Finished. Thread to come.
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Personally, I'd think it'd be best to use the WoB caps for the mods and keep the Canon caps to alpha numerical keys for a more well-rounded look. It's a shame there's no full spherical ANSI sets for Alps. I hope to change this by sculpting some mods, though they're going to be in the profile of the PBT C Itoh caps first.
These caps don't look as deeply scooped as the Multistation caps. Please do a close comparison yourself to tell me if this is true or not, but the Multistation caps have an almost diamond-like scoop that you can feel and see, especially on the homing keys.
I'm not seeing that with these.
I know what you mean, but imo I would like to use as many spherical caps as possible. Plus it cuts down on the profiles clashing.
Take a look at my thread, I made a comparison there. It's definitely not the same profile. The homing keys on these aren't any different than the other caps, no extra scooping or bar/nubs. Comparing them I would have to agree with you. The Canon caps still have some scoop but not as much as the Multistation caps.
Here is a profile comparison. The Canon caps are more steeply angled like I mentioned earlier.
Bottom row (Z etc)
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Middle row (A etc)
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Top row (tilde etc)
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It's interesting that there were so many different cap profiles for Alps, I mean in sphericals alone, or spherical-like, we have the Multistation, Canon, CIE/C.Itoh, ICL One Per Desk, Yamaha MSX, Bondwell, and Panasonic Electronic Typing Station caps as far as I know, with many of them being completely different profiles.
The ICL caps are hi pro but rather flat with incredibly shallow scooping. The Bondwell caps are definitely the same profile as the Panasonic's, which is uniform and practically flat.
The Yamaha MSX computers have so many variations, even some in Arabic and Cyrillic. I have no idea if they're standard in terms of sculpted profile among all of the variations or not. The Arabic one on eBay lately reminded me of the ICL caps. Hi pro but flat looking.
Then of course we have the Multistation. Sculpted alphanum grid and mods, but everything else is uniform. Unique profile. Deeply scooped. Even deeper homing keys.
Then the Canon typewriter caps. Sculpted hi pro with a unique profile, no homing scoops, and shallower scooping than the Multistation's caps.
The CIE Terminals/C.Itoh sphericals seem to be the only PBT set out there, with all others being ABS doubleshots. Sculpted hi pro, but also with a unique profile that has a less swept back top row than other hi pro caps. Deep dish homing keys. Scooping is not as deep as the multistation, but not as shallow as the ICL One Per Desk caps.
If I had to describe it, the C.Itoh scooping is gentle, but pleasant. The homing scoops are as deep as the Multistation's normal scooping, which is to say that the Multistations are crazy scooped!
• I'd say the C.Itoh caps go best with SKCM Browns and Greens, but they also felt nice on the SKCL Striped Ambers I played with. Overall, PBT is best with tactile switches from my experience
• The Hi Pro ABS caps go really well with SKCM Ambers and I'd say they'd also go well with linears too. I'd say cylindrical caps overall go better on your ordinary clicky switches like SKCM Blue and White.
I feel like the deeper scooping really focuses the feel of the switch onto your finger tips as well, which is great for some switches.
I also want to say that I did not like the ICL One Per Desk caps much in terms of feel. They look great, but high profile key caps without much of a scoop at all feel pretty... Underwhelming.