ABS caps: why some bigger names still do mainly ABS caps?

[menuhin]

I hate the shiny caps of my older boards because the caps are made of ABS. There's no easy fix for that and it almost makes me want to throw them away.

Why ABS caps are still in production? Even for the hobbyists targeting niche producers like Signature Plastic and GMK, they're still producing mainly ABS.

Why?!
Is better color choice the only reason? Or there're many dinosaurs out there?

Enlighten me please.

[davkol]

It's easier to mold. (See, e.g., bent PBT spacebars, Shift keys etc.)

[wodan]

There are little to no examples of high quality PBT doubleshot keycaps - talking about the quality of SP SA or GMK keycaps. Only good PBT keycaps I know are Dye-Sublimated and that doesn't allow for bright legends.

Back in the days, Cherry put their Dye-Sublimated PBT keycaps only on their "cheap" G81 keyboards while their G80 flagship line got ABS doubleshots. (There are G81 with ABS Doubleshots but no G80 with PBT caps)

ABS keycaps get a lot of hate these days because some people believe that PBT is their lord and saviour. Both materials have their drawbacks just as they both have their advantages. Ever since I got a sandblasting setup that easily allows me to touch up my ABS doubleshots in case they start to shine, I started enjoying them a lot more.

[Puddsy]

Some of us like ABS.

I haven't found a PBT set I like yet.

[benderkey]

Money, pure and simple.

[mushman]

Some of us like ABS.

I haven't found a PBT set I like yet.

I like ABS too.  Only Sith deal in absolutes.

[menuhin]

There are little to no examples of high quality PBT doubleshot keycaps - talking about the quality of SP SA or GMK keycaps. Only good PBT keycaps I know are Dye-Sublimated and that doesn't allow for bright legends.

Back in the days, Cherry put their Dye-Sublimated PBT keycaps only on their "cheap" G81 keyboards while their G80 flagship line got ABS doubleshots. (There are G81 with ABS Doubleshots but no G80 with PBT caps)

ABS keycaps get a lot of hate these days because some people believe that PBT is their lord and saviour. Both materials have their drawbacks just as they both have their advantages. Ever since I got a sandblasting setup that easily allows me to touch up my ABS doubleshots in case they start to shine, I started enjoying them a lot more.

Didn't know the difficulty of doubleshot molding, and the history of Cherry's flagship with doubleshot ABS caps. 

So far I've seen only doubleshot PBT by some quick Chinese manufacturers as the trend of PBT is prevailing for quite some time now, e.g.
http://keypuller.com/bi-color-pbt-double-shot-by-vortex/
http://keypuller.com/pbt-pom-double-shot-by-vortex/

I have a doubleshot PBT modifiers set, sadly as a newbie I overlooked it's OEM profile when my keyboards are Cherry profile.

Yes, while I like POM the most > PBT, there are many reasons to like ABS *if* I have a sandblasting setup at home. It's kind of a super overkill to install a sandblaster at home just for a few key caps getting shiny though. 
[e.g. living in a home with a garage and having to drive far to shop is an USA lifestyle, this certainly makes many garage style project possible, including those that need a sandblaster.]

For me, like the majority, I just want a simpler solution. Or that the 'problem' doesn't happen in the first place.

Will the UV coating makes the ABS shine-proof? Say for 15+ years of use?

[wodan]

Those chinese PBT doubleshots are sturdy and cheap but also quite crude compared to high quality ABS doubleshots. When I first got into "keycaps" I ordered various sets of them and almost sold all of them again by now. Just a personal preference ...

ABS will never become shine-proof so that will remain a major disadvantage of these caps. Sandblasting them isn't that much of a deal, the setup starts at ~200€ if you don't have a compressor already.

But I can remember back when I was all excited about the Vortex doubleshots (the Tai Haos are not even worth mentioning, they are worse than typing on stems!) I also thought PBT was king. If those Vortex caps float your boat and you want to wait another 2 years until they finally make an ISO-DE set, lucky you. But beauty quite often comes in ABS and if you stay in the game for custom keycap sets, you will open your heart to ABS

[seville57]

Some of us like ABS.

I haven't found a PBT set I like yet.

I like ABS too.  Only Sith deal in absolutes.

Me too but I have both ABS and PBT keycaps sets.

[menuhin]

Those chinese PBT doubleshots are sturdy and cheap but also quite crude compared to high quality ABS doubleshots...
...
But I can remember back when I was all excited about the Vortex doubleshots (the Tai Haos are not even worth mentioning, they are worse than typing on stems!) I also thought PBT was king...

I use a US ANSI layout.  )
I want to learn more about the difference between the quality of these PBT double shot sets and the finer ABS sets, *without* spending too much of my money , as I still am starting to adopt the thinking that PBT is king.
Can some ABS-ed members elaborate the above two points to me? In terms of the aesthetics and the feel of typing. I know these are very subtle attributes.

[wodan]

Just look out for a Cherry G80 with nice HAD keycaps on ebay.

I sometimes sell HAD sets over at DT, some of them even brighted & sandblasted. Unfortunately, they're all ISO-DE but you'll adapt

[menuhin]

Like some of these?

Early Cherry doubleshot caps:

PBT doubleshot (L) vs ABS doubleshot (R):

I like DSA > DCS by the way, just more classy especially the smaller and untilted boards. Also, I care more how a cap looks at its top side though, yeah I know the undersides of ABS doubleshot caps look cool (Keypop even made that his Logo).

As a newbie, Internet posts such as this one have long educated me that ABS is cheap and PBT is better:
http://blog.wooting.nl/what-are-the-best-mechanical-keyboard-keycaps/

For ABS-shine problem, I wish there are some members offering services for ABS caps 'unshining' treatment in Europe. Perhaps that's the reason why some caps are offered as quite shiny caps in the first place? Such as this one:

[Puddsy]

That's just what new ABS looks like. It's smoother than PBT.

My GMK sets were "shiny" out of the box. Just not mirror shiny.

As an aside, the GMK I'm typing on right now has very little shine, despite probably 5-6 million keystrokes across the whole board. A little dirt, sure, but that just comes with owning a keyboard.

[menuhin]

In the past, I had some ABS keyboards that I did not use partly because I don't want to create any shine of the key caps!
And I was thinking such thing would happen to all key caps so I didn't train my crushing-bluckling-spring finger force with the almost NIB M13 so extensively; so I remain a more sensual style of typing.

When I see shines in a keyboard, I was thinking: people who use this keyboard eat oily food. They must have oil on their hands or even forehead, they must be looking like a fat person always with crisps in their hands. I don't want to touch this keyboard anymore.

[zslane]

Double-shotting PBT plastic has not yet been "perfected" and the only spherical keycap manufacturer left to us only double-shots ABS plastic. End of story.

To my mind the tendency to "turn glossy" is the lesser of the two deficiencies of ABS. I find the discoloring over time (due to exposure to UV light and other environmental contaminants) to be the more disappointing property of ABS plastic.

And yet, I can easily overlook both issues in order to get high-quality double-shot spherical keycaps. Even if some Chinese or Korean manufacturer improves upon their double-shot process for PBT plastic, the chances that they will develop a spherical family is probably close to nil. Therefore ABS will continue to be king in the spherical keycap world.

[menuhin]

Double-shotting PBT plastic has not yet been "perfected" and the only spherical keycap manufacturer left to us only double-shots ABS plastic. End of story.

To my mind the tendency to "turn glossy" is the lesser of the two deficiencies of ABS. I find the discoloring over time (due to exposure to UV light and other environmental contaminants) to be the more disappointing property of ABS plastic.

And yet, I can easily overlook both issues in order to get high-quality double-shot spherical keycaps. Even if some Chinese or Korean manufacturer improves upon their double-shot process for PBT plastic, the chances that they will develop a spherical family is probably close to nil. Therefore ABS will continue to be king in the spherical keycap world.

What is "spherical keycap" (or "spherical family" of keycap) and why is it so difficult to perfect its manufacturing process? 

[wodan]

1) DCS profile is prett ****. It's very similair to the Cherry/GMK profile but ****tier in any aspect

2) I live near FFM but haven't really come to the point where I offer sandblasting as a service

That Wooting blog post is just one point of view. The material properties of PBT have some clear advantages over ABS but in the keycap enthusiast market, the looks count. People love simple answers: PBT good, ABS bad, disregarding the fact that PBT simply can not be used to produce many of the most popular keycap sets today in the quality everyone is expecting.

The price argument is also complete TRASH. Signature Plastic is making PBT and ABS caps and I never noticed a price difference between PBT and ABS caps of the same profile.

Custom collectors keycaps will take you into ABS land
The best generic keycaps will probably be some crude Chinese PBT doubleshots, especially if you're used to ANSI already.

[zslane]

What is "spherical keycap" (or "spherical family" of keycap) and why is it so difficult to perfect its manufacturing process? 

Spherical topped keycaps are what keyboards prior to 1981 all used. They look like this:



Today there are only three spherical keycap families being made for new keycap sets:

1. SA from Signature Plastics
2. DSA from Signature Plastics
3. "Hi-Profile" from Topre

There is a beamspring clone being worked on somewhere in Asia, but it is currently vaporware.

I don't think spherical keycaps are inherently more difficult to manufacture, it's just that nobody but SP and Topre have spherical molds anymore, and there is no large-scale market potential to propel new companies to bother. Catering to the niche custom keycap hobby is left to Signature Plastics who inherited their spherical molds from the company they absorbed way back when they got started.

What appears to be difficult is double-shotting PBT plastic. SP and Topre only dye-sublimate onto their PBT sphericals. Vortex sells double-shot PBT keycaps, but they are not highly praised and they are cylindrical not spherical.

[Geroximo]

ABS is easy to produce and wears out fast.
Perfect if you're a keycap producer ...

[cicada]

ABS plastic is easier to produce and also most manufacturers don't have the tool to make high quality PBT keycaps.

There are indeed some manufacturers that make very good pbt keycaps, namely Gateron, BSP, Ranto and 린x3 (SP too but meh), however they all have some drawbacks. I personally prefer PBT because it is more durable and offers better typing experience than ABS. But I'm sticking with ABS for now because it suits me better, GMK for both typing and aesthetics; and SA, DSA for aesthetics-only. The only PBT keycaps I would choose over ABS are the ones that are no longer in production.

[orpheo]

Programmed obsolescence hehe perfect comment!

[zslane]

Perhaps, but there is a very good chance that the keycaps I buy today will outlast me. Especially since I take pretty good care of my gear.

[menuhin]

I'm missing another keycap GB because they are in ABS.
If only I have a sandblaster... but then I probably won't just want to use it to retouch the shined ABS key caps.

More

https://pipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_your_Sandblast

[zslane]

Passing up group buys because of the type of plastic has gotta hurt. I, on the other hand, don't mind ABS "shine" over time, but I loathe cylindrical surfaces.

We humans are weird.

(Fortunately for me there hasn't been a GMK or DCS keyset that I've ever liked enough to lament its cylindrical format.)

[eksuen]

Passing up group buys because of the type of plastic has gotta hurt. I, on the other hand, don't mind ABS "shine" over time, but I loathe cylindrical surfaces.

We humans are weird.

(Fortunately for me there hasn't been a GMK or DCS keyset that I've ever liked enough to lament its cylindrical format.)

I like that people have differing tastes because if everyone had the same ****, this world would be extremely boring. It's just annoying when lots of people vote against my personal taste, but what can ya do?

I don't mind spherical if that's the only option, but I strongly prefer cylindrical over spherical. There are a lot of DSA sets that I wish were DCS instead.

[Omnipotent]

Passing up group buys because of the type of plastic has gotta hurt. I, on the other hand, don't mind ABS "shine" over time, but I loathe cylindrical surfaces.

We humans are weird.

(Fortunately for me there hasn't been a GMK or DCS keyset that I've ever liked enough to lament its cylindrical format.)

I like that people have differing tastes because if everyone had the same ****, this world would be extremely boring. It's just annoying when lots of people vote against my personal taste, but what can ya do?

I don't mind spherical if that's the only option, but I strongly prefer cylindrical over spherical. There are a lot of DSA sets that I wish were DCS instead.

Indeed, variety is the spice of life! If we all liked the same things there would be no good or bad. Everything would be average.

[zslane]

Whaddayu talkinbout? If everybody liked what I liked everything would be excellent! 

[Puddsy]

I hate sphericals and am annoyed that the last good DCS GB was the smallfry set with cherry legends.

 (I thought about it some more. There have been at least 2 good GBs since smallfry set.)

[potatobot]

ABS produce better colors too

Can you even doubleshot pbt caps? usually they are sublimated right?

If you're in the business of making keycaps, you would want to cut cost and keep producing the product because they are easily replaceable. 

[Omnipotent]

ABS produce better colors too

Can you even doubleshot pbt caps? usually they are sublimated right?

If you're in the business of making keycaps, you would want to cut cost and keep producing the product because they are easily replaceable. 

You can absolutely doubleshot PBT caps. All of Tai-Hao set's are doubleshot.

There are some limitations to doubleshot with PBT that aren't there with ABS however. I could be completely wrong on this, but I believe I recall someone saying something like light colors can't be done in dark colors. Or it might have been the other way around.

[wodan]

Tai-Hao doubleshots are stuff any keycap manufacturer with dignity would sort out as trash.

The light/dark color restriction applies to dye-sublimation of PBT keycaps not double-shot keycaps.

[potatobot]

Tai-Hao doubleshots are stuff any keycap manufacturer with dignity would sort out as trash.

The light/dark color restriction applies to dye-sublimation of PBT keycaps not double-shot keycaps.

ABS produce better colors too

Can you even doubleshot pbt caps? usually they are sublimated right?

If you're in the business of making keycaps, you would want to cut cost and keep producing the product because they are easily replaceable. 

You can absolutely doubleshot PBT caps. All of Tai-Hao set's are doubleshot.

There are some limitations to doubleshot with PBT that aren't there with ABS however. I could be completely wrong on this, but I believe I recall someone saying something like light colors can't be done in dark colors. Or it might have been the other way around.

Oh yeah i remember now. but tai-hao pbt doubleshot keycaps are trash, i used to have sunshine on my varmilo and some caps werent cleaned properly and they would hit the led on my varmilo (which are placed below the switch). too many defects on those too. too bad, the colors were awesome.

I never really considered Tai-hao pbt to be pbt because they are freaking thin compared to every other pbt keycap ive tested(except DSA maybe) 

[MJL]

In my noob opinion the double shot PBT keycaps from Deck were not bad (if you did not mind the odd font and the uneven lighting). Don't know how they would compare to the Tai-Hao keycaps but from my electronics days I stay away from anything on eBait offered from a Chinese seller.

[Omnipotent]

Tai-Hao doubleshots are stuff any keycap manufacturer with dignity would sort out as trash.

The light/dark color restriction applies to dye-sublimation of PBT keycaps not double-shot keycaps.

ABS produce better colors too

Can you even doubleshot pbt caps? usually they are sublimated right?

If you're in the business of making keycaps, you would want to cut cost and keep producing the product because they are easily replaceable. 

You can absolutely doubleshot PBT caps. All of Tai-Hao set's are doubleshot.

There are some limitations to doubleshot with PBT that aren't there with ABS however. I could be completely wrong on this, but I believe I recall someone saying something like light colors can't be done in dark colors. Or it might have been the other way around.

Oh yeah i remember now. but tai-hao pbt doubleshot keycaps are trash, i used to have sunshine on my varmilo and some caps werent cleaned properly and they would hit the led on my varmilo (which are placed below the switch). too many defects on those too. too bad, the colors were awesome.

I never really considered Tai-hao pbt to be pbt because they are freaking thin compared to every other pbt keycap ive tested(except DSA maybe) 

I would agree that they aren't amazing and the PBT is very thin. But they are definitely not trash if cleaned properly. **** that "Antibioisis coating" bs. When it comes to PBT on a budget with a decent colorway (which right now is far harder than it should be), they are a quick and easy way to get into the hobby.

Sure they aren't end-game or highly sought after, but they are worlds better than the basic ABS keycap sets shipped with many boards. Usually enough to hold you over for the 6-12 months you wait for a good set or two in a GB.

[potatobot]

Tai-Hao doubleshots are stuff any keycap manufacturer with dignity would sort out as trash.

The light/dark color restriction applies to dye-sublimation of PBT keycaps not double-shot keycaps.

ABS produce better colors too

Can you even doubleshot pbt caps? usually they are sublimated right?

If you're in the business of making keycaps, you would want to cut cost and keep producing the product because they are easily replaceable. 

You can absolutely doubleshot PBT caps. All of Tai-Hao set's are doubleshot.

There are some limitations to doubleshot with PBT that aren't there with ABS however. I could be completely wrong on this, but I believe I recall someone saying something like light colors can't be done in dark colors. Or it might have been the other way around.

Oh yeah i remember now. but tai-hao pbt doubleshot keycaps are trash, i used to have sunshine on my varmilo and some caps werent cleaned properly and they would hit the led on my varmilo (which are placed below the switch). too many defects on those too. too bad, the colors were awesome.

I never really considered Tai-hao pbt to be pbt because they are freaking thin compared to every other pbt keycap ive tested(except DSA maybe) 

I would agree that they aren't amazing and the PBT is very thin. But they are definitely not trash if cleaned properly. **** that "Antibioisis coating" bs. When it comes to PBT on a budget with a decent colorway (which right now is far harder than it should be), they are a quick and easy way to get into the hobby.

Sure they aren't end-game or highly sought after, but they are worlds better than the basic ABS keycap sets shipped with many boards. Usually enough to hold you over for the 6-12 months you wait for a good set or two in a GB.

Depends on how you use them. Have you ever considered NPKC keycaps? They are also cheap, but i dont see any doubleshots from them. Only side printed ones. But they also have gradient.

In any case, i wouldnt recommend spending much on any taihao keycaps. Even though their colors are good, the quality and effort in cleaning them or what is not worth it.


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[pr0ximity]

Send me all of your shiny caps, I love how they feel.

[Hyde]

Some of us like ABS.

I haven't found a PBT set I like yet.

I like ABS too.  Only Sith deal in absolutes.

Me too but I have both ABS and PBT keycaps sets.

After trying many many different keycap sets (except no POM yet), I conclude I only like ABS.

BUT I'm ok with Poker stock PBT and Topre PBT, somehow all other PBT feels horrible to me (too harsh/rigid).

ABS feels more forgiving and clacky.