Hello and welcome to the second update! It’s been one month since the last, and on the surface it looks like little happened. In this update I’ll share some of the things I’ve been doing on the background.

Impact of the Corona virus

It’s on the news every day now, and unfortunately it affects almost anyone one way or the other: COVID-19. Factories have been closed and are only just recently starting to recover. With weeks of backed up orders, it’ll take quite some time before orders will start being produced and shipped again.

This has an impact on many vendors, including me. I’ve received many questions about restocks of certain items. The Elite C, TRRS cables, my custom matte encoder knobs and now also PCB kits are sold out or about to be sold out.

I’ve worked hard to divert production to Europe where possible, but negotiations take time, and I’m not the only vendor looking around, meaning we’re also dealing with queue times. For some items like PCBs and cables, having them produced locally would inflate the cost (and thus the price) many times over.

At the moment, I’m waiting for several orders of my own to be shipped to me. I’ve decided to open up limited preorders up to the amount of items I’ve purchased. These will drip in through March and April (though hopefully everything will get in by March).

Many small steps make a big leap

Next to fulfilling orders, I need to take steps to advance splitkb.com. These steps often don’t take much time by themselves, but they do add up. I think it’s important to take note of these steps to acknowledge that they indeed take time but do lead to results.

Laser cutter

So far, I’ve been cutting custom cases myself on the laser cutter of a local makerspace, and handing most of the Kyria plates out to an external laser cutting service. This has several drawbacks for me:

Using the cutter at the makerspace has to take place on scheduled times, making me inflexible and making for long lead times, especially if I can’t cut everything I want in one go, or if a cut goes wrong due to settings or machine wear. I also don’t have any of my own tools at the makerspace, so I can’t assemble custom keyboards or pack orders while I work there, wasting valuable time.

Using the cutter at the makerspace and using the cutting service cost money. Especially for small custom work, like cutting a high profile Kyria case in a custom colour, these costs are quite considerable.

With my own laser cutter, I of course still have to deal with costs and maintenance, but it’ll be fully under my control. This will allow me to get a much faster turnaround that depends only on the delivery of the raw materials and my availability.

To get a proper laser cutter cost me quite a bit more time than I estimated. I went to see the machines for myself at Trotec and Epilog, cut several samples, worked with the software and learned about maintenance and its costs. I negotiated pricing and options and arranged financing. The final call hasn’t been made just yet, but I’m hopeful that I’ll soon be able to perform custom jobs more easily and expand the product options considerably. Stay tuned for more information on product offerings!

Packaging

Packages go all around the world. There are some horror stories of packages being thrown, smashed and crushed. While maybe overstated, I’ve had several packages arrive damaged, which is especially worrisome when shipping out custom assembled Kyrias.

Upgraded boxes

I’ve upgraded my boxes to use double walled cardboard, making them much less prone to being dented or ripped. They’re also larger, to accomodate for the new air pillows I use for padding instead of wrapping paper. I’m now also experimenting with water activated tape to seal the boxes shut more effectively. All in all, these small changes should add up to your keyboards and other items being shipped to you much more reliably.