CK's batch).
Neither vendor will be region-locked; feel free to purchase from whichever is more convenient.
The build guide will outline the correct assembly order for the keyboard when it is available. This will avoid problems with screwless mount point fitment seen in the stream.
One thing to note is that due to timezone differences, I may be asleep when these buys happen, so I may not be able to drop a "5 minutes until GB" announcement or whatnot.
Please consider this to be the last reliable notification from me regarding the board, and set your calendars/alarm clocks on your side for these times.
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Doing the much-needed housekeeping akin to trying to fight a house fire without a sprinkler system:
I watched apiary build this board and for $750 I sure hope we don't get an ugly green PCB and gaskets we have to install our selves...
Production PCB will be black.
You have to install the gaskets yourself by default; however, you can use your personal slave labor instead as an upgrade option.
This is honestly such a huge disappointment. I've been waiting on this since day one and even passing on other boards to have a $750 price tag and only silver/gray...I thought for sure there would at least be a black.
I think it's safe to say this one wasn't planned well and got away from designer at some point. :/
I ruled out black as an option from day 1 as it would not reflect the lighting properly and would kill the benefits of the design.
I think it's safe to say that uncontrolled speculation gets away from the design's intentions at some point.
Why does it even cost that much to begin with?
Machining cost and material cost. As simple as that.
Chop off the sculpted surfaces and downsize the weight, and watch price literally drop to half.
Because it clearly was, I'm not sure how you're not seeing that. This feels rushed to me, but to each their own. There is no true refinement here for $750, no choice of anything really for a "custom keyboard," plain pcb that looks worst than a cheap keyboard, cut-outs that overlap with switches, possible broken daughter ports, very limited quantity...I didn't want to go into all of this but seriously if anyone is entitled here are designers that expect all of you to eat up whatever is served.
I suppose I am entitled indeed. Unfortunate that I must enforce upon you the existence of this thread which you could simply dismiss as not fitting your values and close for the sake of spending time doing something more worthwhile than replying to such a topic.
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It pains my heart that the community which surrounds the hobby which I enjoy so much is the one which I despise the most.
It also disappoints me that I am not allowed to make what pleases me and to allow a purchasing option for those who wish to obtain a copy of it without coming under heavy criticism.
Alas, it is what it is.