Bahrnob 65 Group Buy Updates:
Since the announcement of the official group buy date on February 7th, it has come to our attention that we have not provided you all with all the necessary information that is needed for a group buy. First, we want to apologize for any lack of information or communication that we have not provided for our product. We should not have taken everyone’s trust for granted as we understand that we are newcomers to the group buy scene (as this is our first one). We have to earn that trust. With that said, we want to present to you all a clear plan of initiative that we are going to take in order to address any and all of the (very fair and understandable) concerns that have come up since our group buy announcement.
The plan from here on out:
The group buy will be delayed until April (from February 20, 2021). We apologize for this delay as we know that many of you were very excited for this product, but we felt this was necessary as we want to be able to provide everybody with the highest quality product that we can provide, and for everybody interested in purchasing this to be as well-informed about our product as possible. We have been working very hard behind the scenes to get everything up and running (from the website, to taking photos, to reaching out to manufacturers, figuring out packaging, etc…) and this is stuff that we want to make as transparent as possible to you all. We promise that although we are pushing the group buy date back, this group buy WILL happen, and everyone on our team is determined to give you a product that you will be happy with.
In the meantime, here is exactly what we plan on doing while you wait for that new group buy date.
- Seeing is believing. From the photos that we posted, there were a number of things brought to our attention, so we want to address these. As of right now, we had only purchased 2 prototypes. There are no photos of our first one as we were unsatisfied with it and made some design changes to the one that is currently posted on our website (the white one that you are probably seeing on all of our posts). In the next two weeks, we will be purchasing a prototype in every colorway that we are going to offer. This means that we will be getting 3 cases (black, space grey, and e-white). We will be purchasing the silver aluminum base as well as the gold aluminum base. We will be purchasing every color bar and knob as well as providing you all with the pantone colors of each of them. We will be purchasing all 3 plates (carbon fiber, brass, and aluminum). PCB’s have already been purchased, tested, and confirmed working for QMK and VIA. ALL of these will be representative of the quality and color that you will receive when your group buy order is fulfilled. We will take photos from more angles (including that engraving on the back) of each prototype as well as each individual part of the case (including plate, pcb, weight). If we are unsatisfied with the look or quality of these items, we will make revisions and order new ones until we are satisfied. We will also try to get photos with a larger variety of keycaps.
- We plan to make bi-weekly updates on our Discord about our progress and what exactly we are working on for any given week. This way, you all can see what we are working on and provide us with any feedback that you might have.
- We realized that the details of our project have been spread out over 2 reddit posts, 1 geekhack thread, and our collections tab of our website which can get very confusing and it can be difficult to discern between what is new and what is old information. On top of providing weekly updates on our discord, we will be updating the collections tab of our website on the Bahrnob to contain ALL information that you could possibly want to know about the project. Things like group buy dates, specs, pictures, typing tests, case heights, back weights, group buy logistics, pricing, etc. will be found there and updated consistently. If there are questions that you have that are not answered please ask in our discord! We are fairly quick at getting back to people and will try to answer any and all questions in a timely manner (within a day).
That is what we have planned for now. A number of other concerns have been brought up as well and we want to take this next section to answer those questions.
- Your prototype case is not E-white.
- Yes, we should have made it more clear that that color was not e-white. The color on our prototype was just a generic white color without finishes from the manufacturer. We will be purchasing a prototype that is actually E-white and properly electrophoresis coated to show you a more accurate example of what the actual color will look like.
- 500 units seems like an unreasonable amount of units to fulfill
- We may have been a little ambitious with our number. To be clear, it was not an MOQ of 500 units, it was a cap of 500 units. In hindsight, 500 units may have been unreasonable to deal without a vendor and thus, we will be lowering the cap to 300 units. We are confident that we will be able to handle this volume of product. Also for further clarity, although we are a small team, we have a warehouse (family owned) that we are planning to use for distribution, packaging, QC, and other logistical stuff.
- Why can’t we see what the board looks like underneath?
- Our current prototype does not have the engraving that we plan to have on our final product. The bottom engraving will be present on the prototypes that we are posting in the future. Here is a render of what we plan to have on it. https://imgur.com/a/giXDnkM
- How will shipping work?
- Shipping will be route protected and we have decided that it will be international. We are based in the US (CA) so shipping in the CON-US area will be significantly cheaper than those purchasing in other countries. Pricing is TBA, but we wanted to let you guys know that shipping will most likely be a tad more than you are used to for a similar product since this keyboard is extremely heavy.
- What is the estimated delivery date?
- After discussing with the manufacturer, they have told us that they will be able to fulfill our order in about 2-3 months (assuming we hit 300 units). Throughout production, we will post consistent updates and pictures. Taking into account QC, packaging, and shipping times, we are looking at about a 5-6 month turnaround, but we want to take extra time to make sure that everything runs smoothly, so we are estimating a late Q4 2021 delivery date.
- How will the group buy be run?
- This will be a FCFS basis with a limit of 2 units per household. If you order more than this, your order will be cancelled and an extra spot will be opened to take your place.
- Your typing tests look whack.
- Yea, admittedly they were filmed on an iPhone, however we used a high quality microphone for our audio. We do not have the means to buy professional recording equipment for the purposes of a sound test, but this should not detract from the quality of the sound test itself. We believe that our audio is as representative of the real product as closely as we could make it. That said, we will try to make more sound tests with a variety of switches, keycap profiles, and our various plate materials so that you all can hear the differences.
- Why is the brass weight version an additional $150?
- In the brass weight version of our board, the WHOLE BOTTOM of the case is a solid hunk of brass. This is extremely expensive to manufacture and adds an extreme amount of weight to the board (the brass weight version of the board is almost 10 pounds/3 kilos). This is meant to be a novelty addition to the board because we know that some of y’all love that heft, but we also added a gold aluminum version for those of y’all who still want that brass color, but don’t want the extra heft or cost.
- What are the colors?
- This was an oversight that we forgot to post and we apologize for this! Pantone colors for the knob and bars are as follows:
E-white, black, gold, silver,PANTONE 425 C (grey), PANTONE 2627 C (Midnight Purple), PANTONE 280 C (Navy Blue), PANTONE 1805 C (Red), PANTONE 553 C (Sage Green), PANTONE 20-0094TPM (Rose Gold)
- All of these colors will be updated on our website as well, and we will post photos once the prototypes come in.
Here is a link to our previous posts in which we have detailed information about the specs of the board, this includes dimensions, weight, size, layouts, etc. Also please check out our website here for more information on that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mechmarket/comments/jda9lo/ic_bahrnob_65_gasket_mount_65/
https://www.reddit.com/r/mechmarket/comments/k52xnc/ic_bahrnob_65_gasket_mount_65_major_updates/
https://www.kalakosdesigns.com/blogs/news/bts-bahrnob-65
If you want a summary of specs here they are:
- 7 degree typing angle
- Dimensions: LxWxH (324mm x 123mm x 18mm)
- EC11 Rotary encoder knob
- Aluminum/Brass screw-in pen rail LxWxH (314mm x 5mm x 8mm)
- USB-C daughter-board (C3 unified standard)
- Weight: 1kg for aluminum and 3kg for brass
- Tab gasket mount with closed cell silicone rubber gasket material
We are extremely excited for what is to come with the Bahrnob and we want to thank you all for the support and helpful criticisms! Please be patient with us and we will try and answer as many questions you all have!