Author Topic: Glow in the Dark!  (Read 7947 times)

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Offline emenelopee

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Glow in the Dark!
« on: Fri, 23 February 2018, 20:17:34 »
I have a few of the pmk glow in the dark skulls and being the child that I am I love them!

https://pimpmykeyboard.com/sa-poison-key/

Unfortunately they're only R3 SA, and they have skulls on them which is great until they're a little embarrassing.

pmk also have a selection of singles in DCS in varying profiles R1-4 (https://pimpmykeyboard.com/dcs-glow-in-the-dark-keys/) but at $2 a pop with nothing larger than 1u I can't really cover a full size board, and I don't really want to get a DCS set to make use of these dotted around.

QUESTION: does anyone know any source of a full set, in any profile, or even single keys SA (in all the sizes and profiles, but without the skull) which I can throw into my currently SA-filled board?

Alternatively, if enough of us juveniles can get together we can commission a GLOWINTHEDARK! set. That would be a glory to behold. Anyone interested? Not only do they glow in the dark, they also glow brilliantly under backlight and, I assume, even better with UV LEDs!

[edit_01] Some mockups:

Sculpted SA, 112343







-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[edit_02] reduced set, alphas, arrows, space


« Last Edit: Sun, 25 February 2018, 20:20:36 by emenelopee »

Offline captsis

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #1 on: Sat, 24 February 2018, 21:16:38 »
I would buy the crap out of a Glow in the dark set. I wonder if anyone makes a Glow in the dark case?

Offline emenelopee

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #2 on: Sun, 25 February 2018, 10:46:26 »
That's two of us so far... How many needed for a group buy?

Offline suicidal_orange

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #3 on: Sun, 25 February 2018, 10:55:49 »
I quite like the sound of this...

Are we thinking of a 60% set or bigger, or if demand is low perhaps do it all row 3 meaning we could order (e.g.) 1000 1u and 50 1.25 etc between just 10 of us and anyone not interested in a full board could chip in?
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Offline emenelopee

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #4 on: Sun, 25 February 2018, 11:26:27 »
Shooting for the moon, my ideal would be a profiled full size but, if demand isn't stellar a, profiled set of alphas/numpad or modifiers would work to add a little sparkle to the SA sets already out there.

I'd hesitate with all row 3 as I like my profiled caps.

All of this assumes it's an SP order, I don't see any signs that GMK use GitD plastics, and SP does the buffet-style ordering, so using their standard keycap set groupings as a basis would be a decent start point.

Let's see if we can get any more momentum, and any suggestions from the hive mind would be more than welcome as this idea gestates.
« Last Edit: Sun, 25 February 2018, 20:21:49 by emenelopee »

Offline suicidal_orange

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #5 on: Sun, 25 February 2018, 11:41:14 »
Hmm... I too would prefer profiled over R3 but only really interested in 60%.  And I'd want something strange (ISO enter or that shape split in two as on the GH60)

Should I move this to ICs for increased visibility?
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Offline emenelopee

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #6 on: Sun, 25 February 2018, 11:47:37 »
Sure thing - I thought there would need to be a bit more of a plan before taking to IC but if even half-baked ideas can be floated then I'm all for getting more visibility.

And given the state of interest seems focused on 60%, I agree that's a good place to start to get the most people behind this little folly.

EDIT:
summary: fully profiled 60% SA glow in the dark with legends
obscure sizes TBD: ISO enter, 3u space, anything else?
« Last Edit: Sun, 25 February 2018, 11:51:14 by emenelopee »

Offline captsis

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #7 on: Sun, 25 February 2018, 16:31:28 »
Would it be a blank set? Also would be cool for a macro pad!

Offline emenelopee

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #8 on: Sun, 25 February 2018, 19:24:34 »
I was thinking legends, quick colour mockup in the OP. Showing a standard full-size set at the moment, likely to be whittled down to a 60%, or maybe even just the alphas.

Blanks are more versatile and do look neat but I find them irritating to use on a day to day, especially the characters on the number row.

Keep the thoughts coming, I'm really just feeling out the concept to see if it has legs so all is currently possible.

Offline bluesclera

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #9 on: Sun, 25 February 2018, 19:29:06 »
I would be in for a set of alphas and numpad in SA.

Offline emenelopee

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #10 on: Sun, 25 February 2018, 20:01:21 »
Quick mockup of the alhpas and arrows only - this keeps the keys to 1u (except for the space, which is hanging in there as a maybe). The idea is the GitD us an augmentation set, at least to start.



« Last Edit: Sun, 25 February 2018, 20:12:52 by emenelopee »

Offline bluesclera

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #11 on: Sun, 25 February 2018, 20:06:10 »
Can we add a 1u 0 to the numpad?

Offline emenelopee

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #12 on: Sun, 25 February 2018, 20:14:30 »
Can we add a 1u 0 to the numpad?

I was actually in the middle of thinking the same thing. Updated.

Offline emenelopee

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #13 on: Sun, 25 February 2018, 20:41:14 »
I'm not exactly sure how the GitD are manufactured but looking at the poison keycap I'd say it's etched - blanks may be possible without disrupting the manufacture stream. I'll see if I can get some info out of PMK/SP.

Offline Sup

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #14 on: Mon, 26 February 2018, 07:48:50 »
I would buy the crap out of a Glow in the dark set. I wonder if anyone makes a Glow in the dark case?

There is a Poker style case on Aliexpress that is glow in the dark.
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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #15 on: Mon, 26 February 2018, 08:41:26 »
I would be down for this if it is affordable enough, maybe move it on over to an IC

Offline captsis

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #16 on: Mon, 26 February 2018, 11:15:27 »


I was thinking legends, quick colour mockup in the OP. Showing a standard full-size set at the moment, likely to be whittled down to a 60%, or maybe even just the alphas.

Blanks are more versatile and do look neat but I find them irritating to use on a day to day, especially the characters on the number row.

Keep the thoughts coming, I'm really just feeling out the concept to see if it has legs so all is currently possible.

That's a fair point about the legends. But why not a full set? Seems kinda weird to for example only have gitd alphas with a non matching set. Also, what profile we talking here? You mentioned SP, So I assume some kind of -SA?

Offline mogo

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #17 on: Mon, 26 February 2018, 12:14:56 »


I was thinking legends, quick colour mockup in the OP. Showing a standard full-size set at the moment, likely to be whittled down to a 60%, or maybe even just the alphas.

Blanks are more versatile and do look neat but I find them irritating to use on a day to day, especially the characters on the number row.

Keep the thoughts coming, I'm really just feeling out the concept to see if it has legs so all is currently possible.

That's a fair point about the legends. But why not a full set? Seems kinda weird to for example only have gitd alphas with a non matching set. Also, what profile we talking here? You mentioned SP, So I assume some kind of -SA?

Above the first mockups Emen proposes a sculpted SA profile:
Quote
Sculpted SA, 112343

I'm personally obsessed with GID. Have been for a long time. I bought a Sentraq TK78 pcb, a full set of switches, and all the GID DSA caps I could from SP. Sadly, they only offer 1u, so I got black modifiers for everything else. I used my laser cutter to cut an acrylic-sandwich case out of GID acrylic, and finished the whole thing off with UV LEDs on each switch... the PCB is boned and the support for it evaporated so it's abandonware now but I still daydream about making this whole build happen.

To wrap up I would be in on this set so much. Blanks or legends, either is fine. but throw doubleshot out the window, just do dyesub because the inner first shot will block light from the underside which is lame for those who want to use their LEDs to charge the plastic. Full 102 key compatibility minimum. And if we were to have novelties I think lightbulb symbols and nuclear radiation symbols would be appropriate.  :thumb:

Offline emenelopee

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #18 on: Mon, 26 February 2018, 12:38:21 »
Looks like there is traction!

- The feedback I was getting suggested starting small (limited interest), but as SP seems to work on an a la carte approach, and at least a few requests for full size, there is no reason why there wouldn't be a full set option with all the childs. I'd want to keep it simple though - not going the way of Carbon which while impressive must have been a logistic nightmare;
- Indeed sculpted SA is my preferred, therefore SP, and I don't see any GitD examples with GMK so I guess they don't do it;

I'll get some more order to the post, a few more images/set combinations, and transfer it to IC - let's keep this snowball rolling!

If there's any keycap groupbuy veteran who is interested in helping out, the more the merrier. Reply here or drop me a pm!

Also thoughts on a name for the set? So far: Snowball, Lightbulb, Geigercounter, Geiger. Snappy names are not my strong suit, obv.

[edit_01: Mogo, I'm totally with you on nixing the doubleshot, that's not going to work. Dyesub is what I'm thinking, and looking again at the Poison cap I have from SP (lovely very thick), I think this is how they do it.]
« Last Edit: Mon, 26 February 2018, 12:43:15 by emenelopee »

Offline mogo

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #19 on: Mon, 26 February 2018, 14:24:53 »
You could keep it simple (KISS principle!  :-*) and just call it "Glow". Easy for anyone to find, even if they don't know the set exists. If someone googles "glow in the dark keyset" a keyset called "Glow" would show up right away, ya know?

Offline emenelopee

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #20 on: Mon, 26 February 2018, 17:32:48 »
Glow. Done and done*

*eventually when I get around to it.

Offline captsis

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #21 on: Mon, 26 February 2018, 18:18:11 »
For the profile can it be true SA? Which I believe is 1-1-2-3-4-4.
« Last Edit: Mon, 26 February 2018, 18:23:09 by captsis »

Offline emenelopee

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #22 on: Mon, 26 February 2018, 19:55:52 »
There is no "true SA", at least not going by precedent sets: https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/5q4ua5/sa_keysets_and_their_profiles/

Offline rowdy

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #23 on: Mon, 26 February 2018, 20:03:46 »
R3 uniform is true SA :p
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Offline mogo

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #24 on: Mon, 26 February 2018, 21:29:57 »
R3 uniform is true SA :p

My 1976 set would agree with you. But my Carbon looks and feels so good... hmm. It also makes compatibility/child sets simpler.

Offline captsis

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #25 on: Mon, 26 February 2018, 21:45:21 »
My mistake. Still vouching for my purposed 112344!

Offline emenelopee

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #26 on: Mon, 26 February 2018, 22:04:41 »
I'm afraid this particular point of discussion is now moot - SP just confirmed they're currently not taking any SA PBT orders, and the GitD material they have right now is only PBT. I've asked about any estimate for a viable window, watch this space.

UPDATE: From SP: "We are working on completing new SA PBT sculptured tooling and hope to have it ready for production in a month or so. At that time we will start accepting orders."

In the meantime, I'm thinking about a plan B, which seems to be limited to DCS for sculpted caps, unless there are any other ideas floating around?

There is a route for SP DSA which involves submitting in the SP "competition" where SP take most of the risk of a group buy, but this involves "winning". I'll look into this, but tbh I have little to no interest in DSA.

So there we have it - likely stalled for the timebeing unless there is a rabbit someone can pull of out a hat?

EDIT: trying to find a way into Maxkey - they seem to be fast moving with their SA sets and keen to do new stuff. Any leads on how to get into their system?
« Last Edit: Tue, 27 February 2018, 13:02:44 by emenelopee »

Offline captsis

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #27 on: Mon, 26 February 2018, 23:20:20 »
Jchan has done some buys with them I think. He can probably help you.

Ill pm you their email.

Offline emenelopee

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #28 on: Tue, 27 February 2018, 12:33:12 »
Update from SP:

"We are working on completing new SA PBT sculptured tooling and hope to have it ready for production in a month or so. At that time we will start accepting orders."

Momentum can continue!

Offline mogo

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #29 on: Tue, 27 February 2018, 16:54:44 »
 :thumb: I'm guessing SP will get dogpiled with requests as soon as they open the gates again, but that's pretty cool. You have more time to collect interest and develop the set details.

Offline emenelopee

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Re: Glow in the Dark!
« Reply #30 on: Tue, 27 February 2018, 23:34:15 »
Let's see if we cannot climb that pile of dogs to be kings of the jungle!

More pertinently, [IC] thread started here: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94287.0

Tell your friends and all the neighbourhood kids - Glow-in-the-Dark is back!