Welcome!

I am a game translator by day and keyboard enthusiast by night.

My journey started with a Filco, and when the printing on the keycaps started falling off, I discovered custom keycaps and group buys. Once I set foot in r/mk, there was no return.

Eventually photos of my new keycaps were discovered the cable maker @nillpo by the Japanese DIY keyboard community, so I started talking to them and went to their gatherings (I live in Hong Kong, which is only 4 hours away from Tokyo and makes a great weekend getaway).

At some point I realized if I wanted to try different layouts, then I have to learn how to solder. So I bought a soldering iron and basic tools, and spent late 2017 and most of 2018 building the popular kits from the Japanese enthusiasts as well as some from the English-speaking community.

In late 2018 I made another realization that the only way to really find a keyboard that I want is to design them myself, so I bought a 3D printer and handwired my first mechanical keyboard. But handwiring was so painful that in 2019 I went another step further and learned KiCAD, which really helped.

Usually my ideas come from something that I find lacking with my current keyboard – “would be nice to have a key here”, “a light one would be nice for my everyday carry”, and so on. Sometimes they’re iterations of the same design, but sometimes they are completely different layouts depending on what I wanted at the time. Or, in the case of Rashinban30, an homage to the original.

I hope that you find my designs interesting, and that they might one day inspire you to create your own.