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geekhack Community => Keyboard Keycaps => Topic started by: Trevork on Mon, 07 May 2018, 04:07:34
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I have read a post in reddit someone used acetone on Tai Hao Miami keycaps and the color started to swell. And another user in imgur used isopropyl alcohol to remove the coating and it worked. But the question is, will it last for years before the color fades?
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Just buy better keycaps to start with.
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Using acetone on any kind of plastic sounds like you're asking for trouble. I've heard that the plastic Tai-Hao uses for the letters on their doubleshot PBT keycaps is ABS, but I haven't seen it confirmed, either. Acetone would definitely damage the letters if that's true. I've also never heard of the colors on PBT keycaps fading. For the price, I don't think you can beat Tai Hao. Just buy them from a reputable dealer in case the space bar comes warped and you need to exchange it. It's also getting more common to find their sets without the coating.
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Taken straight from Massdrop:
"Scratch-Resistant PBT That Won't Stick
We heard your complaints about the stickiness of Tai-Hao’s doubleshot PBT keycaps, so we took your feedback and acted on it. Now, we’re happy to introduce the same doubleshot PBT keycaps, this time in new colors with a considerably thinner layer of scratch-resistant coating. It still kills 99.9 percent of germs, and the keys still don the two-tone design you love—but this version retains the slightly gritty feel of the original PBT plastic. Compatible with Cherry MX switches, they're sculpted in OEM profile just like before."
Guess what: they "acted" by making it even more difficult to remove the coating with alcohol. I'm warning you because I tried it on one of their PBT keycap sets I bought recently and it's nearly impossible to remove the thinner coating. What's left after treatment is that all the keys will have white blotches all over them and no amount of scrubbing will get it off.
Best bet: stay away from any keycap sets that have this horrible coating.
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I don't know why anyone thinks they need that coating. Were people constantly getting sick in the past from the germs they left on their own keyboard? I have small kids, and any germs they leave on my keyboard are the least of my concerns.
I just got a set of Tai Hao Hawaii keycaps, and I'm hoping it doesn't have that coating, or if it does, that it's durable enough that the keycaps don't look funny after a while. I'm using them at work, so they'll see fairly heavy usage.
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Eww... I'll stay far far away from Tai-Hao then.