Not sure if anyone saw or read this but MassDrop has been working on getting a GB started for the Smart68 but the factory that produced the Chinese group buy apparently doesn't exist anymore.
So.... there's more work to be done to get this in production for us outside of China...
Source: Lekashman
That's a real shame to hear =(
I wonder what the biggest issues are for the production of this.
Is it the carbon fibre plate or the PCB?
I believe it's neither.
Two main issues I see now...
They need to first get a sample of the keyboard sent to their offices in California (with the original factory out of the picture, this is not as simple as asking for a production sample). I doubt any of the buyers in the original GB would be willing to part with their keyboards for the sake of us not in the PRC.
The only way around this would be if the designer or Feng had a production sample and could ship it to MD.
I'm not sure if MD has managed to get a production sample yet but let's assume they have one right now.
Then they need to find a factory to actually produce the boards for a GB on MassDrop.
This essentially means, where two weeks ago, it was almost certain that a GB would happen soon in the US because there was a factory ready to produce the board (machinery and tooling and logistics ready to go to production), there is no such factory now and so that takes the GB back a few steps.
This keyboard looks so promising but in my opinion it might be doubtful that a drop would happen for us as soon as we had originally anticipated.
There's that and the fact that MassDrop now has the Infinity Keyboard to build upon.