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geekhack Community => New Members => Topic started by: capitantortuga on Tue, 10 March 2015, 00:16:10

Title: Hello all! Building a keyvoard??
Post by: capitantortuga on Tue, 10 March 2015, 00:16:10

Hey guys, new to the group but im looking to build a mechanical keyboard. Any advice? Im thinking of buying some gateron switches on the current GB, so ill either need either a PCB or a teensy controller. I'm in college so my budget is pretty small, id like to build two keyboards and my budget is about 150, is this possible? Thanks!

Title: Re: Hello all! Building a keyvoard??
Post by: rowdy on Sun, 15 March 2015, 01:53:10

Welcome to Geekhack!

Building your own keyboard will almost always cost more than buying one ready made.  Especially if you go for a special plate, special case, nice keycaps and so on.

I don't think you'd be able to build two keyboards for $150.

A recent Gateron GB was sufficiently large that the price dropped to $0.16 per switch.  Assuming TKL keyboards you'd need 180 switches (to allow for a couple of soldering mistakes) which would be about $30.  Really cheap keycap set about $30 times 2 = $60.  Running total $90.  Two PCBs - no idea about that, but I'd be surprised if you'd get anything under around $50, times 2 = $100.  Running total $190 - your budget is already blown.

And that does not include diodes (if not included on the PCBs) and case.  And plates (if you go for plate-mounted).  And stabilisers.

Title: Re: Hello all! Building a keyvoard??
Post by: capitantortuga on Thu, 16 April 2015, 22:33:36

Alright, thanks for the response, no one else responded :'( , i did jump on that GB and bought a total of 200 switches for 53 with shipping so that was a pretty sweet deal. Im thinking that im gonna be using a Teensy for the keyboards and ill just go with the matrix style (still gotta learn some more) and just try to find some plates to mount the switches to (waiting on the switches to get some exact dimensions) i might just try to make some myself. Thanks for the advice and calculations, ill probably go over budget but It's alright itll be a great project for learning and i get to build something that is bad ass.

Title: Re: Hello all! Building a keyvoard??
Post by: rowdy on Sun, 19 April 2015, 23:00:58

Not everyone reads the New Members area.

A simple question/quick answer arose, partly out of questions like your original one: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=40501.0#post_GGGG

Might give you a bit more information :)