Why won't Topre make a RF with keycaps that you can read?

[walkthewalk]

Hey guys! I have been lurking for quite a while and have learned a lot through this forum. I registered just to post this thread.

Based on an overwhelming number of recommendations, I purchased the Realforce 45g keyboard in black from amazon.  I absolutely love the tactile feel of the Topre switches, the PBT keycaps and just the overall built quality of the board.

I have one HUGE issue. Why on Earth do they only make this keyboard with keycap printing that is practically invisible? I need to be able to see what I am typing. To top it all off, the RF keycaps are not sold by themselves and the RF 45g in white is nearly impossible to find. My only option here is to purchase two keyboards. I'm a fairly educated guy. I totally understand that Topre is a niche company. Still, can someone please help me understand the logic here? 

[sony]

Elite keyboards says they'll have the 87u 55g in Stock in March.

[nmur]

i swapped my white RF's 55g domes for a friend's set of 45g domes, pretty simple modification

also considering the price point of RFs, it's probably safe to say that it's an item for someone that sees a keyboard as something more than just a tool. such a person is probably a touch typist and doesn't really need to look down at their board too often.

[happylacquer]

i swapped my white RF's 55g domes for a friend's set of 45g domes, pretty simple modification

also considering the price point of RFs, it's probably safe to say that it's an item for someone that sees a keyboard as something more than just a tool. such a person is probably a touch typist and doesn't really need to look down at their board too often.

For me blank caps are perfectly fine..... up until I'm doing something like entering a password with no visual response, as is common in unix systems..... for that, barely readable letters are fine for me as i rarely look at them, but i can also fully understand why that ends up frustrating.

[walkthewalk]

Elite keyboards says they'll have the 87u 55g in Stock in March.

The 55g RF is actually the first one I tried, before the 45g. It caused me pain in my wrist, so I sent it back. I didn't have a wrist rest at that point so maybe that was a factor.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

How do you put wear-resistant legends onto black keycaps anyway? Double-shot moulding offers ultimate durability, but then you couldn't (historically) have PBT, or detailed typography. (PBT double-shot exists now, but it's very recent and untested in terms of durability, and I've never seen detailed photos demonstrating the manufacturing quality of any PBT double-shoy series.) Pad printing can be done very well, but it offers no longevity guarantees (you can wear off Filco legends, although they seem fairly durable for the most part). Laser offers various options: engrave and infill (looks messy and stains readily), foaming (pure white, but looks iffy and stains readily), and whatever Topre did to get their gold legends. Dye-sublimation and PBT go together perfectly, but this results in what you got: legends that are very hard to read.

Which alternative would you prefer? It's not a situation that you can win easily.

The two choices for black Topre keycaps are "gold" lasered legends, and black dye sublimation. To me, both look good. I always thought that entirely blank keyboards looked strange, and front printing (as in Majestouch Ninja) looks plain weird. Would I go gold or black legends if I bought Topre again? I guess I'd just have whatever is sold in the UK at the time. I'd probably prefer black legends, but the gold legends did look good.

[evilpacket]

hmm. I'd agree that most users of topre boards are touch typists, and I use blank dsa caps as well...
but some keys are not as memorizable as some other keys and I fully understand where your frustration is coming from.
Topres do feel good and I guess the only permanent solution I can think of is to memorize all the keys and get familiar with them. sorry if it wasn't much of help but this is really all you can do... or you can NT' it and add cherry stems to it

[Entropia]

Dye sub, which is the most durable printing method for the legends, has to be darker than the surface where it's applied. So, if you want black keycaps, the printing has to be a darker black. That's what it's so hard to read. I think they should have opted for black case and grey keycaps, with black legends. A good alternative solution is front printing in white. That will never wear, obviously. Leopold uses this method for some of they black keyboards with Cherry switches. I don't know what they didn't the same with they Topre model.

[E3E]

This talk of black legends reminds me of the black Dell AT101W which also has a similar goldish tinge to its legends. I personally use the Ducky Realforce Taiwan Edition and I love the high contrast caps with the blueish black case.

For (practically) black keys, I mean, there's not much you can do with dyesubbing aside from maybe using a lighter shade of grey so the legends can appear with more contrast.

[walkthewalk]

Thanks to all who responded. I knew you guys would have all the answers!

The NovaTouch actually seems like a wonderful board but I have never actually seen one for sale. How much do used ones usually go for?

[happylacquer]

If you like the gold lettering, and are not the kind of person that is bothered by key cap material, get the Type Heaven. Cheap and gold lasered lettering. Lots of guys here have a lot of hatred for ABS caps, I don't mind them myself. But, they do turn shiny easier.

[walkthewalk]

If you like the gold lettering, and are not the kind of person that is bothered by key cap material, get the Type Heaven. Cheap and gold lasered lettering. Lots of guys here have a lot of hatred for ABS caps, I don't mind them myself. But, they do turn shiny easier.

I am looking for a TKL board.

[pr0ximity]

Reverse dye-sub has been demonstrated iirc, where a white cap is dyesubbed everywhere *except* the legend. Then you have dye-subbed white-on-black.

[opensecret]

It does seem as if the 45g RF may exist only in black.  But you can get the unweighted model in grey/white.  I have two of them, and I think they’re magnificent boards, not to mention that you can easily read the keycaps when you need to. 

I'm a touch typist, but sometimes I need to glance to find non-alphas like #, &, or }.  Making it worse, some keys are in different places on different boards. I just checked five different boards (RF 103, Omnikey Ultra, Plum 87, Mattias Mini Quiet Pro, and Thinkpad T450), and keys I use frequently – Home/End, Page Up/Down are in different locations on every one of them.   So, even though I learned to type on manual typewriters with blank keyboards (many years ago), I don't want caps that are hard to read.

[zslane]

Reverse dye-sub has been demonstrated iirc, where a white cap is dyesubbed everywhere *except* the legend. Then you have dye-subbed white-on-black.

So far we've only seen this method used to produce keycaps with very noisy patterns all over them. I am willing to bet that the technology is not robust enough to produce sufficient color consistency for keycap sets where the caps are supposed to be solid colors (like 99.9% of keycaps).

[zpcomstock17]

Thanks to all who responded. I knew you guys would have all the answers!

The NovaTouch actually seems like a wonderful board but I have never actually seen one for sale. How much do used ones usually go for?

The price of a Novatouch depends. Since they're discontinued, the price of a new Novatouch inflated dramatically, I never seen one for sale new in a while but I'm seeing them new on Amazon for $400 and some on eBay for $300-400. A used one can be snagged on /r/mechmarket for $150 average. Drawback is buying on mechmarket sucks, you need either a middleman, to buy from high-rep seller, or just have hope that it goes well with a random seller.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

This talk of black legends reminds me of the black Dell AT101W which also has a similar goldish tinge to its legends.

Laser foaming that can achieve true brilliant white legends is fairly new, at least in the keyboard world. WASD switched over to it a few years back. Prior to pure white foaming, the previous technique did give you dull gold-coloured legends.

Laser marking tends to be comparatively low-resolution, with real trouble shading solid areas (compare say Monterey K110 legends with the almost invisible dot from a laser printer). Topre's gold lasered legends are a much higher standard than that of most manufacturers. Apple's laser charring isn't top end, but it's effective and fits in with their design aesthetic nicely.

Topre Realforce keyboards aren't black either, they're a dark charcoal grey (at least, they were when I bought mine several years ago!), and that I appreciate that subtlety.

[Puddsy]

Mine is perfectly legible, but I also don't have the black/black. Black/black is a cool look though, I have it on my LZ.

[ander]

Maybe because the whole point of having a top-quality $200+ mechanical board is so you can type as smoothly and efficiently as possible—and to do that, the first thing you want to do is learn to type without looking down to see which keys you're pressing? I'm just saying.

[rowdy]

Many people like the black on very dark gray keycaps.

In fact there are a few MX sets with that design.

[Bucake]

what're you complaining about, my HHKB DOES NOT EVEN HAVE LEGENDS
such a ripoff this keyboard is wth