Leopold keyboard

[patrickgeekhack]

Anyone knows more about the Leopold FC200R keyboard? It looks a lot like a Filco board and I would not be suprised if it is manufactured by Costar.

[erricrice]

Logo is quite huge, I will agree with you there.  I like the LEDs built into the keys, and it's got all the types of cherries, it's gotta be a costar.

[itlnstln]

It's a Costar.  It's basically the same as the Phaethon 'board they sell there as well.

[sixty]

It's a Costar.  It's basically the same as the Phaethon 'board they sell there as well.

Both are made by Strongman. The same molds are used as with the KBTalking as far as I know.

[Hak Foo]

So build quality is like a Costar board, but it's not signifcantly  cheaper than a Filco though (W145,000 ~ $119-- and by the time you get it here, it's certainly not cheaper than a Filco)

[microsoft windows]

Any keyboard fans besides us who speak English?

[Hamblet]

Is there any kind of OEM contract terms and conditions regarding Do not tell anybody else (especially customer who pays you lots of money) that supplier is some company in Taiwan  ?
KBTalking (First model of Payton) was SMK. 2nd Payton (Lowpold) should be CS i guess.

[Hak Foo]

I would expect it's just a matter of branding.

If people decide "I want a Costar board", then they'll find the cheapest Costar-made part, instead of looking for a Filco or Leopold or Das.

[Hamblet]

Does Costar deal with individuals ? Do they sell 1 pc or 2 pcs of their boards ? I am not sure.
EDIT) SMK does. I bought from them KBTalking, Strongman, Leftys directly.

[watduzhkstand4]

Logo is huge except the rest still looks exactly like a Filco board. Only difference is the detachable USB cable and the LED for the lock keys. What so special about this one other than those differences?

[Hak Foo]

Does Costar deal with individuals ? Do they sell 1 pc or 2 pcs of their boards ? I am not sure.
EDIT) SMK does. I bought from them KBTalking, Strongman, Leftys directly.

One of the guys on this forum had a thread where he spoke with Costar.  I think he said they wanted him to order 100 units, but he was able to get a sample for inspection.

[Hamblet]

just imitation.

[Hamblet]

What so special about this one other than those differences?

Just imitation. That is it.

[watduzhkstand4]

Just imitation. That is it.

So this might sounds like a newbie question but...

Is Filco the OEM for these boards? Or is Filco just like one of these brands that just slaps their name on someone elses keyboard?

[Hamblet]

So this might sounds like a newbie answer...
What is big difference between them. One is making it in some isl and the other selling in some isl.
(Topre says Made in Japan in their sticker always. How does Filco ? Sticker says always Made in Taiwan or Made in China).

[watduzhkstand4]

So this might sounds like a newbie answer...
What is big difference between them. One is making it in some isl and the other selling in some isl.
(Topre says Made in Japan in their sticker always. How does Filco ? Sticker says always Made in Taiwan or Made in China).

lol I'm asking if Filco OEM for them. What does that have to do with where they're made?

[Hamblet]

I do not understand that why do you have that question.

[watduzhkstand4]

I do not understand that why do you have that question.

Because I want to know who makes the keyboards? lol. Does Filco make their own keyboards or does someone else make it for them and all they do is slap their name on it. That's what I want to know.

[Hamblet]

They do OEM.

And personally, if you could name something on it, it is yours.

[rdjack21]

What you have is a Contract manufacture (costar) that specialises in keyboards. Very few companies today actually manufacture what they sell they contract it out to someone that specialises in manufacturing what you want.

So you have Filco a manufacture that contracts the manufacture of their product to costar. Filco tells the contract manufacture this is what I want built like so. The contractor will come back and tell you well if you use this common part due to volume we can save you money (case, switches and any thing else you want to reuse) You (filco) look the list over and think this is cool saves me manufacturing cost witch translates into more profit or a lower price so lets do that but I still want these extra features or I want this special controller or what ever.

Now here comes Leopold generally just a seller of goods but would like to have there own branded keyboard because the profit margin will be higher. They know that every one is contracting there stuff to costar so they call them up. "Hey I want a keyboard with my name on it in this layout what can you do for me and I don't know squat about keyboards so I want you to do everything". Costar no problem using these common parts we can build you a keyboard here you go...

ect,ect, ect...

And every one that deals with costar gets better pricing on the common parts because the volume on those parts continues to go up thus reducing the price for them over time.

Costar will do this for you was well if you want to purchase at least 100 keyboards at a time so if you call them up and tell them you want 100 keyboards with your name on it with blue cherry switches they will sell it to you along with your label on it.

So in one since most of these boards are manufactured by one manufacture but that does not mean they are the same because different manufactures (filco, abs, ect..) will want different things but most of the common stuff will be the same.

I know kinda of confusing but this consolidation of manufacturing has been going on for quite some time now. Most of the old school manufactures have sold off there manufacturing facilities to contract manufactures. But a few of them still do some assembly work mostly because they want to control that better but even that is going as well now. Primarily this is happening in electronics but we are starting to see this happen in other industries as well. And this consolidation of manufacturing is one of the things that has driven prices down on electronics and this price reduction is what is driving other industries to look at it and adopt it in many cases.

[TheSoulhunter]

One of the guys on this forum had a thread where he spoke with Costar.  I think he said they wanted him to order 100 units, but he was able to get a sample for inspection.

Actually I got not just one but 3 samples...

But it took several mails and a lot smooth talking to get em!

[itlnstln]

It would have been nice if we could have gotten to a consensus on the "Geekhack keyboard."  My money would have already been in Soulhunter's hands.  That's what those samples were for in the first place.

[itlnstln]

They were?

See here: http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?t=6111

[quadibloc]

Is Filco the OEM for these boards?

I didn't know before, but from what people have said in this thread, it sounds like Costar is the OEM for those boards. On the Costar web site, they at least seem to acknowledge that they are the OEM for the DAS keyboard:

http://www.costar.com.tw/products01/info.php?p_id=97&p_sid=32

and this model may resemble the Filco as well as the Leopold:

http://www.costar.com.tw/products01/info.php?p_id=45&p_sid=32

[itlnstln]

Costar OEMs for Filco, for sure.

[cmr]

looks like a pretty cool board. i kind of want one of these now, basically since it's the first mechanical board i have seen with two scripts of key inscriptions and the correct ANSI bksp/backslash/enter

[itlnstln]

The Leopold/Strongman/Phaethon 'boards are all Costar, too.  The have the same casing, rubber feet, and screw locations as all the other Costar 'boards.  The even include the same cable wrap as the Filcos, although, the Leopold one is emblazoned with "Phaeton" instead.  The only changes I see are the lock lights in the keys, the rubberized lifters, and the detachable USB cable.

[itlnstln]

I'm just saying he may have done all the smoothtalking without ever bringing Geekhack into the conversation. Anyhoo - that thread was going nowhere fast.
 
I'm smoothtalking Soulhunter because I want some OK stickers.

Hah.  I got to looking at the bottom of my Filco (and ABS) to see how it compared to the pics of the Leopold, and I noticed that the "OK" sticker on the bottom of my Filco is torn, too, and I have never taken mine apart.  Oh well.  I don't think I will need to send it back at this point, anyway.

[patrickgeekhack]

Hah.  I got to looking at the bottom of my Filco (and ABS) to see how it compared to the pics of the Leopold, and I noticed that the "OK" sticker on the bottom of my Filco is torn, too, and I have never taken mine apart.  Oh well.  I don't think I will need to send it back at this point, anyway.

The OK sticker on my Filco is still good, but not the one on my ABS because I took it apart to apply some lithium grease under the space bar.

[TheSoulhunter]

Are you going to crack those open and do any comparisons with Filco/others?

I already did...

The only differences to the NKRO Filcos:

1. No Filco emblem (obviously)
2. No coating on the caps/case
3. No stickers on the backside (sorry ripster )
4. Different font on the keycaps (see link above)

I'm just saying he may have done all the smoothtalking without ever  bringing Geekhack into the conversation.  Anyhoo - that thread was going nowhere fast.

I'm smoothtalking Soulhunter because I want some OK stickers.

Yep, never mentioned Geekhack...
And regarding the stickers, see #3 above!

[patrickgeekhack]

I already did...

The only differences to the NKRO Filcos:

1. No Filco emblem (obviously)
2. No coating on the caps/case
3. No stickers on the backside (sorry ripster )
4. Different font on the keycaps (see link above)


Yep, never mentioned Geekhack...
And regarding the stickers, see #3 above!

What switches are used in these keyboards?

[TheSoulhunter]

Originally I wanted to get:

- One with brown Cherrys
- One with blue Cherrys
- One with ALPS

Then they told me that they don't have a ALPS version with NKRO,
so I asked for a second one with blue Cherrys as replacement...

[TheSoulhunter]

That's weird.  Welly has been assuming Costar built the Filco Fukka ALPS board (aka da Kamikaze Zero)  and it has N-key.

Probably they wanted to send me a unbranded ABS bord...

Filco "raws" cant be used as they have a deepening + holes for the emblem (see image)



So they cant be turned "unbranded" that easily...

Maybe they were just too lazy to put Filco internals into a ABS housing?

[watduzhkstand4]

I didn't know before, but from what people have said in this thread, it sounds like Costar is the OEM for those boards. On the Costar web site, they at least seem to acknowledge that they are the OEM for the DAS keyboard:

http://www.costar.com.tw/products01/info.php?p_id=97&p_sid=32

and this model may resemble the Filco as well as the Leopold:

http://www.costar.com.tw/products01/info.php?p_id=45&p_sid=32

Thanks for the info (;

[JBert]

Originally I wanted to get:

- One with brown Cherrys
- One with blue Cherrys
- One with ALPS

Then they told me that they don't have a ALPS version with NKRO,
so I asked for a second one with blue Cherrys as replacement...

What, no clears for the heavier typists? :wink:

I'll still need to try those one day...

[sixty]

I just had some talk with a friend from Taiwan who helped me to translate some of the posts on Skyians Forum as well as some company history.

Its now safe to say that the Leopold and PHAETON series board are like the KBTalking board NOT made by Costar but instead (like I mentioned earlier in the thread) by Strongman aka 有谁了解.

Unlike itlnstln claimed earlier in this topic Strongman keyboards seem to be absolutely not related to the Costar brand.

However, Strongman is still the OEM for various other keyboards we have seen like that obscure hugeass GIGABYTE gaming keyboard and the Matias Tactile Pro (which Molds seem to be used for the "Dr. Louis Mac Keyboard"):

Some more information regarding the Phaeton/Leopold case:

It seems that some users in Taiwan are upset about the Leopold/Phaeton series because its 100% identical to the KBTalking keyboard, which was designed after ideas of Taiwanese forum users from the KBTalking forum. However it seems like Strongman has used the same exact same molds when making the Phaeton/Leopold keyboard.. that is why some users are now upset.. since it was made after their ideas. (SkyIan please correct me if I understood that part wrong )

PS: It looks like we can tell apart Strongman and Costar going by the stickers ripster likes so much. Costar stickers should in general read "DO NOT REMOVE - OK", while the Strongman stickers read "SMK - QC* - OK"

[JBert]

Tell them they should be pushing for 6-Key USB gaming keyboards for $50 with lots of diodes.  THAT is the market killer - not pretty keys.

Mind the switches. I'm sure someone can come with a 6-KRO rubber dome if you're not careful.