I am, to this day, awfully tempted to pick a Heavy Grail up… The polycarbonate one that is currently on pre-order (with the crystal clear plate) is beautiful.
…
and it’s just SO difficult to justify, considering I have plenty of HHKBs to use. The new ones also now require a Pro 3, which I don’t have (I have three Pro 1s, and two Pro 2s), so that’d be a yet another few hundred on top.
I still have to laud Ryan’s efforts to nourish the Topre aftermarket scene. It’s been great to see over the years.
Oh! That actually makes the decision a little easier then; hopefully firmware hasn’t changed but I might just give the classic a go then since I got time.
Just to double check, your boards are the new pro 3 versions right? Only asking cause the part number on the site doesn’t seem to match the part(type?) number in the json file you referenced.
Downloaded the latest version of the software and still can’t match up the part #s with the current keyboard datalist, even with the hybrid versions, my assumption is that the part number on the website and the numbers referenced in the json are referred to separately so I may just try the classic anyways.
Appreciate the tip!
EDIT
For anyone interested - after checking the differences between the latest datalist and the one linked to from the reddit link from articarc, aside from the changes with regards to setting whether or not a version is changeable, the only major difference seems to be the addition of 2 keyboard entries, PD-KB800YS and PD-KB820YS so it’s probably safe to assume this trick works assuming there’s no underlying firmware change.
Not speaking for Ryan, but I would suggest using the Pro 3 classic over hybrid simply due to price. The classic is cheaper, and since you would be losing the battery and Bluetooth functionality of the hybrid anyway, there is no need to spend extra money.
Yea that’s kind of what I’m leaning towards now - I was only considering the hybrid more for key-remapping since the description made it sound like it was the only version that supported it but if the software can be modded to work with the classic then it certainly makes the classic a much more interesting option.
I have a couple of lipo batteries(have a couple BLE pcbs but no cases that can support both pcb and battery) lying around and the daughterboard looks like it has a JST connector which is why I was thinking about wireless but that was certainly less important of a feature.
Just throwing this one out there. It’s a relatively simple mod to retain the Bluetooth and battery features on the hybrid and make it compatible with the grail.
Sadly, there are a few remaining stragglers, but we’re pestering the shop every few days to get them back to us ASAP. You should have gotten an update by email not that long ago, and my apologies if for some reason we missed your address in that list. Always feel free to shoot us an email so we can look into the details of your specific order. But in any case, speaking more generally, there are some housings that we have round-tripped to the polishing shop four (!) times now because of small non-uniform areas that we weren’t happy with, which thankfully can always be fixed be repolishing. We have been shipping those out in a trickle of a few per week as we get them back from the polishing workshop, but there are still a handful left. (It’s always a tough call for us trying to get them as perfect as possible but also balancing that against making people wait longer.) We keep literally showing up at the shop about once per week to harass, nudge, and cajole them. I think they’ve lost enthusiasm for doing work for us given the high cosmetic standards we need them to keep, but at least they haven’t stopped being willing to repolish housings if we catch an area that we don’t like, even if it takes them much longer than we would prefer. In any case, as always, if you’re tired of waiting just shoot me an email and I’m happy to cancel/refund your order.
Sorry for the double post, but the invite to this Discord server seems to have expired. Maybe you could generate one that never expires? I’m going back and forth on what to put in my two upcoming HGs, and I’d prefer to hash it out over Discord instead of spamming this thread
And while on that topic, when is the current estimate for the R2 units? IIRC the original estimate was “around Christmas”, although I obviously understand if that has slipped.
As with almost all timelines, that has slipped a month or so. We’re just a bit swamped at the moment and are still waiting on several much-delayed components from our suppliers across a few projects. (FWIW, however, we have gotten out a ton of pre-orders in the past week or so: polycarb Norbatouch, polycarb Norbaforce, and most alu Heavy-9.) I’m about to send out an across-the-board update along those lines to my newsletter list, just to let folks we haven’t forgotten about anything and are diligently harassing all the relevant vendors to get us the missing stuff ASAP. I have started a pre-order status page.
Although I guess that might mean that my R2 will ship at around the same time as my GoCF (assuming that one doesn’t also get pushed). I’m guessing it’s not possible to combine the two, which could save me custom fees… Doesn’t matter much though, I suppose.
Do we have numbers for the Polycarb case weight? I wanted to know the weight difference between a HHKB in the stock case and one in a polycarb heavy grail case.
