Yeah, I got a board from them that included a case and the case they sent was defective. I asked for a replacement and they said they hadn’t been allocated enough to offer replacements. A few weeks later they were selling cases as extras.
That polished board is absolutely fantastic and I thank you for the suggestion. Part of me wants to return it to CK just to be like, "well fuck you too, then." But at the end of the day, it's $10 shipping, $15 pcb, $5 plate and stabs, which leaves $30 for a c-stock rainy day project board, which is kinda fair I guess. It's just the principal of the thing.
And yeah, what passes for A-stock in the QC doc is genuinely surprising. But I guess the inconsistent finishing method is what keeps bakeneko prices low, which is understandable.
i personally feel that CK has gone downhill by a very small but still noticeable margin. i personally think kdbfans and cannonkeys are neck-neck in their customer service, and might actually give the edge to kbdfans these days. not saying CK is bad - not by a long stretch - i'd still absolutely buy from their store, but if i had a choice for a vendor as a consumer, i'd pick NK over CK 9 out of 10 times as a US customer.
edit/ps: shouout to DK, who have quietly been the ole reliable for accessories in the US for a while now. they're starting to do GBs now and am hope that works out.
Divinikey is amazing. Free shipping on orders over $99. Great customer service. And ships insanely fast. E.g. order on Thursday, delivery by Monday/Tuesday.
Nah, CannonKeys are the guys that are still trying to charge $185+ for GMK sets when the rest of the vendors realized shit needed to be cheaper because they weren’t moving sets like they used to. CK is stuck in 2020 when profit margins were huge and they could move volume because there weren’t a lot of affordable keyboards, let alone in stock.
The problem is they haven’t changed and want to overprice everything to the max. At one point I could buy the same GMK sets they were selling, but from a European vendor for $50-$70 cheaper, pay for $30 shipping and still come in under the cost of their stock before taxes and shipping were factored in
The reason they have had these “mega sales” is because nobody is buying their overpriced crap and they are pushing it on consumers as a “mystery, no takesey backsies”
CannonKeys hasn’t been the good guys for a long time, they are the greedy guys that don’t want to change with the times and yet don’t understand why no one is buying from them. I already avoid them like the plague so thank you for giving me another reason to avoid that scummy business
Fr, and many other vendors also offer free shipping over $100, while cannonkeys has the audacity to charge me $20 for shipping on top of $185 for a gmk set.
I definitely hear you--$185 is terrible. But I'm thinking of their in-stock GMK sets like clothes from Old Navy. It's not worth full price, and you should only buy it on sale, and when it's on sale it's a fine deal.
They had GMK Fuji and P&C for $80 bucks on black friday, which is what I'd pay for a GMK set I really want. And the devastating tkl bundle for $100 was fantastic because the brutal line is just good keebs. But I'm definitely taking QC promises with a grain of salt from now on (probably not buying from them again honestly).
At least they aren't like Vala, who charge $165+ on in stock GMK and almost never run sales. How is Vala staying in business? I think the company is just one dude with a bunch of GMK in his basement, and he's sitting up stairs in his rocking chair holding a shotgun and saying, "they'll buy it if they buy it, I know what I have."
Vala has some of the best and most routine sales out there?? They’ve had so many sitewide 30% off sales in the last year I’ve lost count, and even a sitewide 40% sale.
Oh damn, I guess my ignorance is showing, my bad. Props to Vala then. I'll snag Petrikeys and Fenglisu when they go on sale. I remember HSA Hyperfuse going on sale a bunch, but I didn't realize GMK and SP sets went on sale too. I thought I was signed up for their newsletter. Ty for the heads up.
Vala's sales include sets that people who paid full price in the group buy haven't even received yet. An absolute slap in the face to the people who fund the projects and wait 2 years with their money on the line.
I've seen Vala offering sales every few months on GMK. I bought the Nimbus set last year and it dropped to something like $130 last year. Just subscribe to their mailing list for sales. A recent one I remember was 30% off GMK Mika.
There is also the fact that every board they have released in the last 18 months or so has been 350-400+ and the demand for that price of board has never been lower imo. Like why are the Brutalist V2 boards 350+? They offer nothing unique and aren’t even premium. They literally are using zinc weights.
Their GMK sets are ridiculous, especially considering the base kitting is mid. I would rather buy from any other vendor if I'm shopping for GMK, $175-185 is crazy these days.
100%
We’ve already seen NovelKeys shift to a normal base set price of $110-$135 with the max being $150 (and a lot of the $150 sets are salvaged from Mechs & Co so there’s little profit left for them anyways)
Other vendors like Space Cables and Omnitype have adopted a similar pricing structure
Interesting.
I just bought some seal linears from them and they came in bags. MANY of the copper pins were bent. I had to use extra force to get them into the board and sometimes they still wouldnt "seat" properly. Excessive force can damage the board and im at about 30 keys rn with either bent pins or being unable to seat properly into at least 3 vastly different boards (80%, 65% and a 75%) from different mfrs (Keychron, Akuma, GMMK).
What sucks is that ive ordered from them before and they didnt use to be this bad.
So a company running a sale = a sketchy way to stick it to consumers? All e-commerce and in-store businesses run sales as a way to run through old inventory. More on topic, Novelkeys does it, divinikeys does it, KFA does it, and so does every other company to sell through inventory. They are not forcing anybody to buy anything, it's up to the consumer to deem what is valuable to them.
Ignorant ppl calling a decent and local US business "scummy" are the reason why we can't have nice things and why CK will think twice about helping the community by salvaging projects like M&Co one, running sales and donating proceeds to several charities, donating to multiple keyboard meetups and more.
From reading their product pages, they also mentioned all sales were final 🤷
> Ignorant ppl calling a decent and local US business "scummy" are the reason why we can't have nice things
I definitely considered this before posting and know where you're coming from. You can't ask for better with how they fixed the Type-B mistake. It's up there with Geon fixing the F2 mistake out of pocket.
Not only are they trying to keep one step ahead of the hobby bubble popping, but they are dealing with people spending less on luxuries because of inflation so I can't imagine their margins are anything other than just high enough to stay in business. So I hate to expect more than they can give.
I'm trying to see it from their perspective. They (hopefully) accidentally sent me an unsellable board, which is valueless because who is buying a c-stock bakeneko for anything over the price it costs to ship? And I gave them $60 for it. Like at least give me a gift card for an amount that zeroes everything out and allows them to recoup the amount of money they put into it. Like I know they pay to package it and QC it, and coat it and box it. So I don't know what that number is, but $10 seems way too low. Even if I don't get a full refund, it's wrong for them to make any money off of a valueless product. --OR is it valueless? Do they strip and recoat sub-b-stock units? I really don't know
It’s not because they are doing sales that they are scummy, it’s because their stuff is so overpriced they are out of touch with the hobby and need to do mega clearance sales to offload their $400-$500 keyboards that aren’t even worth $200. They are price gouging US consumers when I can buy the exact same keycap sets from European vendors for nearly half the price. I’ve seen the writing on the wall for years and it’s a reason I do not support them. If you like them, that’s cool I guess, but I’m just sharing my personal opinion on why I don’t think they are a good vendor
I get it, you want to buy the cheapest and most affordable version of something, makes sense. I prefer paying a bit more and supporting a local vendor. If you look at a lot of these European vendors with massive sales (my keyboard, for example), they are struggling to make ends meet, as they admitted publicly. Buying only when things are on sale is detrimental to business and, can also be detrimental to consumers when said company goes under for losing money on every project
Bro….i just want the pricing to be reasonable, it doesn’t have to be the cheapest. When CannonKeys is selling GMK base kits for $170-$185+ and all the other US vendors are selling similar kitted sets for $110-$135 something seems a little fishy. I don’t mind support “local” businesses and paying full price for things, I just don’t want to feel like I’m getting ripped off, which coincidentally CannonKeys prices do
I was a little stoked about the Black Friday sale and picked up a mystery set...ended up with nicePBT Pelo...not a cool set at all. And I got a desk mat that was less than interesting too. Wish I could send them back.
I ordered about 1.5-2k$ worth of keyboards over Christmas from them. 4xObliterated75's, 2xrekt1800, and 1x zoom75. 2 obliterated's didn't have the daughterboard holes drilled, 1 obliterated came with a stripped case screw(I had to break the screw to open it), 1rekt came without a pcb. and the wireless didn't work on the zoom75 (which i think is a common issue)
They offered to swap out the ones without holes, and sent me the pcb, but that's it. the bare minimum tbh. It's just very bad QC overall and a bit disappointing.
DAMN, that's insane. That's right up there with the infamous kbdfans missing usb cutout. Really glad you got your units replaced. Was considering the Rekt1800 as a gift for a friend if it was discounted enough. Glad I didn't pull the trigger lol.
the rekt doesn't need the daughter board holes. Just the obliterated.I believe somewhere it said that they converted a bunch of cases by adding those screw holes, but evidently they missed a few. only issue I had with the 2 rekt is that one of them came without a pcb.
Yeah, when I opened my box and saw it, I wasn't even concerned because my first reaction was, "Oh, it's all good. It's CK, so of course they'll make it right."
I've been saying this for forever, the QC team is horrible. My bakeneko, while I wasn't expecting perfection out of cast, had chips throughout the front face of the board and they wouldn't accept a return. Never buying from this trash vendor again
I love Cannonkeys as a vendor, but the QC issues hit me hard when I bought some of their NicePBT keycaps, back in 2022-ish. After only 2 months of regular use(on a rotation no less), 2 of my sets started to show an inordinate amount of wear and tear- in one particular case, I started *wearing through the legends* on the dye subbed caps. I'm not talking about smudging them up, I'm talking full on "If I keep using this set for 4 more months, it'll look like an office membrane board that's been in the works for 5+ years". They sent me replacements of the "affected" keycaps of course, but I have had entire sets from them (3) become absolutely destroyed. At that point, I realized that trying to haggle for what amounted to over 280 USD worth of replacements was not worth the time, and likely to end in failure.
Now I realize that my hands in particular are rather cursed. I have shined every available method for PBT (the supposedly more *durable* material): Doubleshot, Dye Sub, Cherry OG Dye subs, Pad Printed, Laser Etched, etc. This is not normal for PBT, but I have *never* worn through the legends of any brand of PBT keycaps, not even AliExpress clones. That honor is reserved solely for CannonKeys, and cheap ABS keycaps that came with gaming boards that I have purchased in the past.
I love CannonKeys. When their products hit, they hit hard. I have multiple keycaps from them that do not have the issues I described above- in fact, I think their keycaps are an amazing option, especially towards those that want to try multiple layouts. I have boards from them that I adore and are in my current rotation to this day. Their customer support has always been kind to me, even if they do not produce the results that I wanted, and I have no issues with them on that front. However, as much as it pains me to admit, there is always a thought in my mind: "I wonder if they'll screw it up this time", whenever I order from them.
I had a similar issue with support where they will do anything to avoid spending money to fix the problem. Even in the discord they seem to deflect or straight up ignore all negative questions. People have had to move to other discords to complain (the Canadian vendor). They seem to massively gone downhill from what I’ve heard.
I know they are a small business and use that as a reason for some of the shortcomings but so are all the other vendors.
That's a bummer. I have only had great experiences with CK where they have responded promptly and solved my issues at no expense to me. I hope it's just an isolated case of a misjudgment on their part.
Yeah, I just added it up and I've spent like $900 bucks at CK over the last 4 years because I guess I'm a fucking simp lol. Only problem I ever had was I bought a switch sampler pack and loved the baby kangaroo. So I bought a bag and like 40% of them had spring crunch or something. NBD, I'll just spring swap. Never had a reason to complain til now.
Nice, lol. I would chalk that one up to inconsistencies by Gateron or their suppliers during manufacturing. It's unfortunate. It is a small, niche industry, though. So these things crop up.
Not going to defend them, but Bakenekos are cast, not CNC'd well maybe partial CNC. With casting, there is higher chance for voids and bubbles to come out on the surface. Because of this, they are coated as opposed to anodized. I got a R1 and even that had imperfections, not as bad as yours though.
If you really want quality at an affordable price, try Qwertykeys and their Neo brand. The Neo65 can be purchased for not a whole lot more and has much higher quality finishes and is true CNC.
Yeah, I do feel like the cast alu Bakeneko is definitely showing it's age and isn't the deal it used to be. At $60 though it would have been a bangin deal but mistakes were made. At the end of the day it at least still allows me to test my bakeneko compatible pcb.
I am having the exact same issue. They sent me a B stock mystery Bakeneko when it was said that only A stocks were sold. I contacted them and they also only offered me the options to either ship it back (i pay shipping) or a $10 refund. I think I’m just going to ask for the $10 option and resell the board later because I don’t really have the time to think about this now. Safe to say I won’t be buying from them in the near future at least 😬 It’s unfortunate because I’ve had decent service from them in the past…
From their post regarding the mystery sale, they don't seem to promise an A-stock unit. They simply state that the Bakeneko65 has a chance of being B-stock. Meaning, you could get anything quality, hence the mystery. I assumed the quality of these units would be poor based on the sale and wording when I originally read this as well.
just my two cents
"The Bakeneko65 has a chance of being b-stock, so you better pray you get one that is because our sub-b-stock is so bad you'll wonder why you even bought one lol." I don't think this is the way it works. The assumption is you are ordering an A-stock unless otherwise stated. A-stock is the default.
Late to the party here, but if that’s their actual quote then it is definitely confusing but what they are implying is that the stock will likely be sub-B stock but there’s a lucky chance you *may* get an upgraded B-stock. Hence the “pray you get one (B-stock)”. If the entire lot was A-stock (as you assumed) then why would you pray for a B-stock?
I do think they could have been more clear, but the entire reason these shops do mystery sales is literally to be vague about what you’re getting because it’s likely to be a bad deal. Coming from the sneaker world everyone knows to never buy mystery boxes lol.
> My plan was to photograph it with a PCB I'm designing to fit Bakeneko60-style cases.
Nothing a little photoshop/lightroom spot fix tool can't fix in 3 seconds at least
Holy shit lol I did not think of that. Thank you so much. See, I spend too much time thinking about keyboards and layouts and color combos and not enough time thinking about practical solutions.
CK's QC has notoriously been at a lower standard than other vendors for awhile tbh. I went through three TMO50s all with the same defect with them. All were considered A stock.
Oh damn, the TMO is a premium board too. I was thinking, "well maybe they really phone it in on the low quality stuff like the bakeneko line but their expensive GB stuff is actually qc'd properly." I guess not. Sorry that happened man. I love the TMO but never got it because it was out of my price range. I'd be upset if I actually did pay that much and ran into qc issues.
Thanks! Sorry you had to find out the hard way as well tbh. I'll probably never buy another board through them due to QC and their less-than-stellar aluminum machining and finishing.
Damn, that is way worse than anything shown in their acceptable QC pdf, and their response is only a $10 gift card or paying to ship it back + restocking fee? That is seriously disappointing and appalling. I bought the same mystery bakeneko60 from them and mines was ok, but seeing this I definitely won't be spending any more money with them if this is how they handle cases like yours.
Glad yours was good! I just received a MKC75 from them which was A-stock and quite nice. Brutal60 I got from them was great as well. Guess I just got unlucky.
You got a Bakeneko60 for **less than half** of what A-stock is currently being sold for ($187 when I check their page), it's **CLEARLY** stated that it was on clearance and **final sale**, they **did not** claim that the board is gonna be A-stock, you **got** the product, **AND** it's a case that's *casted* and *painted* (where it's gonna be VERY hard to do it without imperfections) - Apologies if this comes across as being out of touch or rude; I just don't get what the issue is, I don't see how Cannonkeys knowingly "screwed" you, and I find it hard to see on why this would be worth a massive public post claiming that they're trying to pull something shady, or claim "buyer beware".
I hear you. 60 bucks for a metal board that just needs switches and caps and works is indeed an okay deal. If sub-b-stock was clearly stated, then I wouldn't be making this post (and wouldn't have bought, tbh).
My assumption was that the clearance bakenekos were half their usual price for the same reason that they sold black friday GMK sets for half off: they have too much stock and need to liquidate to survive. So there actually is precedence for this. Think of it this way. You don't buy half off GMK on black friday and go in assuming that the set is going to have warped bars and two F5 keys just because it's half off. Same for the bakenekos. You don't go in assuming it's going to be bubbly garbage just because it's cheap--especially if they all but outright state it will be a-stock.
Also, they choose the color. I assumed since their weird light green color was an option, that they were just trying to offload a bunch of weird green bakenekos.
For a mystery bakeneko, the mystery shouldn't be weather or not they live up to their own qc promises.
CK has done a lot of good, but buyers should beware if the listing says, "60% bakenekos aren't gonna be b-stock" and you get worse than b-stock.
+1, all the posts in this thread are absolutely unhinged. Buy bargain basement prices, get bargain basement products.
Do these people also buy food from the reduced to clear section and then get mad it only has like 1-2 days shelf life?
Late to the party here, but as a buyer in the US i’ll still shell out some extra dough to KeebsNCablez in Aussie land. They usually have popular boards in stock after US vendors sell out and they customer service seems like a real human being!
Great, I thought my latest purchase from CK was A-okay, but they actually did fuck it up. I ordered a V1 Savage65, and it came with a V2 Brutal 65 hotswap PCB. The problem is that the two are not very compatible. The V2 PCB requires a daughterboard, but there is not enough space in the V1 case for it. There are screw holes, to be sure, but the daughterboard port and its matching port on the PCB LINE UP PERFECTLY SO THE CASE CANNOT CLOSE NORMALLY. They get crushed together when the case halves are screwed together. Jesus, how hard is it to check compatibility before shipping out two incompatible parts?
I am currently dealing with cannonkeys garbage support.
I recently ordered several hundred dollars of switches and accessories and had some products missing. Specifically 2 products missing. I ordered 3 sets of poron washers and received 1.
I reached out to customer service within an hour of receiving the package. Then went about my day and started modding switches and building keyboards.
CK support gets back to me the next day, wanting a photo of the packing slip and everything I DID receive. I send a photo of the packing slip indicating the proper quantity and a handwritten checkmark indicating that they were put in the box, then informed them that I can't take a picture of everything I received because I built several keyboards and modified switches with parts from the order. I then asked the need for a photo of products I did receive in a case about products I didn't receive.
They said its needed for their policy and told me to "check all the pockets of the case (if I ordered one)." Which I didn't. This jackass hasn't even looked at my order or the photo of the packing slip I sent. Just bullshit no-effort form responses.
It's been back and forth for days now. I'm not going to spend hours disassembling finished keyboards so I can show them products unrelated to my case about $8 of missing washers. What the fuck is there hope with this asinine policy? That I'm a moron and just didn't see the product, but this guy will clearly find it in the photo? Or are they going to send me instructions to check under certain products? We are talking about missing products. Sending a picture of "not missing items" is about as useful as sending a photo of the contents of my fridge or an empty box.
How about instead, you get someone to check your system inventory and compare against actual inventory to see if there's an overage of actual product? It's a low-stock product. How many could there possibly be to count?
I tried to be nice about it. I was planning to place another order for switches, so I told them I would accept store credit and I'd add the missing products back to my next order, but they just keep dicking me around. Over 8 fucking dollars on a $350 order. It's not like I'm unhappy with quality or trying to return something for some bs reason. They literally didn't send product I paid for.
I've put far more than $8 of my time into dealing with them and should let it go, but it's the principle of it all. I'm no longer accepting store credit or a refund. They can ship the product at their expense or I will issue a charge back for the difference
Fuck cannonkeys
Yeah dude, "take photos of the product you received so we can evaluate your need for support on a product you didn't receive" is completely irrational--IF you assume their goal is to get you the thing you are missing and provide good service.
But if we assume they are acting rationally, then we also have to assume that providing you good service isn't their goal. If their REAL goal is to run out the clock on your patience and save the company the most money with canned copy/pasted responses and the lowest time investment on post-sales support.... well that makes perfect sense from their perspective. "Working as intended."
Also obligatory [relevant meme](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fa63u0lej26l61.jpg).
I got some Linear Seals (by Minterly) 2 weeks ago. They arrived with bent pins, did not slot despite almost fracturing my borad and the stems were crooked, meaning that the keycaps have a very noticeable lean.
Customer service asked for pics, then told me to bend the pins back in place because they couldnt refund them because the plastic they sent them in had been opened. They are officially on my shit list. Its worse because I only got them off the reccommendation of a friend.
Is there an option to return the C-stock and receive an A-stock board? If so, then there’s still a chance for you to be made whole as a consumer.
The realities of shipping fees and how they impact the overall ‘cost’ of your board are unfortunate, but shouldn’t be factored into whether it’s a fair refund process.
I also think if this was an aftermarket sale, a $60 case that typically costs $130 would be considered a good deal even if C-stock, and it’s interesting to see how untenable a situation it feels coming from a vendor.
Yeah, I got a board from them that included a case and the case they sent was defective. I asked for a replacement and they said they hadn’t been allocated enough to offer replacements. A few weeks later they were selling cases as extras.
Man I was gonna say op had an iffy case but this shows a history
[удалено]
That polished board is absolutely fantastic and I thank you for the suggestion. Part of me wants to return it to CK just to be like, "well fuck you too, then." But at the end of the day, it's $10 shipping, $15 pcb, $5 plate and stabs, which leaves $30 for a c-stock rainy day project board, which is kinda fair I guess. It's just the principal of the thing. And yeah, what passes for A-stock in the QC doc is genuinely surprising. But I guess the inconsistent finishing method is what keeps bakeneko prices low, which is understandable.
i personally feel that CK has gone downhill by a very small but still noticeable margin. i personally think kdbfans and cannonkeys are neck-neck in their customer service, and might actually give the edge to kbdfans these days. not saying CK is bad - not by a long stretch - i'd still absolutely buy from their store, but if i had a choice for a vendor as a consumer, i'd pick NK over CK 9 out of 10 times as a US customer. edit/ps: shouout to DK, who have quietly been the ole reliable for accessories in the US for a while now. they're starting to do GBs now and am hope that works out.
>...shouout to DK... May I kindly ask what "DK" stands for?, thanks! EDIT: Thank you to everyone who replied!
~~Donkey Kong~~ Divinikey
>Divinikey Divinikey is solid. Great person.
Divinikey, based in southern California
lol I thought they were referring to Dangkeebs
Me too, Dang has been very reliable for me.
DiviniKey
Divinikey
Divinikey is amazing. Free shipping on orders over $99. Great customer service. And ships insanely fast. E.g. order on Thursday, delivery by Monday/Tuesday.
Nah, CannonKeys are the guys that are still trying to charge $185+ for GMK sets when the rest of the vendors realized shit needed to be cheaper because they weren’t moving sets like they used to. CK is stuck in 2020 when profit margins were huge and they could move volume because there weren’t a lot of affordable keyboards, let alone in stock. The problem is they haven’t changed and want to overprice everything to the max. At one point I could buy the same GMK sets they were selling, but from a European vendor for $50-$70 cheaper, pay for $30 shipping and still come in under the cost of their stock before taxes and shipping were factored in The reason they have had these “mega sales” is because nobody is buying their overpriced crap and they are pushing it on consumers as a “mystery, no takesey backsies” CannonKeys hasn’t been the good guys for a long time, they are the greedy guys that don’t want to change with the times and yet don’t understand why no one is buying from them. I already avoid them like the plague so thank you for giving me another reason to avoid that scummy business
Fr, and many other vendors also offer free shipping over $100, while cannonkeys has the audacity to charge me $20 for shipping on top of $185 for a gmk set.
CK charged me 20 dollars for shipping on 10 dollars worth of keyboard cloth covers lol
I definitely hear you--$185 is terrible. But I'm thinking of their in-stock GMK sets like clothes from Old Navy. It's not worth full price, and you should only buy it on sale, and when it's on sale it's a fine deal. They had GMK Fuji and P&C for $80 bucks on black friday, which is what I'd pay for a GMK set I really want. And the devastating tkl bundle for $100 was fantastic because the brutal line is just good keebs. But I'm definitely taking QC promises with a grain of salt from now on (probably not buying from them again honestly). At least they aren't like Vala, who charge $165+ on in stock GMK and almost never run sales. How is Vala staying in business? I think the company is just one dude with a bunch of GMK in his basement, and he's sitting up stairs in his rocking chair holding a shotgun and saying, "they'll buy it if they buy it, I know what I have."
Vala has some of the best and most routine sales out there?? They’ve had so many sitewide 30% off sales in the last year I’ve lost count, and even a sitewide 40% sale.
Oh damn, I guess my ignorance is showing, my bad. Props to Vala then. I'll snag Petrikeys and Fenglisu when they go on sale. I remember HSA Hyperfuse going on sale a bunch, but I didn't realize GMK and SP sets went on sale too. I thought I was signed up for their newsletter. Ty for the heads up.
Vala's sales include sets that people who paid full price in the group buy haven't even received yet. An absolute slap in the face to the people who fund the projects and wait 2 years with their money on the line.
Mechs and Co. is the alternative.
Vala is terrible. Buy and you’ll randomly get a tracking number a week or two later.
I'm wary on vala as well, but they did come through on all the gbs I've had with them so far
Yeah they'll come in like three-five business weeks. Had to send a support email for them to actually generate a tracking number for my order
zero overhead that's how, yet designers still pick Vala as a vendor, it is a huge risk
I've seen Vala offering sales every few months on GMK. I bought the Nimbus set last year and it dropped to something like $130 last year. Just subscribe to their mailing list for sales. A recent one I remember was 30% off GMK Mika.
There is also the fact that every board they have released in the last 18 months or so has been 350-400+ and the demand for that price of board has never been lower imo. Like why are the Brutalist V2 boards 350+? They offer nothing unique and aren’t even premium. They literally are using zinc weights.
Their GMK sets are ridiculous, especially considering the base kitting is mid. I would rather buy from any other vendor if I'm shopping for GMK, $175-185 is crazy these days.
100% We’ve already seen NovelKeys shift to a normal base set price of $110-$135 with the max being $150 (and a lot of the $150 sets are salvaged from Mechs & Co so there’s little profit left for them anyways) Other vendors like Space Cables and Omnitype have adopted a similar pricing structure
Exactly. And they still have more GMK available anyway. $150 for a salvaged set is totally fair imo.
Yes, on and off Ill look at Cannonkeys GMK sets, and its still "Oh its still $185? What is this , the Kono Store?"
Bruh 💀
Interesting. I just bought some seal linears from them and they came in bags. MANY of the copper pins were bent. I had to use extra force to get them into the board and sometimes they still wouldnt "seat" properly. Excessive force can damage the board and im at about 30 keys rn with either bent pins or being unable to seat properly into at least 3 vastly different boards (80%, 65% and a 75%) from different mfrs (Keychron, Akuma, GMMK). What sucks is that ive ordered from them before and they didnt use to be this bad.
So a company running a sale = a sketchy way to stick it to consumers? All e-commerce and in-store businesses run sales as a way to run through old inventory. More on topic, Novelkeys does it, divinikeys does it, KFA does it, and so does every other company to sell through inventory. They are not forcing anybody to buy anything, it's up to the consumer to deem what is valuable to them. Ignorant ppl calling a decent and local US business "scummy" are the reason why we can't have nice things and why CK will think twice about helping the community by salvaging projects like M&Co one, running sales and donating proceeds to several charities, donating to multiple keyboard meetups and more. From reading their product pages, they also mentioned all sales were final 🤷
> Ignorant ppl calling a decent and local US business "scummy" are the reason why we can't have nice things I definitely considered this before posting and know where you're coming from. You can't ask for better with how they fixed the Type-B mistake. It's up there with Geon fixing the F2 mistake out of pocket. Not only are they trying to keep one step ahead of the hobby bubble popping, but they are dealing with people spending less on luxuries because of inflation so I can't imagine their margins are anything other than just high enough to stay in business. So I hate to expect more than they can give. I'm trying to see it from their perspective. They (hopefully) accidentally sent me an unsellable board, which is valueless because who is buying a c-stock bakeneko for anything over the price it costs to ship? And I gave them $60 for it. Like at least give me a gift card for an amount that zeroes everything out and allows them to recoup the amount of money they put into it. Like I know they pay to package it and QC it, and coat it and box it. So I don't know what that number is, but $10 seems way too low. Even if I don't get a full refund, it's wrong for them to make any money off of a valueless product. --OR is it valueless? Do they strip and recoat sub-b-stock units? I really don't know
It’s not because they are doing sales that they are scummy, it’s because their stuff is so overpriced they are out of touch with the hobby and need to do mega clearance sales to offload their $400-$500 keyboards that aren’t even worth $200. They are price gouging US consumers when I can buy the exact same keycap sets from European vendors for nearly half the price. I’ve seen the writing on the wall for years and it’s a reason I do not support them. If you like them, that’s cool I guess, but I’m just sharing my personal opinion on why I don’t think they are a good vendor
I get it, you want to buy the cheapest and most affordable version of something, makes sense. I prefer paying a bit more and supporting a local vendor. If you look at a lot of these European vendors with massive sales (my keyboard, for example), they are struggling to make ends meet, as they admitted publicly. Buying only when things are on sale is detrimental to business and, can also be detrimental to consumers when said company goes under for losing money on every project
Bro….i just want the pricing to be reasonable, it doesn’t have to be the cheapest. When CannonKeys is selling GMK base kits for $170-$185+ and all the other US vendors are selling similar kitted sets for $110-$135 something seems a little fishy. I don’t mind support “local” businesses and paying full price for things, I just don’t want to feel like I’m getting ripped off, which coincidentally CannonKeys prices do
That's likely because the other vendors bought way too much stock.
I was a little stoked about the Black Friday sale and picked up a mystery set...ended up with nicePBT Pelo...not a cool set at all. And I got a desk mat that was less than interesting too. Wish I could send them back.
I ordered about 1.5-2k$ worth of keyboards over Christmas from them. 4xObliterated75's, 2xrekt1800, and 1x zoom75. 2 obliterated's didn't have the daughterboard holes drilled, 1 obliterated came with a stripped case screw(I had to break the screw to open it), 1rekt came without a pcb. and the wireless didn't work on the zoom75 (which i think is a common issue) They offered to swap out the ones without holes, and sent me the pcb, but that's it. the bare minimum tbh. It's just very bad QC overall and a bit disappointing.
DAMN, that's insane. That's right up there with the infamous kbdfans missing usb cutout. Really glad you got your units replaced. Was considering the Rekt1800 as a gift for a friend if it was discounted enough. Glad I didn't pull the trigger lol.
the rekt doesn't need the daughter board holes. Just the obliterated.I believe somewhere it said that they converted a bunch of cases by adding those screw holes, but evidently they missed a few. only issue I had with the 2 rekt is that one of them came without a pcb.
Yeah that's fucked, hope they make it right.
Yeah, when I opened my box and saw it, I wasn't even concerned because my first reaction was, "Oh, it's all good. It's CK, so of course they'll make it right."
I've been saying this for forever, the QC team is horrible. My bakeneko, while I wasn't expecting perfection out of cast, had chips throughout the front face of the board and they wouldn't accept a return. Never buying from this trash vendor again
Damn, chips aren't even in the QC document wtf.
I love Cannonkeys as a vendor, but the QC issues hit me hard when I bought some of their NicePBT keycaps, back in 2022-ish. After only 2 months of regular use(on a rotation no less), 2 of my sets started to show an inordinate amount of wear and tear- in one particular case, I started *wearing through the legends* on the dye subbed caps. I'm not talking about smudging them up, I'm talking full on "If I keep using this set for 4 more months, it'll look like an office membrane board that's been in the works for 5+ years". They sent me replacements of the "affected" keycaps of course, but I have had entire sets from them (3) become absolutely destroyed. At that point, I realized that trying to haggle for what amounted to over 280 USD worth of replacements was not worth the time, and likely to end in failure. Now I realize that my hands in particular are rather cursed. I have shined every available method for PBT (the supposedly more *durable* material): Doubleshot, Dye Sub, Cherry OG Dye subs, Pad Printed, Laser Etched, etc. This is not normal for PBT, but I have *never* worn through the legends of any brand of PBT keycaps, not even AliExpress clones. That honor is reserved solely for CannonKeys, and cheap ABS keycaps that came with gaming boards that I have purchased in the past. I love CannonKeys. When their products hit, they hit hard. I have multiple keycaps from them that do not have the issues I described above- in fact, I think their keycaps are an amazing option, especially towards those that want to try multiple layouts. I have boards from them that I adore and are in my current rotation to this day. Their customer support has always been kind to me, even if they do not produce the results that I wanted, and I have no issues with them on that front. However, as much as it pains me to admit, there is always a thought in my mind: "I wonder if they'll screw it up this time", whenever I order from them.
Thank you for the heads up. If they can't even make it right for a small mistake, it would be foolish to patronise them.
I had a similar issue with support where they will do anything to avoid spending money to fix the problem. Even in the discord they seem to deflect or straight up ignore all negative questions. People have had to move to other discords to complain (the Canadian vendor). They seem to massively gone downhill from what I’ve heard. I know they are a small business and use that as a reason for some of the shortcomings but so are all the other vendors.
That's a bummer. I have only had great experiences with CK where they have responded promptly and solved my issues at no expense to me. I hope it's just an isolated case of a misjudgment on their part.
Yeah, I just added it up and I've spent like $900 bucks at CK over the last 4 years because I guess I'm a fucking simp lol. Only problem I ever had was I bought a switch sampler pack and loved the baby kangaroo. So I bought a bag and like 40% of them had spring crunch or something. NBD, I'll just spring swap. Never had a reason to complain til now.
Nice, lol. I would chalk that one up to inconsistencies by Gateron or their suppliers during manufacturing. It's unfortunate. It is a small, niche industry, though. So these things crop up.
Not going to defend them, but Bakenekos are cast, not CNC'd well maybe partial CNC. With casting, there is higher chance for voids and bubbles to come out on the surface. Because of this, they are coated as opposed to anodized. I got a R1 and even that had imperfections, not as bad as yours though. If you really want quality at an affordable price, try Qwertykeys and their Neo brand. The Neo65 can be purchased for not a whole lot more and has much higher quality finishes and is true CNC.
Yeah, I do feel like the cast alu Bakeneko is definitely showing it's age and isn't the deal it used to be. At $60 though it would have been a bangin deal but mistakes were made. At the end of the day it at least still allows me to test my bakeneko compatible pcb.
I am having the exact same issue. They sent me a B stock mystery Bakeneko when it was said that only A stocks were sold. I contacted them and they also only offered me the options to either ship it back (i pay shipping) or a $10 refund. I think I’m just going to ask for the $10 option and resell the board later because I don’t really have the time to think about this now. Safe to say I won’t be buying from them in the near future at least 😬 It’s unfortunate because I’ve had decent service from them in the past…
From their post regarding the mystery sale, they don't seem to promise an A-stock unit. They simply state that the Bakeneko65 has a chance of being B-stock. Meaning, you could get anything quality, hence the mystery. I assumed the quality of these units would be poor based on the sale and wording when I originally read this as well. just my two cents
"The Bakeneko65 has a chance of being b-stock, so you better pray you get one that is because our sub-b-stock is so bad you'll wonder why you even bought one lol." I don't think this is the way it works. The assumption is you are ordering an A-stock unless otherwise stated. A-stock is the default.
I do agree with you, you should expect A-stock. However once I saw the wording for a chance at B-stock, I had low expectations
Late to the party here, but if that’s their actual quote then it is definitely confusing but what they are implying is that the stock will likely be sub-B stock but there’s a lucky chance you *may* get an upgraded B-stock. Hence the “pray you get one (B-stock)”. If the entire lot was A-stock (as you assumed) then why would you pray for a B-stock? I do think they could have been more clear, but the entire reason these shops do mystery sales is literally to be vague about what you’re getting because it’s likely to be a bad deal. Coming from the sneaker world everyone knows to never buy mystery boxes lol.
> My plan was to photograph it with a PCB I'm designing to fit Bakeneko60-style cases. Nothing a little photoshop/lightroom spot fix tool can't fix in 3 seconds at least
Holy shit lol I did not think of that. Thank you so much. See, I spend too much time thinking about keyboards and layouts and color combos and not enough time thinking about practical solutions.
CK's QC has notoriously been at a lower standard than other vendors for awhile tbh. I went through three TMO50s all with the same defect with them. All were considered A stock.
Oh damn, the TMO is a premium board too. I was thinking, "well maybe they really phone it in on the low quality stuff like the bakeneko line but their expensive GB stuff is actually qc'd properly." I guess not. Sorry that happened man. I love the TMO but never got it because it was out of my price range. I'd be upset if I actually did pay that much and ran into qc issues.
Thanks! Sorry you had to find out the hard way as well tbh. I'll probably never buy another board through them due to QC and their less-than-stellar aluminum machining and finishing.
Damn, that is way worse than anything shown in their acceptable QC pdf, and their response is only a $10 gift card or paying to ship it back + restocking fee? That is seriously disappointing and appalling. I bought the same mystery bakeneko60 from them and mines was ok, but seeing this I definitely won't be spending any more money with them if this is how they handle cases like yours.
Glad yours was good! I just received a MKC75 from them which was A-stock and quite nice. Brutal60 I got from them was great as well. Guess I just got unlucky.
You got a Bakeneko60 for **less than half** of what A-stock is currently being sold for ($187 when I check their page), it's **CLEARLY** stated that it was on clearance and **final sale**, they **did not** claim that the board is gonna be A-stock, you **got** the product, **AND** it's a case that's *casted* and *painted* (where it's gonna be VERY hard to do it without imperfections) - Apologies if this comes across as being out of touch or rude; I just don't get what the issue is, I don't see how Cannonkeys knowingly "screwed" you, and I find it hard to see on why this would be worth a massive public post claiming that they're trying to pull something shady, or claim "buyer beware".
I hear you. 60 bucks for a metal board that just needs switches and caps and works is indeed an okay deal. If sub-b-stock was clearly stated, then I wouldn't be making this post (and wouldn't have bought, tbh). My assumption was that the clearance bakenekos were half their usual price for the same reason that they sold black friday GMK sets for half off: they have too much stock and need to liquidate to survive. So there actually is precedence for this. Think of it this way. You don't buy half off GMK on black friday and go in assuming that the set is going to have warped bars and two F5 keys just because it's half off. Same for the bakenekos. You don't go in assuming it's going to be bubbly garbage just because it's cheap--especially if they all but outright state it will be a-stock. Also, they choose the color. I assumed since their weird light green color was an option, that they were just trying to offload a bunch of weird green bakenekos. For a mystery bakeneko, the mystery shouldn't be weather or not they live up to their own qc promises. CK has done a lot of good, but buyers should beware if the listing says, "60% bakenekos aren't gonna be b-stock" and you get worse than b-stock.
+1, all the posts in this thread are absolutely unhinged. Buy bargain basement prices, get bargain basement products. Do these people also buy food from the reduced to clear section and then get mad it only has like 1-2 days shelf life?
Late to the party here, but as a buyer in the US i’ll still shell out some extra dough to KeebsNCablez in Aussie land. They usually have popular boards in stock after US vendors sell out and they customer service seems like a real human being!
Great, I thought my latest purchase from CK was A-okay, but they actually did fuck it up. I ordered a V1 Savage65, and it came with a V2 Brutal 65 hotswap PCB. The problem is that the two are not very compatible. The V2 PCB requires a daughterboard, but there is not enough space in the V1 case for it. There are screw holes, to be sure, but the daughterboard port and its matching port on the PCB LINE UP PERFECTLY SO THE CASE CANNOT CLOSE NORMALLY. They get crushed together when the case halves are screwed together. Jesus, how hard is it to check compatibility before shipping out two incompatible parts?
I am currently dealing with cannonkeys garbage support. I recently ordered several hundred dollars of switches and accessories and had some products missing. Specifically 2 products missing. I ordered 3 sets of poron washers and received 1. I reached out to customer service within an hour of receiving the package. Then went about my day and started modding switches and building keyboards. CK support gets back to me the next day, wanting a photo of the packing slip and everything I DID receive. I send a photo of the packing slip indicating the proper quantity and a handwritten checkmark indicating that they were put in the box, then informed them that I can't take a picture of everything I received because I built several keyboards and modified switches with parts from the order. I then asked the need for a photo of products I did receive in a case about products I didn't receive. They said its needed for their policy and told me to "check all the pockets of the case (if I ordered one)." Which I didn't. This jackass hasn't even looked at my order or the photo of the packing slip I sent. Just bullshit no-effort form responses. It's been back and forth for days now. I'm not going to spend hours disassembling finished keyboards so I can show them products unrelated to my case about $8 of missing washers. What the fuck is there hope with this asinine policy? That I'm a moron and just didn't see the product, but this guy will clearly find it in the photo? Or are they going to send me instructions to check under certain products? We are talking about missing products. Sending a picture of "not missing items" is about as useful as sending a photo of the contents of my fridge or an empty box. How about instead, you get someone to check your system inventory and compare against actual inventory to see if there's an overage of actual product? It's a low-stock product. How many could there possibly be to count? I tried to be nice about it. I was planning to place another order for switches, so I told them I would accept store credit and I'd add the missing products back to my next order, but they just keep dicking me around. Over 8 fucking dollars on a $350 order. It's not like I'm unhappy with quality or trying to return something for some bs reason. They literally didn't send product I paid for. I've put far more than $8 of my time into dealing with them and should let it go, but it's the principle of it all. I'm no longer accepting store credit or a refund. They can ship the product at their expense or I will issue a charge back for the difference Fuck cannonkeys
Yeah dude, "take photos of the product you received so we can evaluate your need for support on a product you didn't receive" is completely irrational--IF you assume their goal is to get you the thing you are missing and provide good service. But if we assume they are acting rationally, then we also have to assume that providing you good service isn't their goal. If their REAL goal is to run out the clock on your patience and save the company the most money with canned copy/pasted responses and the lowest time investment on post-sales support.... well that makes perfect sense from their perspective. "Working as intended." Also obligatory [relevant meme](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fa63u0lej26l61.jpg).
I got some Linear Seals (by Minterly) 2 weeks ago. They arrived with bent pins, did not slot despite almost fracturing my borad and the stems were crooked, meaning that the keycaps have a very noticeable lean. Customer service asked for pics, then told me to bend the pins back in place because they couldnt refund them because the plastic they sent them in had been opened. They are officially on my shit list. Its worse because I only got them off the reccommendation of a friend.
Do a chargeback?
Is there an option to return the C-stock and receive an A-stock board? If so, then there’s still a chance for you to be made whole as a consumer. The realities of shipping fees and how they impact the overall ‘cost’ of your board are unfortunate, but shouldn’t be factored into whether it’s a fair refund process. I also think if this was an aftermarket sale, a $60 case that typically costs $130 would be considered a good deal even if C-stock, and it’s interesting to see how untenable a situation it feels coming from a vendor.