I’m Henrik from Tokyo. Been living mostly in Japan since 2003 and got mildly into keyboards when I lost my way and meandered into a dedicated keyboard store in Akihabara 15 years ago. To be clear, my initial interest did not extend beyond my love for my first Topre board (91UBY) and the occasional RealForce vs. HHKB argument with my wife.
Fast forward to 2020 and my 12YO daughter suddenly said she wants to make her own custom keyboard, which I thought meant switching out the caps on a Ducky ( ). Little did I know how very possible it had become to make your own from scratch. A little while later her first board (Mimi47, named after our cat) was born and to this day remains her daily.
In the meantime I got severely bitten by the bug and have been building kits and designing and printing my own PCBs for about a year now. Still very much a beginner and still very much learning, but also very much looking forward to sharing this journey with the community going forward!
Welcome Konnichiha!
Hope you enjoy your stay here, it’s a very open and laid back place. Always fun to have the same hobbies as your kids. What’s your favorite switch?
Thanks! So far I’m really impressed by the atmosphere in the community! My fav is probably the Alpacas. I used to be totally addicted to clicky switches (hence the name) but the Alpacas convinced me to go linear ;).
Thanks for the feedback! I’m still slowly working on that board as well, moving away from the ProMicro to get all the components pre-soldered on the PCB itself . I’d love to make a run of it at some point if I can just figure out a good way to get cases manufactured…
I also have a macro pad and my personal take on the Keycool84 layout in the works, but they are still in the design stages.
(The macro pad prototype. I use this as my left hand input for gaming )
It’s a blast! The size means its possible to find a specialty store carrying just about any obscure / ancient part which makes the hobby a little easier I guess . Also we now have a new dedicated store in Akihabara for keeb geeks to hang out in and I think that has made the hobby more accessible too.
Thanks for the question . I haven’t really published it anywhere since it’s still a work-in-progress. Let me clean it up a bit and check the newest iteration which is coming in from PCBWay in a few days. I’ll report back and I’m sure we can figure it out somehow.
Yep! I know what you mean. I’m from Sweden originally and the number of specialty stores and availability of parts and such is not nearly as good. Still, through online channels I guess you can find just about anything these days as long as you can wait a little longer.
Another good thing about JP is it’s proximity to China and Taiwan, must stuff you order from there arrives really fast…
since 2003 and got mildly into keyboards when I lost my way and meandered into a dedicated keyboard store in Akihabara 15 years ago. To be clear, my initial interest did not extend beyond my love for my first Topre board (91UBY) and the occasional RealForce vs. HHKB argument with my wife.
). Little did I know how very possible it had become to make your own from scratch. A little while later her first board (Mimi47, named after our cat) was born and to this day remains her daily.
. I’d love to make a run of it at some point if I can just figure out a good way to get cases manufactured…
