Entry level customs – the deadly trap

When we discuss custom keyboards we mean the keyboards that allow extreme customisation of the build. Starting with the materials and form factor, the plate, all the way down to choosing the right switches and keycaps along with the perfect cable – everything is possible. Unfortunately this also comes at a price and this price may become eye watering. Entry level customs are somewhere between the mainstream and performance classes for prebuilts so the butcher’s bill will go past 50 EUR, but can be maintained below 150-200 EUR for the final product. The quest here is quite lengthy and requires going deep the rabbit hole of various online sellers (some whom don’t have the required parts in stock) and will generally require monumental patience.

The case usually will be plastic, usually a 60ish% form factor. We will select a polycarbonate plate. We will choose enough Gateron Yellows, which are easily best buy when it comes to linear switches. We choose a PCB supported by QMK and preferably VIA as well – DZ-60 is a good choice here. For keycaps we choose some nice PBT either from our chinese friends or (gasp) Razer who have some nice reasonably priced keycaps. The cable can be whatever we find around our home as long as it has an USB type C on one end and USB type A on the other. We pick up some Cherry or Durock stabilisers. If there are monies left in our budget we can go back to the plate and pick either aluminium or brass depending on the sound we aim for (aluminium is lower pitched and brass is higher pitched). We can also consider 3ml of lubricant like Tribosys 3203/3204 or Krytox 205G0/205G00 and a switch opener.

If we find a special offer on the case we can go with aluminium. And this is usually where it all unravels. Aluminium keyboard cases need to go through a CNC machine and need anodising and these are not cheap. We observe that whilst a plastic 60% case can be bought for 29$ and a wood one for 33$, an aluminium case can be purchased with 89$ – and this is a significant gap.

On the other hand we end up with a product that fulfils our hopes, dreams, wishes, and needs and is fully programmable through QMK and VIA.

But how about those hopes, dreams, wishes, and needs? What do we really want to get out of a keyboard?

And here in lays the trap. Because we like nice, shiny, solid, in stock things – the budget that can be kept under 100-150 EUR can quickly get out of control and more than double.

I personally believe that an entry level custom keyboard is worth considering only when you know exactly what you are looking for – or what a friend would look for and they do not know it yet. And here is where things become really complicated.