[IC] switchTop Chupacabra PBT

[switchTopKB]

“The Chupacabra comes at night and kills our chickens,” the woman said.

“Not a drop of blood is left.”

“El Chupacabra? Are you sure it couldn’t be a coyote or something? Many times these turn out to be sick dogs.” 

“Not possible. Not with horns like that.”

“Let’s get a sample,” I sighed.

I unpacked my DNA test kit as she led me back to the chicken coop.

When a coyote attacks a chicken it’s chaos - blood and feathers everywhere.

But there was none of that here.

The chicken bodies were arranged on the earth almost thoughtfully.

I crushed out my cigarette and picked up a stiff hen.

On its neck was a small bare patch with two delicate fang marks.

I dropped the bird.

“Señor?” the woman asked, turning.

But I was already halfway back to the truck.





Hello,

This is Will from switchTop Keyboards.

I am pumped to share with you our very first keycap set:


switchTop Chupacabra

This Cherry profile, PBT dye sub set is inspired by the Chupacabra (“goat sucker”), a legendary beast known to prey on livestock and occasionally their owners in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Texas.

The set’s colorway is inspired by Mexico’s Día de Muertos celebration.



The ESC key contains a stylized Chupacabra skull, and the ENTER key features a triple skull, building on the underworld motif.

This keyset is the first in our MYTHOS series, which draws inspiration from legendary creatures, old and new.

We have refined this set using our internal beta testing group and are now moving to the IC stage.

Our price target is $50-60.

If you would like to reserve your set from our limited run or provide more detailed feedback please visit the:

==> IC FORM <==

I also encourage you to read our Keycap Manifesto for more background on our design process and the decisions behind this set.

• Renders (imgur)

Questions? Comments?  Please use the comments section below.

You can also find us on Twitter, Instagram, or direct to shop@switchtop.com

[treeleaf64]

Since you have not listed the manufacturer can you tell me what it will look like in person. do you have any prototype keyset or do you have any keycap samples

[MPKVR]

Looks awesome!

[nasp]

So are you taking feedback or checking interest? If not, shouldn't this be in the GB forum?

[Baka Bot]

Might i suggest having a base kit that supports most common form factors and layouts?

[Flazion]

Since you have not listed the manufacturer can you tell me what it will look like in person. do you have any prototype keyset or do you have any keycap samples

After reading the manifesto, my guess would be Geekark.

[Fraaaan]

This is an embarrassing base kit, no other way of putting it. The compatibility just isn't there. It doesn't even have 7u bottom row support. Open up other interest checks on the site and compare your kitting to others. Also, the fact that you have a target ship date tells me you probably aren't interested in making any changes to the set.

This IC reflects your standards. I'm immediately uninterested in this set or any of your work after I've seen how much effort was put into the kitting.

Best of luck.

[MIGHTY CHICKEN]

This needs work, base kit is a mess

[dededecline]

I think your "internal beta test group" has some selection bias based on the kitting here

We have recruited a group of 10 beta testers from our email list of previous buyers to help us select the right manufacturer, refine our designs, and make trade-off decisions.

If the only people you're getting feedback from are the people already buying from you, don't be surprised when there aren't many new customers.

[Rumblethumps]

After reading your manifesto, I think it's cool that you want to switch up the current keycap design/group buy process, but picking a select group of beta testers to give most of your feedback is pretty strange. Even if they weren't already previous customers of yours, 10 people is a pretty small group to collect feedback from.

It makes me wonder just how much input you're actually willing to take from the IC form, or if any suggestions that are made through the form actually get considered. Especially if you want the set to be "as close to final as possible" by the time it hits IC...That sort of raises some questions about what the purpose of an IC really is, in this case.

[switchTopKB]

Since you have not listed the manufacturer can you tell me what it will look like in person. do you have any prototype keyset or do you have any keycap samples

Our main goal for this set is to produce a series of designs that is affordable and with a fast turnaround time (weeks not quarters).

So we first filtered by cost and turnaround time - which ruled out many of the usual manufacturers in the community.

We put out a call to every factory we could find that did keycaps.

Then we narrowed down to 4 candidates from which we ordered samples (one was a prototype of our design, the other 3 were of  caps they had on hand of similar complexity).

When the caps arrived, I split them into baggies and shipped them to our 10 beta testers.  One factory was a clear standout on production quality while also coming in around our desired price point. This was NOT the factory we ordered Chupacabra - it was a different one.

I am happy to share images of these sample caps if you think it would be helpful.

One other point on quality: we are not asking anyone to pay up front and hope the quality turns out good.  We are bearing all the financial risk.  If we go ahead and place the order we will of course put images of the actual caps. 

Does this answer your question?

[switchTopKB]

So are you taking feedback or checking interest? If not, shouldn't this be in the GB forum?

Yes, we are taking feedback and open to making changes. That is why we ask for design and kitting feedback in the google form. 


A frequent complaint I see on keycap design forums is that sets are posted to IC before they are ready. That is why we spent a lot of time and energy refining the set with our beta testers and designer to make tweaks before posting here. 


Obviously it would be great if we are inundated with positive feedback. But another good outcome would be knowing that the kit sucks so we can kill it or change before spending money to produce it since we are taking all the financial risk and not asking for money before production.


This is our first Geekhack IC so if we are violating a written or unwritten rule, please let me know - not my intention at all. 

[switchTopKB]

Might i suggest having a base kit that supports most common form factors and layouts?

Yes, I am aware that our base kit is limited compared with most ICs posted here and was expecting some negative feedback about this.

We were faced with manufacturer's packaging constraints.  In order to produce a more compatible set we would have had to pay for a custom packaging to be made, which would double the cost.

Interestingly, the cost for the extra plastic and labor to make the caps is pretty minimal. We even had a more compatible set designed before deciding to try the minimal route.

As I mentioned in a different comment, we decided to go with this factory because all our testers loved the quality but then faced this trade off with the kitting...


What we are trying to do is "bootstrap" the money to produce more compatible sets by launching an initial first few sets that will be used to fund the package tooling.

So if you love the design, but would not buy due to the limited compatibility - PLEASE tell us this in the google form.

One outcome of this that we are totally open to is trying to find a different factory that will produce the more compatible set.

[switchTopKB]

Since you have not listed the manufacturer can you tell me what it will look like in person. do you have any prototype keyset or do you have any keycap samples

After reading the manifesto, my guess would be Geekark.

It's not them  


But I will check them out.  Are they good?


They did not pop up in our initial search for other MFRs.

[switchTopKB]

This is an embarrassing base kit, no other way of putting it. The compatibility just isn't there. It doesn't even have 7u bottom row support. Open up other interest checks on the site and compare your kitting to others. Also, the fact that you have a target ship date tells me you probably aren't interested in making any changes to the set.

This IC reflects your standards. I'm immediately uninterested in this set or any of your work after I've seen how much effort was put into the kitting.

Best of luck.

I am sorry, @Fraaaan, for failing to meet your standards and bringing shame on our company.[size=78%] [/size]


The limited compatibility is driven by a desire to come in at a mid 2 figure price point. And we are trying to bootstrap cash to do more compatible sets with this manufacturer because it was the clear favorite on quality.

[switchTopKB]

This needs work, base kit is a mess

We've got other designs up our sleeve if this one isn't your cup of tea

[MIGHTY CHICKEN]

The limited compatibility is driven by a desire to come in at a mid 2 figure price point. And we are trying to bootstrap cash to do more compatible sets with this manufacturer because it was the clear favorite on quality.

I don't see how a few extra keys will cost that much, what is this price point you are reaching for? Even dirt-cheap 20 dollar clones have more compatibility than this, you need proper 7u
other nav keys, etc.

[switchTopKB]

The limited compatibility is driven by a desire to come in at a mid 2 figure price point. And we are trying to bootstrap cash to do more compatible sets with this manufacturer because it was the clear favorite on quality.

I don't see how a few extra keys will cost that much, what is this price point you are reaching for? Even dirt-cheap 20 dollar clones have more compatibility than this, you need proper 7u
other nav keys, etc.

As I mentioned in a different response, it was not the marginal cost of the plastic but rather the packaging that increased the price.


What do you think of the design?  Would you be a buyer if we produced this layout?

[MIGHTY CHICKEN]

Some immediate things I spot, don't force accents or force the novs, you can remove the 2nd 1.75u ****, remove the 2nd 1.25u menu, need f13, a lot more stuff that needs changing in terms of base

[Cylent]

After reading through this gh thread and thinking about it for a little bit, my question is: did you review other gh posts or IC posts on other forums like reddit? You say you want this IC to be as close to finished as possible, in which case, uhhh good luck I guess?

[FishyKeebs]

other than the issues others have mentioned, I might consider this or other colorways you said you want to work on as an affordable and fast lead time keycap line IF the mods were icon mods or at least icon+text.  At least to me, the all text mods look awful, but again thats my opinion

Also, what manufacturer? $50-60 is pretty ambitious

[see]

Also, what manufacturer? $50-60 is pretty ambitious

You'd be surprised at what you can get for $50-60 if you buy in bulk I think (considering stuff like Geekark pricing in China)

Kitting needs work. Colorway is a bit piercing on the eyes IMO. But if packaging alone doubles the price then deal away with the packaging. The manu probably has trays, just ship in more of those and in generic cardboard boxes. That should never double your cost.

[Ella]

deez nuts

[ダbruh]

I don't see the connection between el chupacabras y el día de muertos i guess Mexico?

[henrix]

this set looks good, but I would love to see enter and escape keys with normal legends included as i'm not a huge fan of keys with non-functional graphics. Besides that, the color scheme and overall aesthetics are something i'm interested in.

As a side note, hard agree with other users on layout issues - would it not be possible to just include the extra keys in a separate bag of some sort, as opposed to entirely new packaging?

[Zetina]

As a Mexican I can tell you Dia de muertos and the Chupacabras aren´t related at all please at least inform yourself a little bit about the culture before doing a set.

[Zetina]

And also it´s a mexican set but there is no ñ

[novelflyer]

As a Mexican, chupacabras and Día de muertos are not the same thing, they are too different and I feel that this is not ok. Like the other comment said, please take time to investigate about Mexican culture instead of doing this type of ICs

[caghuama]

Is this a joke? Chupacabras its not even related to Día de muertos, please do your research about the Mexican Culture before you say something like this 

[treeleaf64]

As a Mexican I can tell you Dia de muertos and the Chupacabras aren´t related at all please at least inform yourself a little bit about the culture before doing a set.

As a Mexican, chupacabras and Día de muertos are not the same thing, they are too different and I feel that this is not ok. Like the other comment said, please take time to investigate about Mexican culture instead of doing this type of ICs

I don't see the connection between el chupacabras y el día de muertos i guess Mexico?

Is this a joke? Chupacabras its not even related to Día de muertos, please do your research about the Mexican Culture before you say something like this 

agree