Quite a major update, so here goes;
Manufacturer:I was quite successful in finding vendors for majority of regions, however US proved to be difficult. Understandable a large majority of vendors are hesitant to take on GMK projects due to large backlogs of GMK sets that they're yet to receive, and as such would like to see these decrease before working with GMK more. For this reason I began exploring different options in terms of manufacturer/profile.
DCS was considered, I do quite like the profile, and the quality is a known factor. However Signature Plastic's timelines aren't really any better than GMK's at this stage, with many vendors experiencing similar queues. Two other options suggested were DCX and Keykobo. I decided to reach out to Keykobo for information and was offered a sample of an existing set they've run.
This sample arrived Monday and overall I was blown away by the quality, very much comparable to GMK's. These were the observations I reported to the vendors I have been working with:
- Dimensions are all identical to GMK's from my measurements; cap width, height, wall thickness and how high they sit on a switch are all the same.
- Caps seem to mount firmly on switches, no issue with looseness or being too tight. (I've personally heard about issues with JWK being slightly loose, however I can't really fault a keycap for JWK switches being different to Cherry when other manufacturers don't appear to have issues)
- Legend alignment appears to have no issues. A minor quirk on the '%' key, it looks a tiny bit squished.
- This set only included the 7u bar, but it's absolutely dead straight, no lift at all when checking for warp.
Based on the other vendor's reactions to the quality, especially for the price, we have decided to go ahead with Keykobo to manufacture this set.
Kitting:Due to this change in manufacturer it was decided that it would be best to merge the two kits into a single kit. Therefore the bars kit will no longer exist and will instead be included in the base kit.
I'm considering adding UK ISO as it's been heavily requested and won't affect pricing much at all really. This isn't quite decided yet however I will play around with the idea.
I will try to get permission from Cherry to include the Cherry novelty in this kit, however it remains to be seen if they will allow it. Fingers crossed.
Vendors:I'm happy to announce that vendors are all locked in now, Mekibo is joining and as such the vendor list will be:
OCE: Daily Clack
USA: Mekibo
CA: Apex Keyboards
EU: KEYGEM
UK: Proto[Typist]
SEA: Hex Keyboards
The only uncertainty is if MENA will have a dedicated vendor, Sandkeys is always welcome to run any project I work on but they will decide closer to the GB as to whether or not to join this one.
We are looking to run the Group Buy in late March if all goes well. Pricing to be confirmed soon.Any questions please drop a comment here or reach out to me on Discord
