Deck Hassium up at MechKB

[dante]

http://www.mechkb.com/products/deck-hassium-mechanical-keyboard.html

[jwaz]

Definitely the last keyboard I would ever need/ want

[Danule]

if they use sculpted keys they it might be nice, other than that font.

[PointyFox]

What's with the prices on mechanical keyboards?  Sure a lot of people are stupid, but enough to run a business off of?

[MechKB]

Hello all, noticed some traffic coming from here, thought we'd make an account to answer questions

What's with the prices on mechanical keyboards?  Sure a lot of people are stupid, but enough to run a business off of?

Just to note, we are an Australian operation. By (Australian) law our publicly displayed prices must include a 10% Goods and Services Tax. On top of this, the current exchange rate is from Australian Dollar to US Dollar is ~1.12 AUD to USD. Granted it's still not 'cheap' but may help put prices into perspective.

Deck Hassiums use true doubleshot PBT key caps. We carried out our own experiments on the matter here: http://mechkb.tumblr.com/post/59664045773/our-stock-of-deck-hassiums-are-genuine-pbt-doubleshot, which I believe was linked in another thread. I believe they are the only manufacturers on the market currently mass producing Doubleshot PBT backlight compatible key caps, so in that respect they do command a price premium... 'unconventional' font notwithstanding.

[dante]

MechKB:

Deck never gave a straight answer on whether the original Legend/82 was even assembled in the US.  Where are these new keyboards made?

Any idea when the Francium will make it to your site?

Can you explain the naming of these boards?

[MechKB]

MechKB:

Deck never gave a straight answer on whether the original Legend/82 was even assembled in the US.  Where are these new keyboards made?

Any idea when the Francium will make it to your site?

Can you explain the naming of these boards?

It's remarkably hard to find the "made in" information for Deck. The Hassium boxes and the reverse of the Hassium itself coyly states: "Designed in the USA". I would hazard a guess that if it was actually made in the US, it would say so. I'll see if I can chase this piece of information up in a bit, but just as fair warning, I may be gagged by management from revealing this. If I had to guess now, I would say the are made either in Taiwan or in China.

Franciums will not be making it to our site as there are no new production runs of the Francium. That doesn't mean that there won't be a TKL from Deck. I definitely not allowed to say more then this 

EDIT: I should clarify on the Franciums, there aren't any new production runs of the Francium in their present function set.

[rootwyrm]

It's remarkably hard to find the "made in" information for Deck. The Hassium boxes and the reverse of the Hassium itself coyly states: "Designed in the USA". I would hazard a guess that if it was actually made in the US, it would say so. I'll see if I can chase this piece of information up in a bit, but just as fair warning, I may be gagged by management from revealing this. If I had to guess now, I would say the are made either in Taiwan or in China.

TG3 (which is Deck) has a very wide range of keyboard offerings so I'd rate it very likely that they use multiple sources for parts and final assembly. For example, AFAIK the only facility doing double-shot PBT is in Taiwan, but they might be having the PCBs or controllers made in China or Malaysia.

You'd probably have to look at the customs papertrail for a given shipment to determine where the final assembly was done for a specific model. Now, that said, TG3 does as a point of order and for a fact, do a substantial amount of manufacturing in the United States proper and has for 7+ years. The Deck has always been made in Kenosha, WI. (AMC gearheads unite!) TG3 has facilities in China and Hong Kong as well. It wouldn't make a great deal of sense for them to just dump the Kenosha line - it's a 45K sqft facility! - even with discontinuing the Deck, but that doesn't mean it's making the Hassium necessarily.

[MechKB]

<snip>

TG3 (which is Deck) has a very wide range of keyboard offerings so I'd rate it very likely that they use multiple sources for parts and final assembly. For example, AFAIK the only facility doing double-shot PBT is in Taiwan, but they might be having the PCBs or controllers made in China or Malaysia.

You'd probably have to look at the customs papertrail for a given shipment to determine where the final assembly was done for a specific model. Now, that said, TG3 does as a point of order and for a fact, do a substantial amount of manufacturing in the United States proper and has for 7+ years. The Deck has always been made in Kenosha, WI. (AMC gearheads unite!) TG3 has facilities in China and Hong Kong as well. It wouldn't make a great deal of sense for them to just dump the Kenosha line - it's a 45K sqft facility! - even with discontinuing the Deck, but that doesn't mean it's making the Hassium necessarily.

Our Deck Hassiums are shipped out of HK

<snip>
Can you explain the naming of these boards?

Sorry Dante, forgot to answer your last question. Hassium and Francium are both elements on the periodic table with the numbers 108 and 87 respectively. I guess you can figure out the rest from there

[jonathanyu]

Is this pbt double shot? Hope that there are pbt double shot that in cherry legend

[MechKB]

Is this pbt double shot? Hope that there are pbt double shot that in cherry legend

Yes it is Refer to our paint thinner test here: http://mechkb.tumblr.com/post/59664045773/our-stock-of-deck-hassiums-are-genuine-pbt-doubleshot

There's also links to hi-res pictures of the key caps.

We spoke with Deck regarding their font when the Hassiums first landed. Our feedback was that changing the tooling to print a new font for Double-shot PBT was cost prohibitive and they were very reluctant to do it

[skuko]

dat font....*cringe*

[tp4tissue]

Well... the good news is.. more pbt..

Bad news,  It's still not an ergodox... FAIL.....

[Obakemono]

Hey, those PBT double-shot backlit keycaps sound interesting, any chance of buying just the keyset?? 

[dante]

There are always TG3's on ebay for good prices.  If the font bothers you and the profile is the same you could at least swap most of the alpha keys.

[rootwyrm]

Our Deck Hassiums are shipped out of HK

Then I'd wager they're built at the HK facility rather than Kenosha. (Not totally surprising.) As long as the build quality's up to par, though, really doesn't matter too much where they're made.

[Danule]

are they keys flat or contoured on this new keyboard?

[Topre]

are they keys flat or contoured on this new keyboard?

Show Image

Contoured.

[Hyde]

dat font....*cringe*

Now we're at 2/2 of all the double shot PBT available with ugly fonts.  We're doomed.......

[Lu_e]

are they keys flat or contoured on this new keyboard?

Show Image

Contoured.

How can you be sure? their old keyboard were all the same profile... which would be flat.

& why is there 4 of, basically, the same picture of the keyboard? Really makes me wanna buy, that with the fact its not even on Decks website...

[Topre]

are they keys flat or contoured on this new keyboard?

Show Image

Contoured.

How can you be sure? their old keyboard were all the same profile... which would be flat.

& why is there 4 of, basically, the same picture of the keyboard? Really makes me wanna buy, that with the fact its not even on Decks website...

Because they changed their molds? These double shot keycaps are not the same as the old Deck keycaps. From the pictures that MechKB posted of the paint thinner test, most of the keycaps were from different rows and they were clearly different sized. Unless if my eyes are playing tricks on me, then I highly doubt it's flat.

It actually is on Deck's website, but it's not available for ordering right now. The pictures that Deck has also shows the difference in profile of each row of keycaps.

[Danule]

If i were to ever get a backlit id probably go with this. Looks quite nice. I also like how this and the wasd desings are looking more and more like filco.

[TimIsABat]

Why is that font so ugly though x.x

[MechKB]

are they keys flat or contoured on this new keyboard?

Show Image

I think contoured, definitely not flat.

are they keys flat or contoured on this new keyboard?

Show Image

Contoured.

How can you be sure? their old keyboard were all the same profile... which would be flat.

& why is there 4 of, basically, the same picture of the keyboard? Really makes me wanna buy, that with the fact its not even on Decks website...

There's four pictures at the same angle because we took the pictures ourselves and all the front-on images were out of focus. If it bothers you that much, I'll ask the guy in the office who takes photos to take some more photos on Monday, we probably should anyhow. Is there any other angles that you or anyone else would like to request?

We might do a full teardown and take more photos. Deck told us that the Hassiums have been in production for a little while so we were under the impression that people knew about the Hassium already but based on our current feedback here and elsewhere on the internet, it seems the first run of Hassiums went into Korea and the board itself is still mostly an unknown in the English speaking world. So I think a teardown might be profitable in that sense... We might need a bit of time to work on this though.

[Hyde]

Why is that font so ugly though x.x

Crayon scribble font is Deck's trademark since forever.

[MechKB]

Ok, we updated the product images a bit and done a teardown which you can find here: http://imgur.com/a/o8szw . Feedback + request for different angles, etc. Please let me know. Sorry for the slight necro.

[sprit]

Thx for the info.  need to identify

[Danule]

Ok, we updated the product images a bit and done a teardown which you can find here: http://imgur.com/a/o8szw . Feedback + request for different angles, etc. Please let me know. Sorry for the slight necro.

that PCB looks very nice.