I purchased the Japanese Pingmasters from Mendleson's via Ebay, and the price was about $80 each (Ebay isn't letting me go far enough back in my purchase history to find out the exact price.)//gainsborough wrote: ↑https://www.ebay.com/itm/Japanese-Pingm ... 2a9b8190f8
@just_add_coffee Brooooooooo, what is this price?! You can literally buy these boards NIB for less than $50 shipped US: http://meci.com/ibm-6112884-japanese-ke ... yping.html
Copy pasta from my post on GH ...
The breakdown of my costs goes like this:
Keyboard: $80-ish (shipping was about as much as the keyboard itself)
Teensy 2.0: $16
Braided Cable: $10
That leaves $73 to cover other materials and equipment, my time, learning to do this, printing and cutting the labels to fit the relegendable keys, and Ebay and PayPal fees.
One other point: I believe that the way that this keyboard can be configured is a bit simpler than using an external Hasu converter, especially for people who've used an ErgoDox or ErgoDoxEZ.
One other other point: If you can do this shit yourself, then you absolutely should. And all of us here certainly will. That's why we're in this crazy hobby. However, not everyone owns or wants to own a soldering iron, believe it or not. I made this for people who don't want to or don't have the time to do it themselves, but want a really nice keyboard.
(And in my experience, green Alps SKCC switches are the smoothest switches that I've ever encountered. Opinions can vary. But if the compatible keycaps were readily available, I'd use these switches where ever I could before anything Cherry, Gateron, Zealio, etc.)
(Some of the new Kailh switches are pretty nice also. I won't disparage them.)
And as I said over there, I'm trying to raise some money for a decent oscilloscope, and there are plenty of sillier ways to spend $200+ on mechanical keyboards.
tl;dr ... If you're here, then you should NOT buy this keyboard. If you're not here, then you'd be crazy to not buy this keyboard.
Edit:
Within the US, ordering a Japanese Pingmaster directly from meci.com costs $50.14 ...
... I didn't know that at the time.