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[IC] GMK Space Cadet, launches August 3rd 2018 on Massdrop
Oblotzky:
Vote on Massdrop
Here's the original, Symbolic's 'Space Cadet' keyboard. - thanks to Chyrosran22 for supplying high resolution photos of the board he had temporarily for his video.
Big update!
The group buy is scheduled to launch on Massdrop in August. The exact day is usually decided a week ahead of the drop, so I will update when I have a specific date. But it should be [the end date of SA Green Screen] + [a few days]. If you haven't already, you can vote for it on Massdrop to be notified when it goes live: https://www.massdrop.com/vote/GMK-Space-Cadet
I've taken in all of the feedback generated so far, and from that created the currently soft-locked revision of kits you can see below. Ever since the last update, which has been quite a while ago now, the following things have changed:
- t0mb3ry assisted me by creating vector work for the unique APL symbols, as well as further fine tuning the hand icons and roman numerals for the Symbols kit. All renders now feature these custom legends.
- I have further optimized the coverage of the base kit, it currently covers WK, WKL, Fullsize, 96key, 1800, CP, 60%, 65%, 75%, HHKB-style, the C70, 60% with arrows, and a few more I can't think of right now.
- I removed Cadet specific alpha keys from the base kit to cut down cost, and I believe not many people would have ended up making good use of them anyways. I now have standard US-ANSI alphas with two extra pipe keys for physical ISO support.
- I removed Gray keys from the Symbols kit. Instead I increased layout support, such as vertical macro/function rows on VE.A/TC-V3/RedScarf II.
- I removed Community keys from the Symbols kit. There seems to be a lack of interest in these nowadays anyways.
- I added blue spacebars to the Black Modifiers, and renamed the kit to True Cadet.
- I added a Cherry Icon kit for those that dislike the text-only modifiers I chose for the base kit. I did not go for Icon+Text (the 'standard' GMK legends used on Carbon/Laser/Nautilus etc) as I felt they didn't change too much about the look. Instead I went for the style of old Cherry keyboards such as the G80-1800 where the center part uses icons only, while top and bottom row remain text only. GMK Muted is a set that used this style for example, and I have demonstrated this in some of the renders.
- I added blue spacebars to the Blue Alphas kit.
- I removed blue spacebars from the Spacebars and -Keys kit, which is now a Spacekeys kit only.
-- The addition of blue spacebars to True Cadet and Blue Alphas now ensures nobody needing them forgets to purchase them, and it cuts the number of kits you need to buy from 3 down to 2, which saves about 15-20$ in a GMK buy in 'kit split taxes'.
- NorDeUK is untouched
- I am introducing the Assembly Kit, which is a kit independent from the Base Kit that fully covers the Ergodox keyboard.
- I am also introducing the 40bit Kit, which is also independent from the Base Kit and covers Planck, Preonic and a variety of 40% keyboards.
-- Both these kits have brand new ASM inspired modifier legends. I mocked up a blank modifier version for both, but with the busy Cadet alphas in the center it looked very imbalanced. These kits will not be cheap, probably more expensive than the base kit as they will hit way lower MOQ's (100 for both would be a big success already) while the base kit will most likely hit 500 units, and hopefully also 1000. So please keep in mind that you are probably going to be paying the price of a kit that is only produced a hundred times, but I think it is very much worth the extra cost for the modifier legends, and I hope many of you agree. I will then also be able to use these legends in GMK Oblivion V2 next year. And again, the base kit is NOT required, all you need is either the Assembly or the 40bit kit for your special layout, and I've seen people shell out 180-200$ in previous GMK runs where Ergodox modifiers had to be purchased in addition to the base set.
- Colevrak kit will not be offered. It would be 99$ due to even more custom legends, more keys than usual Colevrak kits, and have an MOQ of 100.
Lastly, the excellent outragedpudding has created a packaging design for the GMK trays. The Assembly and 40bit kits will probably also be coming in trays, but this is TBD.
Please enjoy the renders, and let me know if you have any questions or feedback! I already received pricing for all the kits apart from the Assembly and 40bit kits (I had those layouts covered in a bigger single kit, but the price was not viable). While I can not reveal pricing for the other kits at this point, I can however assure you that you will be very pleased with the 1000 unit price point of the Base Kit.
40% and Ergodox renders will follow once I have the pricing for those and am certain these will be offered.
Kit renders:
Packaging preview:
Keyboard renders:
PS: There will be a couple collaborations with other products for the sets, stay tuned.
Old stuff:
MoreRenders for a possible GMK version
I recently built my own 'end game' keyboard with 7bit's Round 6 caps, when I decided it was time to bring this classic colorway to the realm of cherry keycaps. I've already drawn up the kits I would like to see in the group buy for this set, but these are of course not final. There are still a few question marks to deal with.
It was important to me that the original keyboard can be replicated closely, hence the extra alpha keys, Black Text Modifiers kit and having blue spacebars available separately instead of putting those into the Blue Alphas kit to not make a purchase of them mandatory.
FAQ:
Q: Where?
A: Massdrop. I know this will result in uproar from some of you, but a GB like this is just not be doable otherwise. There are certainly vendors that have grown over the past year to a level where they can easily carry a base kit with a few addons, but this is 7 different kits of which I would call none dead weight. Coupled with the fact that this set requires A LOT of custom molds, a reach like Massdrop's is vital to make this pass all MOQ's.
Q: When?
A: Depends on how fierce you guys vote! https://www.massdrop.com/vote/GMK-Space-Cadet
Q: Doubleshot?
A: Yes, everything. New molds for alphas etc, no half-assing on my watch.
Q: Colevrak kit?
A: Due to the secondary APL legends, a Colevrak kit would need 20+ new molds made as well. With Colevrak kits having an MOQ of 100 and only ever having reached that number once with Laser, we're talking about a 30euro (40-45$ or so) extra, making the kit cost 80-90$.
Q: 40% support?
A: I'm not quite sure yet how to add 40% support to this set. I don't want to add that many keys to the base kit which already will be costing more than regular. Maybe a separate kit could be realistic.
Q: Blue alphas?
A: This was exactly what Bob Ross meant by his famous saying "We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.". I always start my renders with one color for all keys, apply the legends and then split off the alphas/accents etc to change their color. So when I saw the entire keyboard in blue, I knew I have to have it.
Q: Blue NorDeUK?
A: Blue alphas are the icing of this cake, getting the gray kit to pass MOQ will be struggle enough.
Q: Why text-only modifiers?
A: I'm trying to stick to the design of the original where possible, so using Cherry arrows for Tab/Backspace/Return/Shift keys did not seem appropriate to me. Nobody I showed this to even mentioned that those were missing so it appears people like how this looks. I hope you agree!
EDIT: Due to popular demand, I will look into how I can offer Cherry-style Icon+Text mods as well. I have various ideas on how it could be done, I will investigate how it plays out with pricing. But since this is still a very young IC, don't expect an answer in the coming week or so, just note that I have heard you and will pursue options.
Q: Colors?
A: Custom, I'll have GMK color match BFP from Signature Plastics for the blue keys, Gray is closest to GD which I had them mix already for GMK Oblivion alphas so I'll probably be reusing that as well. Legends are TBD, probably N9 (near black) and CP (off-white).
Q: Price?
A: I can't say for sure, but let's do some napkin math. GMK Red Samurai Base Kit has 164 keys, this has 162 keys, so the price of the keys themselves would practically be identical. However we have 36 new molds that need to be made, each costing 150€, a total of 5,400€/6600$. So if we took the prices from GMK Red Samurai that's on Massdrop right now and added this cost we end up with 500:143$/1000:127$/1500:115$. But again, napkin math. 500:149$/1000:129$/1500:119$ is a good guess though IMO.
Special thanks to t0mb3ry for turning the Symbols (roman numerals and hand signals for the Symbols kit) into vector format and Chyrosran22 for supplying high resolution photos to work off of!
Thank you for reading,
/discuss
PS: Support the project by adding a banner to your forum profile!
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T0mb3ry:
Really a must have set in my opinion. I really appreciate it! :thumb:
packman86:
Looks incredible!
Any chance of adding Frow alternate color?
F1-F4 & F9-F12 = alpha color
F5-F8 = Mod color
Oblotzky:
--- Quote from: packman86 on Sat, 10 February 2018, 13:30:21 ---Looks incredible!
Any chance of adding Frow alternate color?
F1-F4 & F9-F12 = alpha color
F5-F8 = Mod color
--- End quote ---
Sandwich mod colors should never have been a thing to begin with :rolleyes: (I regret making it default on SA Oblivion and the only option on GMK Oblivion) On a set like this, having it full mod color is of high importance, I'm not quite sure how to add 12 gray F keys on a GMK GB, in base it would add 15$, separately it would cost 20$ and probably not make MOQ.
xondat:
Hyper7 kit? ;)
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