[CLOSED!] Filco AND Leopold Compatible Spacebars [CLOSED! Order thread up!]

[RColinTaylor]

I just sent an email out to SP and figured I would check in here as well.

There has been quite a bit of interest in a spacebar which will fit the multitude of stabilizers, and most specifically Leopold+Filco at the same time, and I decided that there should probably be some action in making them get here faster. Group Buy 4 has some hinting that they may be possible but with how long that may take this might be a good opportunity for people to get what they want.

If SP gets back to me and says that it is possible, at a reasonable price (under $5), I will go ahead and initiate a Group Buy for them. If, however, they say it is not possible then I will go ahead and make another inquiry into the pricing behind Leopold spacebars. The biggest problem with Leopolds is their damn spacebar (in my opinion at least) I would kind of like to work towards fixing that.

My initial concept is to stick with Black only.

If you are interested, state so in a reply to this (I don't really want PM's in the Interest Check stage) and if we have enough weight behind it we can get this thing rolling.

The Image I sent SP was this one, coming from Imsto's GB for the keycap sets.
[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 28805[/ATTACH]

UPDATE

I have been working with Melissa at SP for the past few days and we have finished the measurements for a new 6stem spacebar that will fit BOTH a Leopold AND a Filco. The design time will be a little over 3 weeks and after that production will take 3 weeks. With this, it will not be worthwhile to create an order page just yet. We can, however, use this time to create interest in different colors and spread interest to other websites (OCN/Deskthority) so we can increase orders, and in turn, decrease prices.

Feel free to voice your opinions of colors; the ones I already intended on doing would be Black and White (as pure of white as possible) so if there is anything else you guys would like just let me know in this thread.

Request:

I am not familiar with, nor do I frequent, other keyboard-enthusiast websites. However, I feel that with a buy like this our best way to increase orders, and in turn lower prices, is to reach out and promote it. Therefore, I request that anybody who IS familiar with those sites promote this thread, or buy, in a polite manner. This buy represents a new product, rather than a new style, of keycap and in my mind should be received well at other places.

[hashbaz]

This is a noble cause.  Hopefully it's feasible.

[TheProfosist]

If this doesnt go through I would be up for modifying spacebars to fit Leopold's if people wanted. I already have a jig all made up from when I modified one for my SteelSeries 7G.

[N8N]

Are Leopold and Noppoo Choc Pro the same spacing?  If not, i can provide measurements for Noppoo.  I'm ASSuming that you are also going to have them include the offset center post for Cherry boards.

[RColinTaylor]

My initial intentions were to gauge what SP had in their bag of tricks. I am not familiar with the spacebars of Cherry and Noppoo so I cannot be sure about those.

[calavera]

I would want a noppoo choco mini space bar. Any chance of that happening?

[RColinTaylor]

From what I can tell from pictures of the Noppoo spacebars it might work out. The 6stem bar in the picture I sent to SP shows the two on the farside and one in the middle which, if proportionally correct, would match the Noppoo.

[Ragnorock]

Good idea man, we'd probably want a variety of colors though since I'm pretty sure every Leopold I've seen already has black spacebars. White, dark red, dark blue... would be excellent.

[keyboardlover]

I think they will likely say no. This is what they told me today:

At this time we do not currently have a 6 mount space bar - sorry!

Also, they always use ABS for the spacebar and not PBT.

My apologies for not mentioning this earlier, but our tooling for spacebars is made for ABS material. PBT material has a tendency to shrink quite a bit more than ABS, which means the mounts might move in a bit. Please keep this in mind as the PBT spacebars might not have the exact fit you are looking for.

[Ragnorock]

What we'd want then are Leopold only spacebars in colors that match various other keysets available... right?

[RColinTaylor]

Yea, I have been talking to Melissa this morning about it. Going forward the plan in my mind is to stick with Leopold spacebars as a group buy; once I get a quote from her I will decide if its even fiscally worthwhile to go ahead with it. As for colors right now I am not going to make any choices; I don't want to lower our total count by having ten different colors when our interest thus far has been minimal.

[RColinTaylor]

Alright, so, I just woke up from my nap and found this sitting in my email.

Robert-
That is perfect thank you! The actual measurement of this spacebar is 4.64" and we call it a 6.2 unit - it is a common one I have sold for Filco and Leopold keyboards (the other is a 7 unit which is substantially longer).
Pricing for the spacebars assuming they will all be the same color and molded in ABS material is as follows:
25 pcs $3.65 / each
50 pcs $2.56 / each
75 pcs $2.20 / each
100 pcs         $2.02 / each
 
Pricing does not include freight costs. Manufacturing lead time for the initial run of parts would be around 6 weeks from receipt of payment.
Our mount spacing is measured based on the center-most post, so I have given dimensions based on other Filco/Leopold spacebars we have run in the past. If you can confirm that this is the correct spacing before you order I would appreciate it! (picture attached)
Let me know if you have any other questions.

And then this little bugger was in the attachments:
[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 28871[/ATTACH]

Now, does anybody know for certain that this will fit both a Leopold and a Filco? From the looks of it its exactly what we are looking for.

[RColinTaylor]

Take a look at the key ref wiki for measurements.

Yea, Dude, I was doing that but because the Leopold's picture lacks a ruler I have to go with how it looks. And, from how it looks to me, it should work.

[N8N]

OK, I don't have a Leopold but I do have a Noppoo Choc Pro...  It too uses a 4.64" space bar... the distance between the switch stem and stabilizer, center to center, measures 1.723" as close as I can measure, or a hair under 44mm (assuming that it was actually designed metrically...)

measuring stabilizer to stabilizer comes out about the same; 3.434" or 87.2mm

Now when I measure the parts on the board itself I get 3.412" (86.6mm) c-c on the stabilizers so the leopold one may/may not work?

[RColinTaylor]

Okay, based on the images provided kindly by the Dude, the Universal Space Bar image provided by Melissa makes it appear as though, by way of measurements, that it will fit Both a Leopold and a Filco. The inner stabilizers on the outside sets are formed for the Leopold and the outer stabilizers of those clusters work for a Filco.

[Quarzac]

May be in for one, we'll see. I feel like it would be good to have a spare or two.

[hashbaz]

Assuming this new info is correct, I'm definitely in for a few.

[RColinTaylor]

OK, I don't have a Leopold but I do have a Noppoo Choc Pro...  It too uses a 4.64" space bar... the distance between the switch stem and stabilizer, center to center, measures 1.723" as close as I can measure, or a hair under 44mm (assuming that it was actually designed metrically...)

measuring stabilizer to stabilizer comes out about the same; 3.434" or 87.2mm

Now when I measure the parts on the board itself I get 3.412" (86.6mm) c-c on the stabilizers so the leopold one may/may not work?

If you can provide a picture of the underside of the spacebar that would help me a lot; I am bad with this time of measuring thing without some type of visual reference (History Major, not Engineering).

[oddsratio]

Are these going to be DCS profile (so shorter than stock leopold/filco keys)? I don't care that much anymore. I'll take 2 if you're going through with this. Also, Brian, you suck for never getting back to your emails. I've been trying to order a replacement from EK since July.

If this doesnt go through I would be up for modifying spacebars to fit Leopold's if people wanted. I already have a jig all made up from when I modified one for my SteelSeries 7G.

Depending on what kind of jig you got, Profoist, I'm interested. I can just have WASD ship one to you directly to modify if this doesn't go through. Or even if it does... the SP spacebar could take 1-2 months and I wouldn't mind another one in the meantime.

[TheProfosist]

Depending on what kind of jig you got, Profoist, I'm interested. I can just have WASD ship one to you directly to modify if this doesn't go through. Or even if it does... the SP spacebar could take 1-2 months and I wouldn't mind another one in the meantime.

I made the jig to add posts to a Filco PBT spacebar so that it would fit my SteelSeries 7G. I used R4 keys for the posts because it was what I had and had to cut them down but given the choice I would have used R1 keys so I wouldnt have had to cut down the post.

[RColinTaylor]

Okay, I have been working with Melissa today to see what we can work out and, based on what I have found, the diagram she has sent me works for Filco and Leopold. Now, the interesting part is that at this current point in time SP does not produce the 6-post spacebar provided in her Diagram. The positive side of things is that if we can confirm, 100%, that the diagram's measurements work with Filco and Leopold then they will begin making the 6-post for no extra cost.

The fact checking that I have done today has resulted in me being 95-99% sure that the diagram lines up appropriately but if anyone can go back and take a look at the first diagram I had in an earlier reply and compare it to the measurements on a Filco and Leopold spacebars that would be amazing. Once we get the OK from Melissa that they will make it then the group buy can move forward.

My new thought is to go with Pure White and Pure Black for the colors; this will make it so people who have bought after-market keysets from places like WASD can finally have a spacebar that will fit their board. Also, it is simplest to stick with just a few colors for now and let the group buy develop in a more uniform way rather than having a billion colors.

[jpm804]

would be interested in some...

[mikeruth]

I need one for sure, maybe two.  Black only.

[TheSoulhunter]

In for 2!

[RColinTaylor]

Good News Everyone!

I just received this email from Melissa at SP:

Robert-
These will be ready to order in 3-4 weeks... Manufacturing time after that is usually 3-4 weeks as well.
 
Melissa Petersen
Signature Plastics LLC

The prices are still expected to be about the same as expected before so at this point the interest check is more for colors. I am willing to order any colors that get 25 orders so submit your interest in different colors snow before we start the buy-page and have the final picking of the colors.

[hashbaz]

So I'm happy but confused.  Why did they decide to benevolently start making a six-post space bar?

[keyboardlover]

Thanks RColinTaylor - they were able to help me for my group buy as well. Great work!

[RColinTaylor]

So I'm happy but confused.  Why did they decide to benevolently start making a six-post space bar?

Well the way it worked out was there were some grumblings/rumors happening in KBL's dye-sub thread about a spacebar that would work for both and after reading this I started doing some research for a spacebar that I had already seen in a picture. This all happened over the last weekend. By Sunday night I had my interest peaked and decided to see if SP could do a spacebar like this for a group buy.

It turns out, however, that KBL and myself both emailed Melissa about doing a groupbuy for this type of spacebar and because of this SP decided they wanted to see if it would be possible to do.  I worked with Melissa most of yesterday getting measurements down for the stabilizers on the Filco and Leopold and by the end of the day we had come to the conclusion that the design that Melissa originally sent me as a concept would fit properly.

TL;DR
Because KBL and myself both emailed Melissa about the same thing for two different buys SP decided to just design/start making it.

[hashbaz]

Excellent.  Maybe we should get a bunch of people to email simultaneously about PBT doubleshots...

[RColinTaylor]

I think it would take multiple PBT groupbuys to pull that off and even then I don't think SP deals in PBT do they?

[hashbaz]

That's the joke

[RColinTaylor]

That's the joke

I get the joke... now...

But, back on track! Colors, Colors, who wants Colors?

[hashbaz]

Well, to be exact, they deal in PBT.  Just not PBT 2-shots.

Colors!  I want black and white to match Cherries.

[RColinTaylor]

Colors!  I want black and white to match Cherries.

I want a few Black and a few White too; i have a b/w checker set from WASD that would look way better on my Leopold with a White spacebar.

[IvanIvanovich]

Since there is really nothing wrong with my stock black spacebar, I suppose to make it easier i would be interested in 2x white and try dying myself. Otherwise if we are getting wild on colors, I'd be interested in bright orange and a cyan.

[RColinTaylor]

Lysol, with the cyan, would you be thinking something like the 'Alt' keys from Ajjegy's RGB set?

[IvanIvanovich]

If thats the brightest blue SP offers then yes.

[Ragnorock]

I'm still hype on a dark red or dark blue spacebar, but I'm okay with white if that doesn't pan out.

[ishtob]

dolch grey!

[RColinTaylor]

dolch grey!

Like the Dolch Grey from the GB R1 set?

[ishtob]

yes, but not sure if anyone else wants it. i think its the dark dark grey not sure what the code is for it though

[RColinTaylor]

Generating popularity for different colors can only help this buy; the Dolch Grey RO3/RO1 set may be in the hands of some Leopold users who may be wanting a matching spacebar.

[litster]

I would be up for a Dolch light grey space bar.  If that is possible, I might even get a TypeNow.Solid and Dolch moogle kit from Group Buy round 4to go with my Dolch keycaps.

[RColinTaylor]

List; do you have a reference for a 'light grey Dolch' or is it the same as the RO1/RO3 grey?

[litster]

I really should get a color sample from SP...

The alpha keys in the picture below are the real Dolch light grey key.  You can see a WhiBal card on the right hand side, so you can color balance it on for your monitor.
[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 28986[/ATTACH]

Round 3 Dolch replica:
[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 28987[/ATTACH]

Full set of Dolch minus modifiers, Dolch moogle kit needed.
[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 28988[/ATTACH]

The last 2 pictures are from iPhone4, so they look like crap and not white-balanced.

[RColinTaylor]

Okay, so, from the images you provide there the light grey dolch's are definitely lighter than the replicas from Buy 3. I am not familiar with the originials, so, do you know where they come from?

[litster]

The originals come from Dolch computers.  Since my other two pictures are not white-balanced, you can't judge that the replicas are lighter.  I would have to take a picture of both the geniune Dolch and replica in the same frame to get a better comparison.

[RColinTaylor]

The two pictures, while not balanced, do not seem to be significantly far off from one another based on the whiteness of the keyboard itself.

[litster]

Just adjusting the brightness or exposure in Lightroom will give you a very different shade grey, or white.  You would think when they chose the Round3 color, they matched it with the closest SP color...

[RColinTaylor]

In a few days once we have collected some rough ideas of extra colors I will request some color palates from Melissa.