Do-it-yourself monstrous mechanical keyboard cost $14,000

Sometimes the more the better. And sometimes more is just…massive. That word comes to mind when you look at the latest DIY mechanical keyboard from YouTuber Glarses, which is just as long and expensive as it is.

As you can imagine, mechanical keyboards with such large buttons that can be comfortably pressed with more than one finger are quite rare. Budget peripheral maker Redragon has one you can actually buy, which is 1.9 feet long, 7.95 inches deep, and 2.33 inches high. Google has also experimented with long keyboards for fun: Google Japan’s prototype version of the Gboard Stick is 5.25 feet long. And Razer, which inspired Glarses, showed off a giant keyless keyboard (TKL) with functioning RGB switches at CES.

However, despite all that chassis, none of these giant boards managed to include a traditional number pad. On the other hand, the gigantic Glarses keyboard was built with a gigantic computing machine in mind.

As detailed in a video hosted by sites such as Review Geek and Dexerto, the Glarses custom keyboard includes 3D printed body parts assembled with friends, as well as giant, scaled PCB printed keycaps and on a 3D printer.

Similar to Razer’s giant keyboard, the Glarses homemade nutcracker uses 110 large NovelKeys (Pale Blue) switches. Each Big Switch series has 64 times the volume of a traditional Cherry MX switch and has an MSRP of $18.

“Soldering giant switches is exactly the same as soldering small switches, it just takes 10 times longer,” Glarces said.

As if lugging around gigantic parts of the keyboard case wasn’t tiring enough, Glarses even oiled every switch. Each was reported to take 10 minutes to open, showing how important smooth keystrokes with clear sound are to keyboard manufacturers. Glasses said he used 100g (3.5oz) of Krytox GPL 205g0 for the job.

However, there may still be some wobbly or loose keys on this large-sized peripheral. The builder had trouble fitting the 3D-printed stabilizers for large keys like Backspace and Enter, and said they “felt really bad.”So, the only key in the finished build with a stabilizer is the spacebar. The spacebar is longer than a regular TKL keyboard, so it’s no wonder it needed some extra stability.

According to the video, the manufacturing, shipping and import costs were as much as the peripheral itself, at “about”£12,000 (about $14,000). (And for those who speculated that well-known backers paid the bill, Glarses claimed he paid for it with his own YouTube money, as two backers withdrew midway through the build.)

Glasses’ video shows how the keyboard works, and he even uses it in some gaming sessions.