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geekhack Community => New Members => Topic started by: Caspid on Tue, 10 October 2017, 18:59:36

Title: Hi! New to mechs — buy premade or assemble my own?
Post by: Caspid on Tue, 10 October 2017, 18:59:36
Hi!  I love typing and would like to get an idea of a mechanical keyboard to set my sights on.

I'd like an unbranded tenkeyless board with blank keycaps and probably Cherry MX Blues.  How much do PBT keycaps cost, and are they worthwhile?  (Also, where can I find them?) 

Would getting something like a barebones keyboard keyboard and buying the PBT keycaps separately be a good approach?  WASD keyboards look nice — any others you'd recommend?

Thanks!
Title: [pwnd by Massdrop]
Post by: gak1234 on Sun, 05 November 2017, 20:43:49
[pwnd by Massdrop]
Title: Re: Hi! New to mechs — buy premade or assemble my own?
Post by: Caspid on Mon, 06 November 2017, 13:18:58
No, I haven't purchased anything yet.  Would rather spend time making sure I got what I wanted.
Title: Re: Hi! New to mechs — buy premade or assemble my own?
Post by: shadowrealmwarez on Mon, 06 November 2017, 13:30:48
Quote from: Caspid on Tue, 10 October 2017, 18:59:36
Hi!  I love typing and would like to get an idea of a mechanical keyboard to set my sights on.

I'd like an unbranded tenkeyless board with blank keycaps and probably Cherry MX Blues.  How much do PBT keycaps cost, and are they worthwhile?  (Also, where can I find them?) 

Would getting something like a barebones keyboard keyboard and buying the PBT keycaps separately be a good approach?  WASD keyboards look nice — any others you'd recommend?

Thanks!

Welcome welcome, depends how comfortable you are with soldering and the finer details of putting it all together. I went with a Pok3r for my first board but didn't really enioy 60%...so I moved up to a 96 key and that felt great. Except now here I sit with a few kustom boards, I was worried at first since I hadn't soldered since 2010, but I did ok, did some practicing on an old PCB and breadboard. Do some searching around geekhack and /r/mechmarket and /r/mechanicankeyboard to see what layouts and names you like, might also be beneficial to pick up a switch tester from someone like novelkeys.xyz or similar to make sure blues are really what you want as I am finding myself now between MX cherry blacks and MX cherry greens for my builds.