Topre PBT Spacebar (SECOND RUN!)

[korrelate]

Hola B*tches!!! 

DG = Dark Grey

Question 1:

"only the top three colors produced" =>
(A) The three colors available in this GB are: DG, White + 1 of the candidates or..
(B) The colors available in this GB are: DG, White + The Top Three candidates?


Question 2:
If I order a pack of three do I receive:
(A) 1 DG, 1 W + 1 of the Top Candidate
(B) no DG, no W + one each of the Top Three candidates.


Question 3:
of the candidates, is medium grey = 10th Anniv. grey?


Cheers,

K

[WiNloSt]

no, sorry at the moment the minimum quantity per color (black and white) is 2. It may change when we switch to the actual group buy, but not now.

I said that they are not sold in pack because you can actually buy 3 spacebars (if you write q.ty 3 you get 3 spacebars, not 6 in packs of 2).

Ok that really clears things up. Thank you.

[Matt3o]

"only the top three colors produced" =>
(A) The three colors available in this GB are: DG, White + 1 of the candidates or..
(B) The colors available in this GB are: DG, White + The Top Three candidates?

White + Black + 3 colors

Question 2:
If I order a pack of three do I receive:
(A) 1 DG, 1 W + 1 of the Top Candidate
(B) no DG, no W + one each of the Top Three candidates.

Pack of 3 = top 3 colors from the poll, you get no white or black.

Question 3:
of the candidates, is medium grey = 10th Anniv. grey?

The color is not color matched, because color matching is expensive. We may try to go close, but it's not guaranteed. Only white and black (dark gray) are color matched.

[RoflCopter4]

So, I don't know if this falls under some kind of trade secret, but just how do you work with PBT for keycaps anyway? If it has to get so hot and tends to shrink so much when cooling (kind of an obvious side effect) then what sort of tooling can even get around that? How? I wish I could understand what exactly costs so much here a bit better than the vague "it's hard to work with PBT" understanding I have now.

PBT spacebars already exists, it's just a matter of making it right

I am aware that there are PBT spacebars. I have a Model M with one right beside me. I'm just curious as to what the actual engineering difficulties of making one are.

[Smasher816]

They warp easily (more so then smaller keys as they are so long) which is hard to account for in mass production. This often means that people have to pull out a hairdryer and bend it back to being strait. However, that isn't really feasible to do for thousands of bars.

[RoflCopter4]

They warp easily (more so then smaller keys as they are so long) which is hard to account for in mass production. This often means that people have to pull out a hairdryer and bend it back to being strait. However, that isn't really feasible to do for thousands of bars.

My, I'm not asking this well. I know this. I'm curious as to how this is gotten around on an industrial scale. How are these spacebars made so that they didn't warp? How did IBM do it (presumably Unicomp uses the same method)? What sort of tooling do you actually need?

[FrostyToast]

They warp easily (more so then smaller keys as they are so long) which is hard to account for in mass production. This often means that people have to pull out a hairdryer and bend it back to being strait. However, that isn't really feasible to do for thousands of bars.

My, I'm not asking this well. I know this. I'm curious as to how this is gotten around on an industrial scale. How are these spacebars made so that they didn't warp? How did IBM do it (presumably Unicomp uses the same method)? What sort of tooling do you actually need?

I believe one of he solutions is to make the larger caps thicker so it can't warp as easily.

[breaker9691]

hope this start sell after Luna Newyears cuz now i'm don't have enough money to eat (

[nukec]

All right! I'm in son!

[Matt3o]

We are at 40% now!

Color preferences changed again, with Purple going really strong!

Code: [Select]

    [Medium gray]
    [Sky Blue/Light Blue]
    [Purple]    [Red]
    [Blue]
    [Mint/Light Green]
    [Green]
    [Pink]
    [Orange]
    [Lavender]
    [Beige]
    [Yellow]
    [Magenta]
    [Brown]

[RoflCopter4]

How many is 40%?  2000 spacebars?

[ideus]

How many is 40%?  2000 spacebars?

I think 40% equals 800 space bars, as 100% is precisely 2000, which is the goal of this intent exercise.

[RoflCopter4]

How many is 40%?  2000 spacebars?

I think 40% equals 800 space bars, as 100% is precisely 2000, which is the goal of this intent exercise.

Ah. I thought we were aiming for 5000.

[sorijealut]

Intent form filled!

[swill]

At least my purple is making a run for it. But PINK. Come on people.

[colomb]

Nice to see orange creeping up. Just got my orange set from wastebasket. It is going to need that orange PBT space bar!

[HoffmanMyster]

So, I don't know if this falls under some kind of trade secret, but just how do you work with PBT for keycaps anyway? If it has to get so hot and tends to shrink so much when cooling (kind of an obvious side effect) then what sort of tooling can even get around that? How? I wish I could understand what exactly costs so much here a bit better than the vague "it's hard to work with PBT" understanding I have now.

I do not have experience working with PBT on an industrial scale (just some lab work), but I do have experience working with various other polymers, so my only insight is general concepts and ideas.   

-The shrinking could be affected by the rate of cooling, so making the caps under "standard" cooling conditions that would be applicable to ABS may present issues that need to be fixed for PBT.  This should just be a hurdle and not a show-stopper.
-FrostyToast mentioned making the caps thicker so that they are less able to warp.  This might help, but I don't think SP has a huge ability to do this without incurring huge costs, so maybe they can't at the moment.  And sometimes making things thicker actually hurts the evenness of cooling, so maybe that's not the solution after all (I haven't tested this obviously )
-PBT is not a copolymer, so there aren't ratios in the blend to play with, but maybe their supplier adds additives to the resin pellets?  Playing with those could change behaviour.
-Processing temperatures, times, and even colour (additive) can affect the cure behaviour of polymers.
-Some techniques like this are not well-documented, and just because "we" (a company) were able to do it before does *not* mean that the knowledge is still around to do it again.  Until recently, many manufacturing plants would hand-write knowledge or the operators would just *remember* it.  So it was much easier to lose the knowledge.

I obviously don't intend for this post to serve as an actual answer to your questions, but hopefully it highlights some potential issues that they may have come across, to help you think about what might be going on.  Or maybe it's a big waste.  ^.^

[Matt3o]

I believe they told me thick PBT is actually more problematic (it shrinks more).

Anyway we are at 41% now. As I said next monday I will contact more retailers to see if they are interested.

The following is the current color preference with actual number of votes. Please note that if you ordered --say-- 3 color packs your vote counts 3 towards your selected colors.

Code: [Select]

    [Medium gray] => 43
    [Sky Blue/Light Blue] => 36
    [Red] => 35
    [Blue] => 33
    [Purple] => 32
    [Mint/Light Green] => 30
    [Pink] => 25
    [Green] => 24
    [Orange] => 23
    [Lavender] => 17
    [Beige] => 13
    [Yellow] => 11
    [Magenta] => 9
    [Brown] => 4

[sike]

Form filled. Hope a new option in the final deliver: 1 white + 1 black + 3 colored.

[RoflCopter4]

I wish there were some way to spread this. Having typed on my HHKB for a couple of weeks now I can say that this spacebar is probably the best quality ABS plastic I've ever felt, but it certainly leaves something to be desired when compared with every other key on the board.

[Matt3o]

We are little over 41%

Colors:

Code: [Select]

    [Medium gray] => 43
    [Red] => 37
    [Sky Blue/Light Blue] => 37
    [Blue] => 32
    [Purple] => 32
    [Mint/Light Green] => 30
    [Green] => 25
    [Pink] => 25
    [Orange] => 25
    [Lavender] => 18
    [Beige] => 13
    [Yellow] => 11
    [Magenta] => 9
    [Brown] => 4

[atlas3686]

Thanks for doing this Matt3o, hope we successful. 

[Sent]

Form filled out.

[Matt3o]

We are slightly over 42%.

Colors:

Code: [Select]

    [Medium gray] => 45
    [Sky Blue/Light Blue] => 39
    [Red] => 38
    [Purple] => 32
    [Blue] => 32
    [Mint/Light Green] => 30
    [Pink] => 26
    [Orange] => 25
    [Green] => 25
    [Lavender] => 19
    [Beige] => 14
    [Yellow] => 11
    [Magenta] => 10
    [Brown] => 4

[RoflCopter4]

At this rate of progress this will take months.

[Sygaldry]

At this rate of progress this will take months.

No. This will be over this month (I believe Matt3o mentioned keeping this open to the middle of January). Either we reach the goal or we fail and the GB returns to oblivion.

As much as this would be amazing, it's starting to seem very unlikely this will happen 

[Matt3o]

Next monday I will contact online retailers to see if we can get them involved. If that is not possible we will close the GB.

[intelli78]

Can you clarify what is the target (in terms of % and #) that will set the GB in motion? 100%? 5000 spacebars? There have been a lot of numbers discussed, not sure what is the current goal.

These numbers are surprising and discouraging... for all the whining about Topre ABS spacebars... 

[Matt3o]

Can you clarify what is the target (in terms of % and #) that will set the GB in motion? 100%? 5000 spacebars? There have been a lot of numbers discussed, not sure what is the current goal.

These numbers are surprising and discouraging... for all the whining about Topre ABS spacebars... 

it's all here https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=66623.msg1567644#msg1567644

[intelli78]

Ok, thanks. So we are 42% of the way to 2000, which is the bare minimum to start the buy.

How about an email blast to everyone who has signed up, asking for people to double orders, or at least add as much as possible? I know I would at least double mine and I'm sure there are lots of other people who would do. If we could get it up to the 75% range, the end will be in sight. Email blasts are an effective way to reach people, especially when they have a vested interest like this GB.

Of course it may not be needed if you think the online retailer route will work.

[abjr]

Ok, thanks. So we are 42% of the way to 2000, which is the bare minimum to start the buy.

So that's about ~840 spacebars with ~1200 more to go. Earlier Matt3o had mentioned something about getting 4-5 vendors to buy 1000-1500 each, but why would they need to buy so many? Why not try to get them to pick up the slack on the remaining ~1200? I guess shipping 840 spacebars would still suck so you are trying to get the vendors to purchase the entire production run?

Out of curiosity, how much does the tooling cost to "own"? And what do you get for owning the tooling ... some kind of physical mold or or just IP rights on the design?

[nukec]

Come on guys, we have to push this

[sorijealut]

I'll try posting in reddit again and have it in my signature

[redskull]

why not ask the vendors to buy up all 2000 spacebars, while we 'pledge' to buy from them later on with a fix fair profit on top?

[zentic]

Looks great! i'm interested in this because I have a hhkb and a realforce. Is there a color which matches the space bar on Realforce 104UB-DK which more of an off grey?

[Matt3o]

So that's about ~840 spacebars with ~1200 more to go. Earlier Matt3o had mentioned something about getting 4-5 vendors to buy 1000-1500 each, but why would they need to buy so many? Why not try to get them to pick up the slack on the remaining ~1200? I guess shipping 840 spacebars would still suck so you are trying to get the vendors to purchase the entire production run?

it's a very restricted marked I can't take away 1000 orders from the vendors that are investing $20k to make this happen. They would end up with a very slow ROI.

Out of curiosity, how much does the tooling cost to "own"? And what do you get for owning the tooling ... some kind of physical mold or or just IP rights on the design?

I seem to recall that ownership of the tooling would be an additional $10k. It's exclusive usage on the tool, not IP rights on the design (since the design it's not ours).

why not ask the vendors to buy up all 2000 spacebars, while we 'pledge' to buy from them later on with a fix fair profit on top?

same as above. Also, shipping 1000 spacebars all over the world is quite a task. It also means to have at least 1100 spacebars at hand to handle lost packages and production errors. Anyway if I can find 2 or three proxies it's still doable.

Looks great! i'm interested in this because I have a hhkb and a realforce. Is there a color which matches the space bar on Realforce 104UB-DK which more of an off grey?

I'll check on this. Thanks for the heads up. Color matching is expensive, at the moment the price is fixed with 2 colors matched. If I can find some sponsors maybe I could add a third.

[Matt3o]

whops

[Matt3o]

We are at 45%

Honestly it's a hell lot of spacebars for a community based project, I would be pretty shocked if a vendor wouldn't want to join the wagon. Anyway today I will be sending out a dozen emails and also will talk again with MassDrop.

I'll keep you posted.

Color preference so far:

Code: [Select]

    [Medium gray] => 48
    [Sky Blue/Light Blue] => 43
    [Red] => 42
    [Blue] => 34
    [Purple] => 34
    [Mint/Light Green] => 33
    [Green] => 27
    [Orange] => 27
    [Pink] => 26
    [Lavender] => 22
    [Beige] => 14
    [Yellow] => 12
    [Magenta] => 11
    [Brown] => 4

[byker]

We are at 45%

Honestly it's a hell lot of spacebars for a community based project, I would be pretty shocked if a vendor wouldn't want to join the wagon. Anyway today I will be sending out a dozen emails and also will talk again with MassDrop.

I'll keep you posted.

Color preference so far:

Code: [Select]

    [Medium gray] => 48
    [Sky Blue/Light Blue] => 43
    [Red] => 42
    [Blue] => 34
    [Purple] => 34
    [Mint/Light Green] => 33
    [Green] => 27
    [Orange] => 27
    [Pink] => 26
    [Lavender] => 22
    [Beige] => 14
    [Yellow] => 12
    [Magenta] => 11
    [Brown] => 4

Thanks for all of your work in this Matt3o. Excited to hear back regarding vendors getting involved.

[Simplicity]

We are at 45%

Honestly it's a hell lot of spacebars for a community based project, I would be pretty shocked if a vendor wouldn't want to join the wagon. Anyway today I will be sending out a dozen emails and also will talk again with MassDrop.

I'll keep you posted.

Color preference so far:

Code: [Select]

    [Medium gray] => 48
    [Sky Blue/Light Blue] => 43
    [Red] => 42
    [Blue] => 34
    [Purple] => 34
    [Mint/Light Green] => 33
    [Green] => 27
    [Orange] => 27
    [Pink] => 26
    [Lavender] => 22
    [Beige] => 14
    [Yellow] => 12
    [Magenta] => 11
    [Brown] => 4

Awesome work you're doing Matt3o. Just curious would the medium gray option be similar to the colors of the modifiers found on the stock white HHKBs?

[Matt3o]

I don't know yet, probably closer to the 10th anniversary.

[exitfire401]

I can US proxy if needed.

[00zeRO]

I seem to recall that ownership of the tooling would be an additional $10k. It's exclusive usage on the tool, not IP rights on the design (since the design it's not ours).

$15k...dear sir

[Matt3o]

ok, it was €12870... but MK is not interested anyway so...

[00zeRO]

Lol...well I tried...I did give it my best shot...

[Sygaldry]

We need to keep posting this to Reddit! It keeps dropping off the front page but with a user base of 500000+ we're really missing out on what could be our last chance of making it to 100%!

[Matt3o]

So far, no luck.

They all turned down. I'm still waiting reply from a couple of stores. I'll keep you posted.

[FrostyToast]

We need to keep posting this to Reddit! It keeps dropping off the front page but with a user base of 500000+ we're really missing out on what could be our last chance of making it to 100%!

Reddit is comprised of mostly kids with very little expendable income who would for one, not buy boards as expensive as topre. At least, most of them would not dare to. There is also the fact that many of them don't care about customizing boards with expensive caps. This is partly why their contribution is so low.

[CPTBadAss]

So, I don't know if this falls under some kind of trade secret, but just how do you work with PBT for keycaps anyway? If it has to get so hot and tends to shrink so much when cooling (kind of an obvious side effect) then what sort of tooling can even get around that? How? I wish I could understand what exactly costs so much here a bit better than the vague "it's hard to work with PBT" understanding I have now.

I do not have experience working with PBT on an industrial scale (just some lab work), but I do have experience working with various other polymers, so my only insight is general concepts and ideas.   

-The shrinking could be affected by the rate of cooling, so making the caps under "standard" cooling conditions that would be applicable to ABS may present issues that need to be fixed for PBT.  This should just be a hurdle and not a show-stopper.
-FrostyToast mentioned making the caps thicker so that they are less able to warp.  This might help, but I don't think SP has a huge ability to do this without incurring huge costs, so maybe they can't at the moment.  And sometimes making things thicker actually hurts the evenness of cooling, so maybe that's not the solution after all (I haven't tested this obviously )
-PBT is not a copolymer, so there aren't ratios in the blend to play with, but maybe their supplier adds additives to the resin pellets?  Playing with those could change behaviour.
-Processing temperatures, times, and even colour (additive) can affect the cure behaviour of polymers.
-Some techniques like this are not well-documented, and just because "we" (a company) were able to do it before does *not* mean that the knowledge is still around to do it again.  Until recently, many manufacturing plants would hand-write knowledge or the operators would just *remember* it.  So it was much easier to lose the knowledge.

I obviously don't intend for this post to serve as an actual answer to your questions, but hopefully it highlights some potential issues that they may have come across, to help you think about what might be going on.  Or maybe it's a big waste.  ^.^

In addition to this, I think that temperature or humidity plays a factor in the molding process. IMSTO has said in the past he can't shoot PBT caps in the summer because his factory is too hot or humid. I wonder if PBT is hygroscopic and that hinders the molding process or cooling process. Or if it's affected by heat and the temperature messes with the processes. I think Hoff would have a better idea about this than I do.

And to answer your question about how PBT is molded into caps. The process can be simplified like this:

1) PBT resin pellets are fed into an injection molding machine
2) Injection molding machine melts the PBT pellets into a goo which is shot into a mold of a keycap
3) Keycaps cool in the mold
4) Keycaps come out of the mold
5) Caps then go through secondary processing such as dye-subbing, pad-printing, or lasering to get legends.

There are obviously a lot of factors and PBT isn't just one single material; there can be different formulations. There can be additives which affect processing. So think of this like colas. There's Pepsi and Coke and other colas. They are all cola soft drinks but they different slightly in their formulation. Polymers are the same way. There are many flavors and formulations of ABS or PBT


I should order a few to help ya'll out but I'm worried about the resale. I have no interest in Topre but I think this is a cool project.

[Sygaldry]

We need to keep posting this to Reddit! It keeps dropping off the front page but with a user base of 500000+ we're really missing out on what could be our last chance of making it to 100%!

Reddit is comprised of mostly kids with very little expendable income who would for one, not buy boards as expensive as topre. At least, most of them would not dare to. There is also the fact that many of them don't care about customizing boards with expensive caps. This is partly why their contribution is so low.

The % jumped by 3 after re-posting it for one day (when the post left the front page of the subreddit, the contributions stopped). There are a lot of financially responsible adults that quickly browse reddit briefly each day but don't bother to dig any further than the front page of their subs.

I'm sure if it was continuously posted the front page of /r/MK or if it was stickied to the top of the page, the total contribution from Reddit would be phenomenal. Reddit might have a large population of kids but the population base is 10 times or more than GH. If we can just tap into the casual adult redditer that skims the front pages of their subs, then this might become a possibility.

In any case, it doesn't look like we have any other options =/