If anyone would be interested in Realforce 86u/possibly 87u plates in other materials, an interest check is live in Discord at Conical Keyboards to gauge participation. I have been refining my aftermarket 86u using @Cipulot 's RF R1 8-9xu PCB and cannot wait to make it endgame with a reliable plate.
I desperately want one of those PCB’s for my 87U if anyone ever does a run of them. I’m curious what the main goal is for the plates. Is it for sound or aesthetics, as I would think the feel would be pretty similar right?
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Your best bet is to hop on his Discord. He has a rolling order queue that fills and ships as he gets enough per PCB type. I’m in queue for the HHKB Pro 2 replacement one and I know he just finished the 23u replacement pcb so people are lining up for that. He collects payments twice, one for the manufacture and the second is for shipping when it is ready, all in all give it a month or so** unless you want to make a custom order/MOQ yourself. I don’t know anyone who’s done that route yet but if you do and you’re CONUS I might help fill a spot 
For the plates I really need or prefer OEM sound so there’s that, brass probably a bit both aesthetic and such.
For anyone following the plate discussion the Taobao link is live here. The recommendation is to use Superbuy to facilitate purchase and shipping. 200 RMB per plate, not including shipping (later cost). GB ends 12/15.
** the queues for pcb ordering fill at varying speeds, i haven’t paid close attention to day 0 to in-hand timeline so pls take as vague ballpark
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Thanks for the info! I’ll check out the discord server.
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IXPE sheet for PCBs, apparently the same material OwLab used in the ‘Jelly Epoch’, which is different than the regular package PE people use, mainly anti-static? the regular PE foam generates a lot of static charge, at least against me…
There’s also a poron option, both are 0.5mm thick.
I’m supposed to receive it soon, I’ll write an opinion.
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That hadn’t occurred to me - but does appear to explain what happened to a buddy’s budget build not too long ago. I will definitely be keeping this in-mind.
Upgrade keyboards has Kailh Blacks for ~9 cents each. Guess who ordered 250 
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That’s a great deal for what’s what. The stem differences look pretty obvious so unwinding the pile into two shouldn’t be too bad.
These are a mixed order from Kailh who made the mistake of mixing v1 and v2 together in the same shipment and containers.
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Indeed.
I’ve been curious about comparing the revisions anyway - and at less than 9 cents per switch I will happily sink-into a podcast while sorting for a few hours. I’ve been meaning to do a write-up on how revised parts can impact both general expectations and frankenswitch recipes with a few popular examples, and this was high on my list.
Good lookin’ out, @Backspace!
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Totally. I have some Cherry Housings with some pretty mediocre stems; planning to make some Kailh Black Stemmed MX Blacks.
Now that I think of it… I should’ve bought more. The coins I found on the street was worth 30 of these…
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got 30. hope their 20~30% number is true. thx for the heads up.
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That ain’t bad for 3 hardshell cases. I have a few already and did sniff them as much as I felt comfortable doing so and didn’t notice any funky smell or odor. The case itself comes shrink wrapped with one of those silica packets which I’m guessing helps a bit. Plus, they throw in a decent sized microfiber cloth which I thought was a nice touch and always much appreciated.
The $9 discount applied automatically and I live in CA.
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I bought a couple of these and they’re real nice. I generally try to support our community vendors though, but these were priced really well.
These cases look nice (I especially like the light grey, but shipping is doubling the price…) 
They really remind me of Omnitype’s Meka cases which I like more than the TX cases since I don’t need cases that tall.
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GMK Norse extras are up on Omnitype if anyone is interested. $15 gift card offer if you order today.
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Most kits are still available on zFrontier with $12 off your order and $10 flat rate shipping to CONUS (free for some countries). Plus the Norse base kit is $10 cheaper than on Omnitype.
Of course I bought all my kits from DeskHero when they dropped extras last week. 
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The Bolsa case looks nearly identical to the Omnitype cases (one each of medium and large) I purchased recently. Even the extra foam blocks in the case match what I received. The cases had a bit of a chemical odor, but aired out in a day or so and seem to very high quality. I’m happy with them.
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Drop’s MT3 Infinity War keycaps are $40 right now.
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