This morning I finally got my shipping notification for my Elemento x zFrontier Fr87. The group buy started Feb 17th 2018 and wow it’s June 6th 2019. This kinda makes me think about different group buys I’ve been and and thought it would be interested if people had their own experiences worth sharing.
Longest GB:
F62+F77; New Kishsavers & Industrial Model F Keyboards from Model F Keyboards
Link: https://www.modelfkeyboards.com/
Start Date: July 1st 2015
Elapsed time: Approx 4 years
Status: Awaiting end of manufacturing and fulfillment
Personal Notes: I don’t mind waiting for this one even though I’ve been waiting since day 1. Joe (GB runner) Has been the most responsive GB runner with the best updates regarding manufacturing and the quest toward Model F Production. Honestly, you can go to the updates page and start reading the updates to see what quality updates are like.
Best GB
There are several I’d probably put here. Both my TX60s felt more like ordering a product than joining a GB. My TGR Jane and Alice also felt that way as well. Those were all A+ GBs.
Worst GB
E8-v1
Link: [GB] E8-V1 Custom TKL - SORTING THE BOARDS
Start Date: February 10th 2017
Elapsed time: Over 2 years
Status: Awaiting Fulfillment
Personal Notes: I’ve already marked this as a loss. The GB Runner nor the accomplice has logged on to GH since August 2018. While some people did receive their keyboards, not everyone did which is the odd part of this. Chances are all of the boards, which were pictured, were stolen, scrapped, or sold to locals instead. Pretty unfortunate.
So yeah. Caveat Emptor. GBs is a weird part of this hobby that isn’t analogous to too many hobbies out there which I always find pretty unique and interesting. What do you all think?
Longest would be the model F for me too. Ordered it as my Christmas present in 2015.
Best goes to TX65 or Rama m60-a. Both fast and we’re even nicer than I expected when I received them
The E8 was rough. I was fortunate to get mine in the brief time when Khuang or whoever it was first stepped in to help out. My 268.1 board took way too long and is still raw aluminum and very touchy to put together without stripping or breaking screws. Also it showed up without a PCB. That’s been righted, but it’s probably my worst experience with a GB so far (gotta see how this whole VAT nightmare on the 280/220 gb is going to play out though, could be just as bad)
I haven’t participated in a whole ton of GBs (mostly just Massdrop stuff) but I guess I’ll share my experiences.
Longest: Southpaw fullsize. Estimated ship date was Q4 2018 / Q1 2019. It’s about to hit 11 months and AFAIK anodization hasn’t started yet. Updates have been posted semi-regularly and reconsiderit seems to be really particular about the QC so I’m not stressing about it. I feel sorry for the people still waiting on the Southpaw 65+, at least I was able to go into this one knowing that it would go past estimate.
Best: Plenty of GBs that run without a hitch. The one I was most excited about was probably the first round of Zealios.
Worst: I’ve had 2 that sucked but turned out OK in the end. The first was the original GMK TA set. This was back when I thought it was absurd to spend more than $100 on keycaps, but I really liked the colors so I bit the bullet. I was incredibly disappointed when I opened the box and was greeted by a bunch of keys that had come out of the tray, none of the colors being correct, and blotches on some of the keys where the colors clearly hadn’t been mixed completely. I still liked the color scheme, so I ended up buying a 2nd set off mechmarket to fill out the keys that were really bad.
The more recent one was Massdrop’s handling of the Jelly Key Ethereal Reign keycaps. 2 months after most people had received theirs, Massdrop emailed me saying the keycaps were “backordered” and issued a refund. I forwarded this to Jelly Key, and they said Massdrop never contacted them about being short any units and ended up selling me an extra directly. I’m glad it turned out OK in the end, but the way Massdrop handled it really turned me off from ordering things from them if I can avoid it.
I too and still waiting for this one -_-. I believe!
Your two bad experiences are definitely unfortunate. I remember the big GMK TA fiasco when that ran. I believe that was the first time GMK started using those trays and they had some small issues with tolerance so the keycaps got all messed up during transit.
Hopefully we won’t be struck with more extraneously long GBs
Longest GB (and worst GB):
Can’t decide on my worst GB being the Noxary X60 or the Round 7 by 7bit.
Still haven’t recieved a refund or any answers about my order by 7bit in the Round 7 GB, and I joined in the end of 2016. So that’s a bad one. Think he’s ran away with the money.
And the Noxary buy took over 2 years for me to completion as my first top piece of the case had a massive dent. Lots of messages (most of them without any answer from xondat) and countless promises made later, I received a top piece which was just as scuffed. Bad anodization marks and multiple scratches. When asking him if I could get the cad files for the top piece to do it properly myself, the answer was that he had removed the files and I would not be able to get them. Don’t join xondat gbs lol. It’s a world of pain.
Best GB:
As said in the posts above, most gb:s go great. A few of mine are GMK WoB from Massdrop and an old EnjoyPBT buy by Shadovved.
Longest
Matias 60% GB, hands-down. I’ve actually had money sitting on that longer than the Model F Keyboard GB, and that’s been a few years now. At least Ellipse gives great updates, etc. Matias’ updates are cryptic at best.
Best
I’v had really good luck with most of my GBs. I think the Leaf 60 was probably about the fastest and most responsive in terms of updates, etc.
Worst
Looking like it could end up being the Lumina GB, but time will tell (fingers crossed).
oof, I love me some good xondat boards, but I have heard way too many horror stories about the gbs. Like the 280 and 220 which have been absolutely wild from what I can tell. But hey, learning never helped me so I guess ill just join more of the buys lol.
Haven’t joined too many myself as I’m usually to impatient and end up buying aftermarket. The recent CA66 group buy left a bit of a sour taste. It was delayed 6 months and the end result was a lot of cases that had scuffs and scratches, mismatched bottoms. Mine wasn’t too bad thankfully, but after that long delay some of the cases I’ve seen are pretty badly damaged.
Longest/Worst: Hidden Labs’ Gundam. Handled it so bad. 18 months after, they call it quits and they have a secret refund window that is a month long, but customers are notified only if you ask about current status
Same. That’s one GB that I was glad I was broke when it ran. I love me some Gundam & was very tempted to join. Thankfully I got in on the original GB for the WK-001 Sunshine & Night Unicorn caps ran by Jchan so I’m not completely Gundamless on the artisan front!
For me, I’ve had a remarkably lucky streak with GBs since I’ve got into this hobby. The worst one I was part of would have to be the SA Godspeed GB through MD. Although that was just a long wait for a great end product so I can’t really complain about it too much. For a best GB I participated in, there really isn’t one. I’ve been part of some that ran smoothly without any issues & some that only had one or two very minor issues. Although I don’t want to single one out of that group cause they all honestly went well & were run well so it doesn’t feel right to laud one over the other IMO.
I accidentally bought 2 of the gundam kits when I only wanted one, definitely the worst and longest for me… MX:SS and modern M0110 have also been taking forever and at this point I’m not even completely sure where those are at.
I’ve had many good ones though, Norbauer and Fox Labs (twice) were both positive experiences that immediately come to mind.
I haven’t really had any bad experiences with group buys. I’ve really only been in the hobby for a couple of years, but I’ve been involved in a number of keyset buys, and the only problem with those has been the occasional minor delay.
The Grid 600 buy has been the only keyboard GB I’ve been involved in. There was a bit of a delay with the white cases on that one, but the biggest disappointment was that the colors of the anodized aluminum modules ended up being completely different from the renders. So if you bought hoping to pair them with a particular keyset, you were probably disappointed (as I was).