Behind the Scenes of Issue 84

Keyboard Builders' Digest / Editorial

Behind the Scenes of Issue 84

New discounts, new donor, in the mailbox, giveaway results, KBD.NEWS is in holiday mode.

dovenyi
Published June 27, 2022

Creators! Feel free to tip me off about your keyboard related projects to bring them to 140K readers.

Hey y'all,

PSA: I'll be on holiday for the next 2-3 weeks so I may suspend some features but will try to keep one eye on the hobby and post occasionally.

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Welcome back for another edition of Keyboard Builders' Digest (this time Issue #84), a weekly roundup of this DIY keyboard focused newsletter and blog from Tamas Dovenyi – that's me. If you are new to this, you can read how this started out and what this is all about nowadays. If you like what you see, you can subscribe to the newsletter (free) and donate some bucks to keep this otherwise free and ad-free project alive.

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Issue 82/83 follow-up

May_1 got back to me with more photos of his CDS Topre. I've updated the post with the link to the imgur gallery.
Keebmonkey sent me a sample of the Keytok Morse keycap set – I've uploaded a photo dump to imgur and updated the original post with a link to the gallery.

New shops & discount codes

MKUltra offered you a 5% discount (coupon code: KBDNEWS) (and affiliate partnership for me so from now on you can support kbd.news with your purchases).
CENTOREK – with the awesome (and dreadful) logo – offered you a 5% discount too (one-time use per customer).

Keebhut and STHLM kb were added as well.

Code update: In an effort to standardize the code for the already 57 shops offering you discounts, Pikatea's coupon code has been updated to KBDNEWS.

New donor

Hey, motfalcon joined the ranks of regular donors! Thank you!

The last regular donor ("member" in the old BMC terminology) joined in early April this year so I was pleasantly surprised after this long hiatus.

Let me take this opportunity to say thanks for the support of all the readers who have donated to the cause thus far.

Here is a hall of fame of the donors and you can support this project here.

In the mailbox

Do you remember the Keytok Morse write-up?

At the time of compiling that post I reached out to KeebMonkey with my questions, and AFTER reading that post, they were kind enough to offer me a set for free.

So this was not a paid feature article or anything like it, but I had some follow-up questions which were left unanswered and it may have felt simpler to send me a set than replying to my stupid emails. :D

Thanks, I really appreciate the gesture. Especially that I didn't have to pay VAT and customs, and living in the EU this is always a nice thing to experience.

(I'm not sure how to do this from a vendor's perspective but it does reflect professionalism in my eyes.)

Pic:

You can find my photo dump in this imgur gallery.

Btw, the set arrived in 11 days (including customs clearance). As you can see in the photos, it was very carefully packed. Compared to the stock photos, they are less vivid, more pale – the traditional pale military green I guess which perfectly fits the concept. And the set is obviously high quality.

However, after putting my hands on the caps, I realized I don't even have a mechanical keyboard with the classic layout and backlighting – something I could really test these uniquely shine-through caps on. :D

I'll get back to these once such a thing shows up in my mailbox (which might come earlier than expected). ;)

Giveaway

Last week's winner

Aaand last week's prize goes to davidkincses. Congrats!

You won one of these machined aluminum novelties, courtesy of metalkeyboards.no, the only caps of this kind in existence – at least for now.

A slightly different giveaway

I continue the giveaway with the custom KBD.NEWS metal artisan offered by metalkeyboards.no but I'll do the raffle only once I'm back from holiday – I won't be able to mail these until then anyway.

Pic: KBD.NEWS novelty keycaps by metalkeyboards.no

KBD.NEWS novelty keycaps by metalkeyboards.no

In the meantime…

I also have some extra coupons from various vendors. E.g. 20% from Keebmonkey, or 40% for a specific board.

But you have to help me out with your opinion to win one of these prizes:

What's your opinion on shops offering clone sets?
What would you think if you could win something from such a shop (your choice, not necessarily a clone set)?
And what would you think if you could win one of the clone sets? :D

My dilemma: I was offered a keyset from such a shop for the giveaway. Not a particular clone set, any set. But of course visiting the shop you were exposed to the clone sets too.

How would you feel about that? I'm not talking about sets with similar colorways or borderline rip-offs, I'm talking about a shop offering (beside cool and legit sets) also complete rip-offs with shamelessly copied novelties.

So this time, please, let me know what you think of that. Should I go with this collab or not?

As usual, you can comment below this issue's r/mk or twitter post, as well as per email at info at golem.hu.

Thanks.

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That's all for today folks.

Feel free to comment in this issue's r/mk thread, and as always: keep learning and building.

Cheers, Tamás

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Published on Mon 27th Jun 2022. Featured in KBD #84.

Keyboard Builders' Digest / Editorial