ALPS Granite Keyset - Interest Check

[ideus]

DSA's thin walls get warped during dye sublimation process; they look very bad because of that.

[Puddsy]

DSA's thin walls get warped during dye sublimation process; they look very bad because of that.

Yeah, but SA is awful to type on.

[E3E]

I've heard rumors that DSA for Alps are extremely tight.

Like "oh my gosh, am I going to pull this switch out?" tight.

Anyone care to debunk this?

It depends on both the cap material and the switch stem, at least in my experience. The latter might not apply to brand new switches like Matias or Fukka switches (which will probably put a death grip on your caps).   
   
IME, PBT caps really love gripping their switches, and it can feel nightmarish to try and pull a PBT cap from a board that's had its caps on all its life.    
 
On the same token, if the sliders get loosened up a bit (how, I have no idea, but some old Alps boards I've brushed past have had loose-fitting caps due to the slider/stem/whatever it's called), then there won't ever be much of an issue.

The tightest switches I've ever worked with were Amber Alps switches, with both ABS and PBT. I'm sure this has less to do with switch type and more to do with wear and use, but they were scary tight. In second place is the Dell AT101 with Salmon Alps and PBT caps.

Might want to make sure the caps have no flashing on the stem. You don't want to give those naughty Alps switches more leverage to snap your caps' stems off. 


EDIT: Also, NJ, if Infinity's stock DSA PBT is that scary cruel to Alps switches, I'm scared to see what they'll do to my Hammer Alps baby.

[Hypersphere]

I like various Alps-mount switches very much, but I probably would not be using them if I had to use ABS keycaps. My Alps-mount keyboards have dye-sub PBT alphanumeric keycaps harvested from vintage boards (I have had to resort to ABS modifiers and spacebars).

However, I would not buy an Alps-mount PBT keycap set if it were DSA profile. I cannot type well on a flat, non-sculpted profile.

In addition, although I like the appearance of spherical tops, I am not sure about typing on them. I am accustomed to cylindrical tops.

I also like the look of the tall-form SA profile, but here again I am not sure about typing on them. Most of the time, I use keyboards with "OEM", Topre, or Leopold profile. So, I think the closest thing from SP would be DCS profile.

[menuhin]

So at the end, did the DSA PBT Granite keycap set for ALPS switches happen? 

[zslane]

No.

[Radlife]

The only custom alps keyset that's running as of right now is Evang's DSA LightCycle

https://thevankeyboards.com/products/lightcycle-keycap-set

[menuhin]

The only custom alps keyset that's running as of right now is Evang's DSA LightCycle

https://thevankeyboards.com/products/lightcycle-keycap-set

I've seen this one -- I'm still dreaming of PBT you know.
ABS is still ABS, though some premium ABS caps manufacturers 'pre-shine' their ABS caps (giving them a shine finish), I suppose as seen in some sets.

[menuhin]

How many more was needed to get to the 100 target? There can be a potential group buy, some day.

No.

[zslane]

As far as I know it never reached the group buy stage.

[zslane]

This set was a non-starter anyway. SP can't make dyesub Alps keycaps.

[menuhin]

SP has dyesub and ALPS, but not these combined.
So dyesub ALPS will be a dream until at least 2017.

Why it's a non-starter by the way?

[zslane]

It is a non-starter in the sense that a group buy can't (ever) start because SP can not dye-sublimate onto Alps stemmed keycaps. Granite is a dye-sub keyset, so it won't ever be available with an Alps mount, at least not from SP.

Matt3o would have to change from DSA to some other profile and find a vendor who can (and will) dyesub the design onto keycaps with Alps stems.