Remaking Classic Keycaps for Cherry MX

[modman]

I want to make a full set of keycaps like these, Preferably the blue K key. I'm not sure where to start and who to ask since i'm really new to the mechanical keyboard community. I'd like to get a group of people together to help get this project going.

[SmallFry]

Looks like you'll want to talk to Signature Plastics. I have to tell you though, that these will need a group buy.

[modman]

Looks like you'll want to talk to Signature Plastics. I have to tell you though, that these will need a group buy.

I see, Though I wouldn't want to be the group buy coordinator, I'd be a really bad at coordinating anything . I want to want and see if anyone is interested in actually coordinating it.

[NikoGasm]

In case you need the link to SP, it's right here.

For what it's worth, I'd be interested in the group buy. But I'd rather not be the one to coordinate it.

[damorgue]

If all you want is the shape, then there are spericals in round4

[modman]

So I guess right now we'd need a coordinator, So if anyone is up to do this please comment on this thread!!

[telepete]

I doubt there will be sufficient interest for a group buy. There were sets like that in round 4.

[reverkiller]

I doubt there will be sufficient interest for a group buy. There were sets like that in round 4.

Round 4 started nearly 2 years ago, right? I'm sure you can find some people who weren't around then to commit!

[jeroplane]

Or you could *maybe* find someone who ordered some R4 ones and has lost interest in them in the time since the GB started.

[strafe]

I think they would be awesome.

[Matt3o]

unfortunately I missed the spherical keys from round4... I would definitely get a set if now.

[IvanIvanovich]

I think if another sphericals buy, they should be done on the DSA instead since that profile actually has all the needed key sizes for modern board unlike the others. I'm normally not interested in SP full sets, but a DSA set is one I would go in for and I wouldn't mind that shade of blue either.

[samwisekoi]

I think if another sphericals buy, they should be done on the DSA instead since that profile actually has all the needed key sizes for modern board unlike the others. I'm normally not interested in SP full sets, but a DSA set is one I would go in for and I wouldn't mind that shade of blue either.

Me too!

IMHO, this set would need a stepped caps lock key.  DSA or possibly SA.

 - Ron | samwisekoi

[damorgue]

Does anyone have a picture of what a stepped sperical key looks like? I just became curious as I can't imagine it looking anything but awkward.

[samwisekoi]

Does anyone have a picture of what a stepped sperical key looks like? I just became curious as I can't imagine it looking anything but awkward.

The typewriter keycaps shown above.  And old terminal keycaps.

[edit] Stepped like this:


 - Ron | samwisekoi

[damorgue]

Edit: I am stupid, I see the pic now

[modman]

I'd be tossing these keys on my Das so I'd imagine we'd need to get them in modern format. It might need some extra design if anyone wants to make possible configurations.

[Matt3o]

let's make it happen! c'mon samwisekoi make another GB

[samwisekoi]

let's make it happen! c'mon samwisekoi make another GB

Sure, okay, but I need to land at least one plane before I launch another!

 - Ron | samwisekoi

[pasph]

let's make it happen! c'mon samwisekoi make another GB

+1

[modman]

let's make it happen! c'mon samwisekoi make another GB

Sure, okay, but I need to land at least one plane before I launch another!

 - Ron | samwisekoi

Show Image

I feel that there should be a sticky "to do list" thread where you can list off what you are currently doing and what's next on your plate. You seem like you know what you're doing when it comes to GBs, +1 on you coordinating it. :)

[codymaust]

Just curious, what does running a group buy consist of?

Fronting all of the money for the entire order, and shipping everything out?

[NikoGasm]

Just curious, what does running a group buy consist of?

Fronting all of the money for the entire order, and shipping everything out?

Well you have to contact the company who will be manufacturing the keys, get quotes from them, make sure enough of the community is interested, then take in orders, then gather payments, then you pay for the product, the manufacturer makes it, sends it to you, then you organize the products and ship out everyone's respective order.

That's it in a nutshell at least. There's usually more that will take place.

[reverkiller]

I'm sure there are lots of people willing to do it, but you also have to garner trust before you can. I don't know of any incidents off hand, but I'm sure someone from GH has run off with GB funds before.

[samwisekoi]

I can only fit three GB/IC links in my sig, so that's my limit.

But just for grins, could this be a simple GB?  87 keys, all white on blue, DSA profile, perhaps with a couple of extra locator bar keys for Colemak people and a blank 1x for Poker and GH60 peeps.  (DSA keycaps can be moved to any row, so QWERTY and AZERTY can be (mostly) supported with an ANSI set.)  So a total of 90 keycaps for everyone.  No 10-key, ISO, Tsangan, Moogle, Race, etc.

Could this community get behind such a simple buy, or will we need to have a geometric explosion of options?

 - Ron | samwisekoi

[NikoGasm]

But just for grins, could this be a simple GB?  87 keys, all white on blue, DSA profile, perhaps with a couple of extra locator bar keys for Colemak people and a blank 1x for Poker and GH60 peeps.  (DSA keycaps can be moved to any row, so QWERTY and AZERTY can be (mostly) supported with an ANSI set.)  So a total of 90 keycaps for everyone.  No 10-key, ISO, Tsangan, Moogle, Race, etc.

Could this community get behind such a simple buy, or will we need to have a geometric explosion of options?

The problem with this is not all of us will want those extra keys, so they'd be paying for things they do not want. The other problem is there is a great variety of keyboards used here. Go look at Toxic and Klaxxon and you'll see demand for a lot of different options to accommodate lots of different layouts. Some people won't participate if they can't get what they need for their entire board (this is perfectly reasonable). So if you make people pay for something they don't want and then don't offer what some others want the window for this interest in this GB could be very narrow. I understand your want for making it a simple GB, but that may not work out.

This all being said, it couldn't hurt to try to run it in your plan. I think it's a splendid idea and I personally agree with what you recommend; however not everyone will think like this.

[Matt3o]

This is very special set, imho. You can't match it with anything else so you absolutely need all the keys to make a keyboard. If it's DSA it would be very simple to add layouts and I wouldn't miss that opportunity.

My suggestion would be:

All white on blue keys.

- TKL
- num pad
- winkey less mods
- iso kit
- poker/60%
- mini/race

to that I would try to add some special keys if possible (caps? esc? win?)

That being said, isn't this going to collide with round4? I'm wondering how many people are going to get this set considering it has been available for purchase for 2 years (even though slightly different, I believe round 4 mimics the space cadet keyboard, right?).

Lastly I'm available at taking care of the GB (working with SP, collecting money, updating the forum) but I'm from Europe and if I physically receive the keys from SP I would have to pay import taxes, so I would need someone who receives the keys, sorts them out a sends to buyers around the world. Unless you knowa company in EU that can make keycaps.

[damorgue]

Unless you knowa company in EU that can make keycaps.

QWERKeys. They do sphericals too I believe, but I don't think they are equipped to do full sets like this, although I may be wrong.

[Matt3o]

yeah it seems they are gearing to have complete sets, just not yet (at least that's what they told me in December)

[mashby]

I want to make a full set of keycaps like these, Preferably the blue K key. I'm not sure where to start and who to ask since i'm really new to the mechanical keyboard community. I'd like to get a group of people together to help get this project going.

Show Image

I just want to know where you got that poster!  :eek:

[samwisekoi]

My suggestion would be:

All white on blue keys.

- TKL
- num pad
- winkey less mods
- iso kit
- poker/60%
- mini/race

OK; I'll investigate pricing for all but the weird Race keys.

This would be an awesome set for a Poker or the GH60.

 - Ron | samwisekoi

[Matt3o]

hold on... would be great to be ready for this:



(I meant 75% not race)

[samwisekoi]

hold on... would be great to be ready for this:

(Attachment Link)

(I meant 75% not race)

Like this?


eRace 75% Layout in Blue & White Sphericals

 - Ron | samwisekoi

[IvanIvanovich]

How I would do is, A-Z; 1-0 (2 sets + extra 2x1 0) with numbers only; punctuation; F1-F12; nav and cursor; 5 extra 1x1 blanks; ctrl/alt in 1, 1.25, and 1.5; win/menu in 1 and 1.25; shifts in 1.25, 1.75, 2.25, 2.75; ANSI and ISO enter, caps lock 1.75 (x2 center and left stem mount); tab and \| in 1.5, backspace 2x1, enter and + in 1x2; spacebar in 6, 6.25 and 7.
Should be good for almost any physical layout, and fairly universal for ANSI and most ISO layouts. Since DSA is flat, being able to move keys around to the different locations is easy so I think it would be silly not to include ISO as you could get some good interest there.
I would just make all of that 1 set, no options. I hate all the add on kits it just make things more complicated and more expensive. If you just have all those keys as default it brings the prices down as there are more keys so more volume automatically. Since SP give volume discount it can make the sets cheaper overall in some instances.
Also many people end up switcing boards and could end up needing some of those keys later, or if selling having those keys could be the difference of selling or not in some cases. Just some thoughts.

[damorgue]

Since DSA is flat, being able to move keys around to the different locations is easy so I think it would be silly not to include ISO as you could get some good interest there.

That should please some dvorak/colemak/neo users too.

[samwisekoi]

How I would do is, A-Z; 1-0 (2 sets + extra 2x1 0) with numbers only; punctuation; F1-F12; nav and cursor; 5 extra 1x1 blanks; ctrl/alt in 1, 1.25, and 1.5; win/menu in 1 and 1.25; shifts in 1.25, 1.75, 2.25, 2.75; ANSI and ISO enter, tab and \| in 1.5, backspace 2x1, enter and + in 1x2; spacebar in 6, 6.25 and 7.
Should be good for almost any physical layout, and fairly universal for ANSI and most ISO layouts. Since DSA is flat, being able to move keys around to the different locations is easy so I think it would be silly not to include ISO as you could get some good interest there.

Okay.  I've requested pricing from SP for their normal sub-sets.  I agree that DSA reduces complexity and increases options.  I would also like to offer home row indicators for Colemak, since that should be easy to swap things around for.  (I don't know about Dvorak.)

 - Ron | samwisekoi

[maxmalkav]

I'd be glad enough having ISO option, independently of the specific layout. A spherical set would be really nice, specially if it wouldn't be too expensive

[Matt3o]

Like this?

(Attachment Link)
eRace 75% Layout in Blue & White Sphericals

Lovely

I would just make all of that 1 set, no options.

Agreed. Especially with the setup you suggested.

[telepete]

I remember before the sphericals were added to round4 there was a vote for colours. Brown came in second. If someone commits to running a GB you could do them in brown and probably generate significantly higher numbers. Just a thought to got a cheaper set as many people already purchased blue ones.

[samwisekoi]

Pricing is the same as for "Cherry" profile keycaps:

Ron-
Yes pricing would be the same for DSA with a few exceptions - We don't have
tooling for the ISO Enter key or spacebars in either size...

Melissa Petersen
Signature Plastics LLC

These would be cool (in blue or brown) but I don't know how popular they would be.

We'd need to get up to 30 sets to get below $100 USD for an 87-key set.  And the spacebar and ISO Enter key would be color-matched but not the same profile.

See http://keycapsdirect.com/customized.php for pricing.

Now we have more info.  Thoughts?

 - Ron | samwisekoi

[IvanIvanovich]

They seriously don't have those keys in DSA? FAIL. Is DCS the only f*cking profile they have everything in then? I am sure as hell not mixing different profiles, especially don't want DCS for the spacebar. Sucks.

[modman]

I'm new to this, Would the sets you'd be getting work fine for a Das Keyboard?

[IvanIvanovich]

Yes, theoretically assuming all the keys are included and not chopped down to only 87 keyset.

[rowdy]

hold on... would be great to be ready for this:

(Attachment Link)

(I meant 75% not race)

Like this?

(Attachment Link)
eRace 75% Layout in Blue & White Sphericals

 - Ron | samwisekoi

Show Image

Echos of CCnB there :)

[Matt3o]

is this already dead?

[rknize]

R4 invested a great deal to bring "universal" space bars to the SA profile.  Their docs show a space bar for DSA.  What size is it?

[samwisekoi]

is this already dead?

I'd like a set, but between R4 and lysol's objections, I'm not gonna jump on leading this charge ATM.

 - Ron | samwisekoi

[modman]

is this already dead?

I'd like a set, but between R4 and lysol's objections, I'm not gonna jump on leading this charge ATM.

 - Ron | samwisekoi

Show Image

Yeah, Sadly no one wants to do it. :(

[Matt3o]

I'm not ready to throw the towel on this.

Contacted SP to get some info about the spherical layout.

SA is not an option, it's nice but they can't do 2.75 keys.

Prices for a full DSA standard TKL set are as follow (no special legends):
25 sets $80.29 per set
50 sets $59.91 per set
75 sets $53.11 per set
100 sets $49.72 per set

This would be the base price, to that we have to add something for the additional keys (if we want them).

They didn't mention anything about the spacebar but I assume it's in a standard layout. I can live with that, spherical on the side of your thumbs would be painful.

To reach a higher tier faster I would make a single set with all the keys, you end up with more keys than you need but you handed less cash anyway. (look at the price difference between 25 and 50!).

Color. We have to do it different from R4 of course. Options are 1) all blue 2) charcoal+blue (darker than R4) 3) 2-beige tones (pearl/pebble whatever). Personally I'm more toward the latter, but I can live with either of them.

Thoughts?

[samwisekoi]

Matt3o,

You run the IC/GB and I'll provide forms and whatnot.

And I am in for a set.  These would look awesome in all-blue on the 75% I am building. The classic Selectric look!

FYI, SP has relegendables in this profile, so making some color-matched bases would enable all of the odd-size keyboards to use this set as well.  (Well, not the Race, but that is an extra special keyboard.)

 - Ron | samwisekoi