Dam. Sounds unlucky.

What do you mean by the stabs were rocking back and forth? The only thing moving should be the stem piece and the wire. And if you lubed it up and there’s still ticking that would suggest the wire just wasn’t straight.
Otherwise something just wasn’t snapped into place correctly.
Or maybe the piece that the wire clips into broke or cracked while you were putting it in? I’ve had that happen once or twice.

The community uses bounce and flex interchangeably and idk if there’s technically a distinction between them, but for me: flex is all about flexibility of the pcb and maybe plate, and bounce is about the vertical movement of the whole pcb + plate. Both contribute to a soft typing experience.

For example, the tiger80 has really thick gaskets (although a bit different because I think it relies a bit on a pocket of air?) and a 1.2mm pcb with long flex cuts across each row. That has a super soft typing feel and imo very satisfying.

I have a mode65 thats top mount and I have a flex cut solder pcb and half plate. Its not bouncing up and down like gaskets allow, but its still very flexible with a flex cut on top and below the alphas. Also a soft typing feel and satisfying.

I think its funny you mention people are disappointed when its not obviously flexy, because the community in the west hates flex cuts because of the sound, and maybe it could be because bigger content creators have stated that flex cuts aren’t for them. But I’ve heard flex cuts are popular in the east which is why so many boards came out with flex cuts. And so it seems to me people just don’t want a stiff board.

People loved the qk65 despite its flex cuts. Imo, those flex cuts did nothing lol. I had one, sold it because it felt stiff, but everyone else loved it. It wasn’t stiff enough to make my fingers tired after a while, but I was just disappointed because content creators mentioned flex and bounce and that board practically had neither for me. Imo, the gasket socks just weren’t thick enough. There was almost no bounce, and the flex cuts were so small they didn’t allow much more flex than if it were to have no flex cuts.

So I think if you guys implement thick gaskets people would appreciate it. Because a flexible pcb isn’t well received apparently, so I guess the next route is looking to make the board feel soft by making it bouncy.

I don’t think a board needs to be super flexy for me to buy one, even though I love flexy boards, there is such a thing as too much. I’ve realized that now with my plateless jris65 that I’ve modded to not bottom out when I press hard.

Not a hot take. People just love shitting on GMK here lol.

Have you had time to wear them out yet? I wonder if there’s a difference in texture after a while, or if the different plastic composition would make one more resilient to becoming really smooth

I get AM has a history for creating alts, but the product itself is interesting and should let it speak for itself. I don’t see the posts you’re referring to in OPs history, but the account has decent activity itself. Just because a guy posts an AM board in the subreddit doesn’t mean its an AM alt.

Group buys in this hobby have existed even before COVID existed, and before COVID existed, this hobby was super tiny. Group buys didn't take years to fulfill, and I've read GMK could fulfill group buys within 9 months. And then Taeha blew up with the Tfue build, and so did the hobby. And it seems like an exponential growth. GMK just wasn't prepared for that increase in demand, but continued to take on all these group buy demands because the money was just there. For a company who was only involved in making keycaps as a side hustle, all those group buys when the hobby blew up was just free money laying on the table for them, so why not take it? And so they took on more group buys one after the other, and now they had this huge queue that they couldn't even clear within a reasonable amount of time. All while COVID was causing all these employment issues. There was an issue of resin shortages worldwide as well, although not sure if that's really a big factor in this. But basically, the huge delay comes from GMK being too greedy and taking too many group buys than they could handle AND covid just fucking the whole world over.

I'm pretty sure somewhere in 2021, people were just starting to figure out that there'd be huge delays in fulfillment. 2022, it should have been for sure known there'd be a huge delay past what was being quoted on vendor sites. So I feel like the timelines on vendor sites also just added to the shitty resentment everyone has for GBs. So yea, I get how anyone would be mad when their keycap set is quoted by the vendor to finish in a year, and then only now has shown to possibly get delivered to them nearly two years later. Along with the limited communication that's very dependent on the vendors and for the most part required you to get on their discord.

And so, the supply just wasn't meeting the demand. So all these other companies like JTK, MW, DMK, Signature Plastics got into the group buy game. Its just money waiting to be made.

However, GMK did say they got a ton of sorting machines at the start of this year and they claim to be able to clear the queue of all the group buys made before by Q4-ish. And if you see how much faster they're pumping out sets this year it honestly might happen.

I think without group buys there certainly isn't a whole lot of variety in the hobby. I truly think the idea of getting behind someone's design of a board or keycaps with matching deskmats or artisan collabs is a really cool idea, and its even cooler that we as a community have access to that kind of customization. For that reason alone I think group buys are here to stay for a long while, and will only get better from here imo.

But of course it has its cons of waiting and hoping you're not part of the 1% of GBs that end up being a scam. But nowadays there's just a ton of options for instock boards and keycaps. And that's not even getting into clones and that level of quality. Theres domikey, PBTFans, Cannonkeys, Novelkeys, and a few sets from ePBT and Signature Plastics (DSA, SA profiles) that have instock keycaps.

Since the topic is on clones being sold for a huge markup, people should avoid buying sets on Etsy as well. Most of the sets on there are clones you can find on aliexpress for half the price, and they're probably just dropshipping them to people.

Not that I advocate for clones, but I get why people buy them. But fuck the people that are trying to make a quick buck by reselling shit from aliexpress.

Yooo it’s Cosmo and Wanda lol

Really just depends if you got a tight budget doesn't it? Cuz yea, while these might not be as nice as other .50 cent and up switches, its not like your board will sound bad because of it. Especially if you lube these. Also the switch matters even less if you foam up your board.

What's the indication tho? Cuz they don't sell ks3 blacks on their site, while they do sell the oil kings.

lmao, I remember seeing these posts of keyboards with a city in the background and I thought it kind of just became a trend until I checked your profile just now. Love the idea, and I love the photo! I kind of wanna do something similar probably when I'm on break from school lol

Not exactly. You can't just simply make more keycaps, that's not how production works. I think PBTFans is a similar example to making keycaps first and selling them in stock, since there's quite a bit of stock sold at vendors and from KBDFans after the GB, but the tradeoff is less designs for how much they can produce. Arguably better or worse considering how many different GMK sets are released vs PBTFans, but I feel that argument could have more factors to it.

Absolutely right 2 years of waiting shouldn't be the standard though, nor was it ever intended to be. I think there is some leeway to be given since they did struggle with keeping employees during the pandemic, but I also think its GMK's fault for taking so many projects maybe during that time and after. GBs are a result of the community just wanting to take customization to a higher level back in the day with keycaps community members designed themselves, and getting people to join them was the only way to make that happen. 3 years ago when I got into the hobby people talked about how these GBs took like 9 months on average, but that's also when the hobby blew up at the beginning of the pandemic and now here we are at 2 years for recent sets.

At the very least they're putting out sets faster, and they even announced they put in a massive amount of money into more sorting machines, so I'm hoping the sets on the bottom of the queue aren't 2 year waits.

I'm just trying to say its not super unreasonable, just super unfortunate.

But are these real connectors tho? Lol

No /s needed, its 100% true lmao. I had the highest wpm back in high school because of it

It’s probably the most common color in keycaps, and it can make deciding on a key cap set hard sometimes lol

like 70% of keyboard gb's have been 60/65% boards. Need more 75's so I don't feel as bad buying another board just because its a different form factor than 3 of my other boards lol