[IC] LCARS keyboard set - GB LIVE!!!

[norbauer]

I have had one member willing to accept payments.

This is excellent news! To whomever it is: thank you!

So now the question is, how do we handle the pre assembled keyboards?

Rather than having to worry about the extra financial risk and logistics of buying and managing the hardware (especially since MK won't be taking care of things), I would personally favor simply putting together a tutorial page—which I'll be happy to do—specifically for Galaxy Class set for people who are new to keyboards, explaining what they would need to do in order to get the set on a working keyboard. This could a short intro to the set itself, keyboards and keycaps, and include both buying guide to keyboards and an installation/key swapping guide for the keyset.

I think this would make life much easier for us on the GeekHack side of things, while still covering the same objectives/concerns as if we had done all the work to sell pre-assembled sets ourselves. It would also help enhance the keyboard enthusiast community generally by gently nudging people to think about keyboard modding who might not otherwise have done so.

[stoic-lemon]

Seems like the pre-built keyboard thing is complicating the GB. Why don't you just stick to keys only?

[MOZ]

I have had one member willing to accept payments.

This is excellent news! To whomever it is: thank you!

So now the question is, how do we handle the pre assembled keyboards?

Rather than having to worry about the extra financial risk and logistics of buying and managing the hardware (especially since MK won't be taking care of things), I would personally favor simply putting together a tutorial page—which I'll be happy to do—specifically for Galaxy Class set for people who are new to keyboards, explaining what they would need to do in order to get the set on a working keyboard. This could a short intro to the set itself, keyboards and keycaps, and include both buying guide to keyboards and an installation/key swapping guide for the keyset.

I think this would make life much easier for us on the GeekHack side of things, while still covering the same objectives/concerns as if we had done all the work to sell pre-assembled sets ourselves. It would also help enhance the keyboard enthusiast community generally by gently nudging people to think about keyboard modding who might not otherwise have done so.

That makes sense, we could have an option to buy a wire keycap puller.

[norbauer]

Excellent. So what are the next actions we need to take to get things rolling?

Can I do anything to help?

[MOZ]

You are a web developer, how about setting up a website.

We can discuss here or via PM/Email, whichever you feel more comfortable with.

[LechnerDE]

how about setting up a website.

I think that's a good idea.

I think something like Bunnylake used in his Hyper Fuse GB would be helpful:

http://192.241.230.4/buys

You don't neccessarily need to be a forum member to use it. This might attract more non-Geekhackers because it's just as convenient as shopping on amazon.com. It has everything "normal" people are used to like an order history and the ability to edit orders.

You could put those tutorials on this site too, so everything is in one place for the mechanical keyboard noobies

[MOZ]

Have it LCARS themed, and possibly a graphic like Massdrop as we reach lower price tiers and how far we are from the next price tier.

If possible, I would like to have a button to pay directly from the website, rather than wait for an invoice, this button would be grayed out until ordering is complete, and would become active once the ordering phase is complete.

You might need to read up on PayPal API on how to generate invoices.

[norbauer]

OK, I can work on a web app. For the past couple of years I've been doing only static site generation (à la Jekyll). I haven't built a server-side web app in a few years. Previously I have used Rails, but this time I'll probably use ASP MVC, which I've never used before. (Needless to say, it'll take a few weeks.)

We can't invoice until the end of the GB because we don't know what price to invoice people until the final price tiers are determined. Writing a script to generated the invoices may be possible, but it'll probably be easier just to do it manually if it's less than, say, 100.

[norbauer]

I am also still waiting to hear back form MassDrop, FWIW. I got an email from support that they forwarded my message along to a bizdev guy.

[norbauer]

Another, probably considerably easier, btw, option would be retrofitting a Shopify store to take orders. I have been investigating this just now. It would involve more manual work, but building a full bespoke e-commerce application just to take some probably <100 orders may be overkill. If I do, we should take an open source approach and make it available to other GH group buys. People shouldn't have to be reinventing the wheel every time. I'll investigate more and report back.

[jdcarpe]

Matt3o was working on a kind of licensing agreement to use his GB software last I checked.

Also, codyeatworld aka hellocodes designed a nice interface for the Hyper Fuse GB.

And aggiejy had a nice setup for the Raindrop GB.

Maybe some of this will help, so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel as you said.

[MOZ]

I'll contact cody.

[norbauer]

I'll contact cody.

Cool. If he is willing to let us use his code and it's written in ASP, PHP, or Rails, I can provide hosting and probably customize the code for our purposes if necessary.

[MOZ]

See this: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=49634.msg1076457#msg1076457

Perhaps you want to get the colors even more correct?

[norbauer]

Hey Moz (et al), excellent news: I just heard back from MassDrop and they are willing to organize this GB for us!

I am still getting clarification from them on specific details, but they would handle hosting the GB site, the automated price tiers, and payment processing. They also said they would take care of "shipping" but I'm not sure whether this means to us in raw unsorted form or if they're proposing also sorting shipping directly to buyers. They said their fee for is 10-15%, which (in general terms) seems totally fair to me, depending on how the actual details shake out. I'll get back to you with clarifications and more specifics as soon as I have them.

I for one am very keen for us to take this route. I think it will be easier for everyone and will make things run much more smoothly. I recently bought something through MassDrop myself and found it to be a perfectly pleasant experience—they have a really great e-commerce set-up.

The guy I spoke to at MassDrop already has an existing relationship with Signature Plastics, btw, and he is familiar with the materials. He got a quote from SP of $4905 for making the doubleshot legend tooling, which I think is even better than what they quoted you, Moz, if I remember correctly. I would again need to confirm that the tooling in this case would remain GeekHack community property (I think we should insist on this).

Any thoughts so far?

[norbauer]

See this: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=49634.msg1076457#msg1076457

Perhaps you want to get the colors even more correct?

The tags that came with the color chips implied that custom colors would incur an additional charge. It even said they charge a stocking fee for normal SP colors from the standard ring colors can incur an additional cost if they're not in stock.

If we go with ABS, I am very comfortable with the colors. If it ends up being PBT, it might be worth asking if they can make us a better version of the orange color. The only trouble is that I don't own a Pantone chip set any more. I would have to track one of those down to borrow (they are quite expensive to buy new).

[LechnerDE]

Hey Moz (et al), excellent news: I just heard back from MassDrop and they are willing to organize this GB for us!

Wow this is awesome news. I think we can easily get the 10-15% extra fee back by reaching way more people and getting better tiers. This will make everything more convinient.

Let's hope this will be a nice kickoff to establish a relationship with Massdrop. Maybe through them we will be able to meet GMK MOQs in the future!!

[norbauer]

Hey Moz (et al), excellent news: I just heard back from MassDrop and they are willing to organize this GB for us!

Wow this is awesome news. I think we can easily get the 10-15% extra fee back by reaching way more people and getting better tiers. This will make everything more convinient.

Let's hope this will be a nice kickoff to establish a relationship with Massdrop. Maybe through them we will be able to meet GMK MOQs in the future!!

Totally. This sounds awesome to me! I just got some further details from MassDrop:

For this particular buy, they'll need to do a 15% fee. Here is what is covered in that:

-sorting of key caps into sets
-payment capture
-photography if we need any (doubtful since there's no sample to take pictures of)
-copy writing
-listing on Massdrop and all its price-tier infrastructure, etc.
-emailing the buy out to MassDrop members
-fulfillment fees (taking the bags of collated keycaps, tagging, and packing them into boxes),
-post buy support (finding and shipping out missing keys, etc).

Postage will be paid by individual buyers, but they get it at a huge discount since they have an Enterprise USPS account, and they pass those savings along to buyers.

That is quite a lot of work that they'd be taking care of for us. That would only add $12 on top of a set of keys that cost $80 to manufacture. And no individual GeekHack member has to take on the risk of handling all that money. Nor do buyers have to invest their trust in a private individual handling the money.

I for one think we should do this! What does everybody else think?

If we went with MassDrop, we could invest more effort in promoting the key set and finding more buyers rather than having to worry about all the grunt-work of logistics, payment processing, and fulfillment. So it could even end up costing all of us less!

[LechnerDE]

As stated above I am totally in favor of working with Massdrop. This could only help the mechanical keyboard community.

Imagine how many people get their newsletter. So many people are not even aware that custom keycap sets exist. They might get rejected by the price, but some might read further and become a keyboard enthusiast in the longterm

[acantha]

Haata, who periodically is on this forum, but can regularly be found in the irc room, has a contact at Massdrop. Might want to throw a PM his way to see if he'd be willing to do introductions.

[MOZ]

Legend fee is same.

I am all up for going with MassDrop.

Did you discuss the idea of the keyboard? Or just a wire keycap puller?

I would like for GH to own the tooling.

Hopefully they'll be flexible with the addons like we are, we would finalise these before the GB ofcourse, however have tiered pricing on the addons as well. I don't know how theybwould handle this with their current model, but I would like to know before hand.

[norbauer]

Legend fee is same.

I am all up for going with MassDrop.

Did you discuss the idea of the keyboard? Or just a wire keycap puller?

I would like for GH to own the tooling.

Hopefully they'll be flexible with the addons like we are, we would finalise these before the GB ofcourse, however have tiered pricing on the addons as well. I don't know how theybwould handle this with their current model, but I would like to know before hand.

Agreed. I will get answers and report back. They are definitely on board with there being different options for which sets people buy, as the MassDrop people mentioned the ErgoDox option to me (they do lots of ergodox buys), but I'll get clarification on how this works.

GH surely would be entitled to the tooling, but I have an email to them to confirm this currently.

[norbauer]

Oh, and re the keyboards, I was thinking we would stick with the plan of just offering a tutorial for people on how to buy their own keyboard and install the caps. I would bet MassDrop would be willing to help with this, or I don't mind to designing and hosting it myself.

nonetheless, I'll run the finished keyboard option by the mass drop folks and see what they say.

[MOZ]

They might be interested as they have done and have ongoing keyboard buys.

[jdcarpe]

Let's do this thing! Massdrop is the way to go for this one.

[MOZ]

Also I think the extra cost might cancel, or atleast make up for the minimal shipping cost.

[norbauer]

Moz and I have been going back forth with MassDrop and I have some updates. Everything is coming together nicely, it seems.

-MassDrop is going to be handling all logistics, payment processing, fulfillment, and post-sale support (for missing key caps, etc.) and adding a 15% supplement to the overall buy for their services. Shipping costs will be purchased by MassDrop at discounted rates and added on to the manufacturing costs plus MassDrop fee. If all goes well, this could be a model for future GH-Massdrop collaborations in future! They seem to have all the infrastructure in place for the kind of thing that is constantly being reinvented with every GB here on Geekhack, so this partnership has a lot of promise.

-There will be separate drops for each keyset (Core, Tenkey, Mods, and ErgoDox). This will allows us to get the best price tiers for each set.

-Timeline. Our plan is to launch the group buy within the next 2-3 weeks. I'm going to work on finalizing and double-checking the designs and on some promotional materials, and we'll work with Massdrop on nailing down the final order with Signature Plastics.

-The GH community is going to own the tooling, with the understanding that we'll make it available to pretty much anyone else who, in the interests of the keyboard enthusiast community, wants to use it for subsequent rounds or the basis of totally different designs. This includes the possibility of the Massdrop membership requesting subsequent rounds to be made without necessarily going through GeekHack. The idea is to keep things as free, open, and accessible as possible. This is a fan and community effort, and the idea is to get these into the hands of as many people as want them.

-We are going with ABS DS, for four reasons: 1) better, more screen-accurate, color matching, 2) crisper, more futuristic, legends, 3) tooling that will become GH community property, 4) better prices! Given the nature of this project, I think you guys are going to be really happy with ABS DS—it's a much better match for the aesthetic spirit and inspiration of this unique keyset. I love the feel of PBT myself, but this set is all about getting the look right, and ABS DS offers several advantages in this regard. There will be plenty of other opportunities for awesome PBT sets. We also need only look to the success of Retro DSA to see that ABS DS in this profile can be a fruitful combination.

-As seems to be a common practice for GBs on GH in the past, we're building a few extra keysets into the overhead of the overall buy. Three of these will be held by Moz to be reserved for later auction to benefit GH or other keyboard enthusiast community-related projects. And one keyset each will be assigned to Moz and me for our efforts in organizing and designing the keyset. I hope everyone is amenable to this. I for one am going to be buying quite a lot more sets, so I'll make up for it, I promise! 

Let me know if you guys have any questions or concerns. I'm really excited that this is really going to happen!

[Dansor]

Very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very cool.

[MOZ]

I verify all that norbauer has said.

Hopefully nobody has problems with us ordering the extra sets, Massdrop will adjust these into the production costs, so you need not worry about the calculations.

One thing norbauer forgot to mention is, he will also be compensated for the expenditures on fonts and color rings and these would be taken into costs for production.

[norbauer]

One thing norbauer forgot to mention is, he will also be compensated for the expenditures on fonts and color rings and these would be taken into costs for production.

<$125, as I recall. And (assuming it won't be happening all that terribly often) I'll of course be happy to "rent" these out for the cost of shipping to anyone else who is organizing a group buy and wants to check their color references.

[MOZ]

That's like a champ

[vierax]

hum… the poll results show a major preference for PBT Dyesub and blank sets. So I wonder what was the purpose of the poll ?

I'm not a Massdrop fan since the Ergodox and this 15% tip is not even going to a kb enthusiast vendor. I don't regret to be broke at this time and I hope this GB will have a Round2.

[norbauer]

hum… the poll results show a major preference for PBT Dyesub and blank sets. So I wonder what was the purpose of the poll ?

I'm not a Massdrop fan since the Ergodox and this 15% tip is not even going to a kb enthusiast vendor. I don't regret to be broke at this time and I hope this GB will have a Round2.

The purpose of the poll was to determine interest, and it showed marked interest in both the legended sets in either material, and helped us determine that there was little interests in blanks for this set. This was certainly news to me. Though PBT had a slight edge, if you look more closely, especially at the "would never buy" numbers, it is close to a wash. Combine that with the facts we learned about our technical options only after starting the poll, and I think the double shot decision seems like a sound one.

Say what you like about Massdrop being a business, but they've done more than most in terms of getting the ErgoDox into the hands of people who actually want one. If ErgoDox is ever going to have a shot at catching on, its going to be with the help of an organization like Massdrop. Logistics, payment processing, and fulfillment are all really time-consuming and just plain hard/annoying. The Massdrop model is all about serving communities of people who want cool or unusual stuff that would otherwise be hard or expensive to obtain. So I for one will not begrudge them their, frankly fairly modest, fee.

[Glod]

see this is something that gets to me,

I haven't had any problems with massdrop fulfilling orders and they seem like really good guys, but see i feel there is something wrong about them profiting off early-revision open source hardware and case design. I don't think the ErgoDox was meant to put put into "production"

If ErgoDox is ever going to have a shot at catching on, its going to be with the help of an organization like Massdrop. [...] people who want cool or unusual stuff

The question is if we really need custom key caps and the ergodox to "catch on", if that kind of attention is a good for geekhack. Its an open source hardware, not something that should be put into production. Its not a perfect board, its a not a production-ready board which pisses me off about massdrop now selling hundreds of these. Kinesis should have something good happening in the next few months or year that will satisfy people who want a pre-assembled production ergo board with a WARRANTY; they have been listening to feedback on geekhack and purchased the ergodox themselves which i imagine would lead to inspiration.

Is there a majority reached on geekhack that we want key cap sets to be mass produced on production boards? are we really reaching that point where we want to start competing with comercial vendors and offering warranties and ****? Will SP continue to offer the prices they do to small group buys if it reaches that level?

i would much rather see the LCARS set be set up like the rain drop or bunnylake sales, maybe with more sorting help though.

that's just my opinion i had to get out, feel free to rip me apart as you will i really dont care.

[MOZ]

All opinions are welcome, we are not cannibals to devour you here

[norbauer]

All opinions are welcome, we are not cannibals to devour you here

Agreed.

I'm a pragmatist. I'm just lazy, risk-averse, and want this set to be made, so I think Massdrop makes sense here.

I see the good intentions behind Glod's post. I just think when the availability of components to the enthusiast community is increased (rather than being subject to the fickle whims and timing of independently organized group buys), everybody benefits. There have been many group buys for keysets in the past that I desperately wish I could have gotten in on. If they had opened their designs up to something like Massdrop to make whenever there was enough demand, all it would take is a sufficient number of people signing up and wanting a set and it would be made virtually automatically. (How I wish that were true of many past Group Buys I can think of!) This is the whole idea of sharing and making things open, including open hardware like Ergodox.

It means you're losing some control for the other benefits, but in the end I think control as such isn't actually worth that much. When it's easier for hobbyists to get stuff that they want, the entire hobby benefits. Individuals can opt in or out as they see fit—they can vote with their wallets. Beyond self-congratulation, there is little advantage to being an exclusive club.

[BakerMan1971]

Lots of good points and opinions raised, in the end though someone will have to profit from making/distributing the keysets or they won't happen, open source or not.
if Massdrop are prepared to do all that nasty legwork of collecting orders/funds and then dealing directly with manufacturers then fair play to the fees, I wouldn't want to do all that for free either.

The end result is what I am looking for, which is an available lcars keyset for my keyboard, which I can buy and enjoy

[CPTBadAss]

Is the reason why we're going with Massdrop because we want to sell keyboards with this keycap set pre-installed?  Or are we just trying to find someone to handle all the logistics? I'm not following the train of thought in why we're going with Massdrop.

[LechnerDE]

Is the reason why we're going with Massdrop because we want to sell keyboards with this keycap set pre-installed?  Or are we just trying to find someone to handle all the logistics? I'm not following the train of thought in why we're going with Massdrop.

The original idea was to reach people outside of the keyboard enthusiast community, but I guess the "ready-to-use" LCARS keyboards won't be offered this time.

But anyway I think it's a good idea to establish a relationship with Massdrop. I assume we can negate the 15% extra costs by reaching higher tiers.

Maybe we can tackle nice GMK sets with Massdrop in the future. The MOQ of 400 doesn't seem too far away with so much exposure

[MOZ]

As LechnerDE explained, we are not pushing for the LCARS boards. That is completely upto MD.

We are going with them, to handle logistics, and primarily because we want to try and reach a larger audience with this set. Since it is related to something very popular mainstream, we might get good number for people onboard.

I feel the 15% fee would most likely cancel out if we hot larger numbers and he shipping fee as well, as MD has really good shipping prices.

It is an experiment, something new, let's see how it goes.

[SpAmRaY]

You guys need to find a keyboard vendor who will go along with this and offer a keyboard also so that way when all the trekkies see the key caps they can buy a board to go with them.

[MOZ]

Hmm. Makes sense ray, maybe we can discuss this with MD.

[norbauer]

Hey everybody, just a quick update here. I am working with Massdrop on the listings right now. For various technical reasons, the Massdrop folks think it will work best if we set up separate simultaneous listings for the different sets, so people can get the sets (and only the sets) that they want. This should also make it possible to get the best price tiers, since presumably more people will buy in if they just want to get a 87-key set or whatever and don't want to pay for the keys they won't use. Of course, all the drops will be prominently cross-linked, and this will all be explained in the listing pages.

Given the complexity of having four listings already, we're thinking rather than having even more listings and logistical complexity of selling keyboards with the keysets installed, at least for this first round, that it would just be simplest if we provide a little bit of guidance for keyboard n00bs on how to get a keyboard independently and install the keyset on it. We'll provide this info right in the listings under a "New to mechanical keyboards?" heading or something similar. I'm currently working with them on that text, and I'm also massaging the final designs to make sure everything is aligned perfectly and is pixel-perfect, as it were. (I'm not making any substantive changes to the colors or legends, hoewver.) I hope to have both finished by early next week, if not the end of this week, and will share the results here.

In short: things are proceeding nicely, and we should have more news in the coming days!

[MOZ]

woot!

[Glod]

so massdrop is going to carry the ergodox kit? and im guessing at a MOQ that we will be unable to obtain a good price?

[norbauer]

so massdrop is going to carry the ergodox kit? and im guessing at a MOQ that we will be unable to obtain a good price?

yes, all four of the sets. The tiers depend on who buys and how many, so it is hard to say. Massdrop does have a significant Ergodox contingent, so you might be pleasantly surprised though.

[LechnerDE]

Will there be an ISO kit as well?

Maybe it could be merged with the regular keysets:

2 extra keys for the Alpha set and 2 extra keys for the Mod set

[norbauer]

Will there be an ISO kit as well?

Maybe it could be merged with the regular keysets:

2 extra keys for the Alpha set and 2 extra keys for the Mod set

We could add this to the mods set easily. I am working on the final mockups right now.

moz: do you have CAD resources for ISO keys?

[LechnerDE]

Will there be an ISO kit as well?

Maybe it could be merged with the regular keysets:

2 extra keys for the Alpha set and 2 extra keys for the Mod set

We could add this to the mods set easily.

Sounds good! Thanks for not forgetting about us poor ISO guys 

[norbauer]

Will there be an ISO kit as well?

Maybe it could be merged with the regular keysets:

2 extra keys for the Alpha set and 2 extra keys for the Mod set

We could add this to the mods set easily.

Sounds good! Thanks for not forgetting about us poor ISO guys 

OK, I found ISO DSA CAD resources in this file from Moz. However, can somebody give me some instruction on what additional keys will be required (their sizes and legends)? I am familiar with the ISO enter key, but not so much the other differences. Thanks!