Following on
extensive discussions and community collaboration in the "LCARS Keyboard set" interest check (as originally proposed by Moz), I am happy to announce that:
>>> The Group Buy for the "Galaxy Class" set is now live at Pimp My Keyboard! <<<
If you have trouble registering (PMK is experiencing a temporary glitch), just click on the "guest purchase" checkbox when checking out.The Group Buy
closes 9 June 2014, with sets shipping a few weeks after that.
This is a not-for-profit community-driven fan project with a crowdsourced design, comprised of volunteer contributions and ideas from various members of the GeekHack community (special thanks to LechnerDE, Dansor, CPTBadAss, divito, Elrick, jdcarpe, stoic-lemon, and many others) and compiled by me and Moz into a set of design specs and mock-ups. The full history is in the interest check thread.If you're interestedPlease
join the buy immediately at PMK. It is important to tip the set and get the price tiers down quickly so we can get buzz going for this set, both within and outside the GeekHack community. The more we are able to order, the less we all have to pay.
SetsDSA profile. PBT with screenprint dyesub.
- Core (TKL)
- Numpad
- ISO
- Ergodox
- Tsangan
Design mock-ups/specs are at the end of this post.
Pricing and the Special Features of this SetPart of the reason it's important to sign up early to drive the tiers down is that this is a relatively expensive set. This is because it employs a combination of technologies and manufacturing processes never before used in a GeekHack Group Buy (or at Signature Plastics more generally, for that matter): PBT resin, DSA key profile, Pantone-matched coloring for fidelity to screen-used props, and in particular a special high-end screenprint process for the legend dye sublimation, yielding
much crisper legends than are generally found on any dyesub buy (including the recent Graphite set, which also uses the DSA profile).
Our rationale was that in order to invoke the spirit of the LCARS designs, we needed to pay particular care to rendering the special SWISS 911 font with extreme accuracy (even at small font sizes, tended to be used in such designs). Equally, the muted color tones of the original screen-used designs are an important component of the "look", so we wanted to take the extra step of Pantone-matching for the all-important yellow color, which means a special PBT resin is being custom-mixed just for this set. Feel free to read the whole long history in the IC thread to see the many technical iterations we went through to get to this final (hopefully perfected!) design. I myself must have logged about a hundred hours in Illustrator just working on the mockups. :)
Here is a comparison photo of the dyesub processes. Note how blurry the rightmost and leftmost key legends look compared to those in the center. The ones in the center are using our screenprint process; the outer keys are using the standard Signature Plastics dyesublimation process.
You never know until you see the final set, but hopefully all the long efforts, the unusual manufacturing processes, and the slightly higher than usual expense will yield a set like no other.
MOQTo keep from scaring people away with a high potential price if buy-in is low, we have set the MOQ relatively high for this Buy (75 sets). This is another reason why it's important to buy in early. Your risk is lower of having to pay an exorbitant price if few sets sell, and the faster the set tips, the more people will be willing to buy into it (it's a sad fact of the psychology of how these things work that people are more likely to buy in only
after their buy-in is most needed).
My roleI'm a new(ish) GeekHack member who just happens to have a great enthusiasm for LCARS and
Star Trek: The Next Generation. When reading Moz's proposal, I got excited for the possibilities of a community-driven set inspired by late 90s sci-fi computer interface designs, so I offered to step in to help organize things and hopefully help raise the aesthetic bar for the set by working on improved mock-ups. For months now, I have been helping to collate community preferences and ideas for this set in the IC thread into something that can be actually manufactured. I compiled the mock-ups and have been working as a liaison between the GeekHack community and the manufacturer Signature Plastics in Washington state. The Group Buy is actually being run by Signature Plastics through their new Pimp My Keyboard site, and they'll be taking care of all order processing, shipping, etc.
I won't be making any money as a result of this Group Buy. As seems to be a bit of a GH and PMK custom, the Group Buy originators (Moz and myself) will each get a free set—though I'll be buying more myself!—and Signature Plastics is further donating three full sets (assuming the Group Buy tips) to the GeekHack community for subsequent auctioning in support of community projects (Moz will be taking care of this). UPDATE 10/14: they were only able to provide one free core set and Moz isn't able to do the auction, so we're sending it to GeekHack admins for auction directly.
In short: if you have questions about the
design specs, feel free to bring them to me (or, preferably, post them in this thread); if you have any questions or problems with ordering, fulfillment, the final manufactured product, or any of the businesses end of things, bring them to Signature Plastics directly via the
Pimp My Keyboard support page. ;)
Help us promote this buyPlease tell everyone you know about this set! From fellow Trekkers to other keyboard comrades.
To help spread the word, you can also add a promotional graphic to your signature on GeekHack by going to
Profile > Summary > Modify Profile > Forum Profile > Signature and copying and pasting in the following BBCode.
[url=http://www.pimpmykeyboard.com/deals/the-galaxy-class-keyset][img width=394 height=80]https://e2ij2g.dm2302.livefilestore.com/y2pRH67ha3l3S3xmkgfQnHnqhaAEOMpMChfJWsvbcCTBYsFkP9TiorRQeLmfvGxISxwZ11mhAO1ERQf4w3puYvEX3F_ZOcuCZMeAYsT4Kds6C4/galaxyclasspromo.gif?psid=1[/img][/url]
This means that every forum post you've ever made will act as a billboard for the set, helping to drive up our numbers (and down the prices)! :D
The resulting banner in your signature will look like this:
