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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: Moogle Stiltzkin on Fri, 14 January 2011, 23:52:33

Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: Moogle Stiltzkin on Fri, 14 January 2011, 23:52:33: If your wondering what this thread is about, it's a compilation of my efforts to get the perfect doubleshot key set for my Ducky DK-9008 keyboard.

Originally i got White Rice's doubleshot set, but i ran across a few problems such as

1. no doubleshot window keys

2. no function media symboled double shot keys

3. no 4 extra media keys in double shots

4. white rice's spacebar was a bit too steep for comfort even after reclining the keyboard :X (ended up using the original Ducky pbt spacebar which was acceptable.)

My new goal: I want the old classic cherry white/beige theme with different fonts from Sixty's MO; and get a patch kit to make it fully compatible with it from 7bit's MO (e.g. ctrl, alt, windows, menu, spacebar; and hopefully some windowed keys for F9,10,f11). capslock, numlock and scroll lock i got from donor boards, but i will need Ripster's help to modify the capslock to center it to be compatible with the Ducky.

So anyway, if anyone hasn't been paying attention, 7bit has a poll for doubleshots by SP currently in progress.

He has available a F1-f7 with media symbols for Ducky and the 4media keys from the Ducky Dk-9008 on poll right now.

Quote
Symbols kit

* function-row media buttons for the Ducky
* media buttons for apple users, with and without F1-F12
* diamond, square, circle, triangle
* ... and some more symbol-keys, where the symbols count as text.

price: 10 USD

If anyone is interested, please private message or post in his thread so the kit will go through.

http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?t=13664

Using White Rice's doubleshot set, if you replace the F1-f7; you won't have the useful media symbols which are actually quite useful. Also the 4 media keys to the right are an eye sore when comparing to the better contrast doubleshots installed. Hence why 7bit's symbol kit is needed to rectify this issue.

Thanks :pray2:
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: Moogle Stiltzkin on Sat, 15 January 2011, 08:35:51: Quote from: 7bit;278960
Show Image
(http://pic.kbc-china.com/image/face/wsm//23.jpg)

Ducky kit
Show Image
(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=14852&stc=1&d=1295096116)

Color/font like old 1980/1990 Cherry key boards to match a modern Ducky 9008.

I set the price to $20 but might be cheaper, will get response from SP within the next week.

Please notice that texture, color and font might be a bit different.

Sixtys Double shot cherry key set can be bought here

http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?t=14240

(http://i.imgur.com/fxd0b.jpg)

(http://i.imgur.com/rKpFX.jpg)

The ultimate ducky dk-9008 key set =

Sixty's authentic Cherry beige/white keyset + 7bit's Ducky function with symbols + media keys + Sixty key patch for compatibility
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: Moogle Stiltzkin on Sat, 15 January 2011, 09:19:48: For the windowed keys, you can try buy or trade from someone with those old Cherry keyboards. For the F9,f10,f11 clickclack can make windowed doubleshot keys but without legends.

http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?t=14382
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: sixty on Sat, 15 January 2011, 10:06:49: I'm suggesting if you bother to make keys that look like 90s Cherry keys, you may as well make a capslock to safe yourself from the trouble of modding it.
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: Pylon on Sat, 15 January 2011, 10:38:39: What about dye sub? Should work with black on white.
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: 7bit on Sat, 15 January 2011, 11:12:20: Quote from: sixty;278989
i'm suggesting if you bother to make keys that look like 90s cherry keys, you may as well make a capslock to safe yourself from the trouble of modding it.

ack

ps: @ iMav: why does your PHP-script change my text?
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: sixty on Sat, 15 January 2011, 11:13:54: Quote from: Pylon;279001
What about dye sub? Should work with black on white.

dye sub with signature plastics costs about your first born son. its about three to four times as expensive as double shot.
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: bugfix on Sat, 15 January 2011, 11:17:07: Quote from: sixty;279015
dye sub with signature plastics costs about your first born son. its about three to four times as expensive as double shot.

I had always assumed double shot keys offered the highest quality / were the priciest.
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: Moogle Stiltzkin on Sat, 15 January 2011, 11:31:05: Quote from: 7bit;276223
I got a message from SP:

The good news is:
Yes, they can make keys with transparent sections.

The bad news is:
No, it can't be the Cherry-style window, and ...

If they have got a window:
Nope, they can't do them double shot, because ...

It would be tripple shot in fact, which SP had not yet invented. :-(

There are 2 options:
- Pad-printing the text (costly, bad quality)
- Window only.

The window could be any simple shape like a circle, square, rectangle and triangle.

3 of these symbols (circle, square, triangle) are very classic. These appeared on the legendary Space Cadet keyboard and also on the later Symbolics keyboards.

I will make a graphic of the Ducky layout with those key caps.

I still wait for the prices by the way....
.................................
... $3.85 each! (if produced 25, as always)

OK, forget it with the Symbolics-like shapes, here is a pic I just received (hope it is allowed to post here; did not ask)

Show Image
(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=14685&stc=1&d=1294691775)

As you can see, no Cherry-style window.

What would come closest, would be an upright rectangle at the bottom of the key-top (not shown here).

What a shame rally, they can't do them with double shot labels.

Alternatively, we can also get blank rectangle doubleshots from 7bits SP mo. There are other shapes like round or triangle, but i think the rectangle looks best. Bottom rectangle because the Ducky led is positioned bottom of course.

Quote from: sixty;278989
I'm suggesting if you bother to make keys that look like 90s Cherry keys, you may as well make a capslock to safe yourself from the trouble of modding it.

Yes i am pending a price quote from click clack. Even if it does end up being affordable, it will still be a blank windowed doubleshot. Also ripster said he might be able to mod the windowed Cherry key i'm already getting, so that may be preferable.

F9,f10,f11 i don't mind not having the legend, but the question is price :X

Quote from: Pylon;279001
What about dye sub? Should work with black on white.

Too expensive :X might be nice; but not worth it for me.
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: Pylon on Sat, 15 January 2011, 12:28:47: Maybe contact Unicomp? Or did they say no?
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: sixty on Sat, 15 January 2011, 14:38:04: Quote from: Pylon;279045
Maybe contact Unicomp? Or did they say no?

Unicomp dye-sub quality on custom prints is absolutely terrible. They do a great job on existing legends but new keys/legends are abysmally bad, faded and totally misaligned.
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: Pylon on Sat, 15 January 2011, 15:32:39: Quote from: ripster;279048
Windowed keys are kinda Old Skool once ClickClack starts shipping the clears.
Show Image
(http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5166/5357221129_fe34762e5a_z.jpg)

Is that a double (or triple) shot pool ball?
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: Airscrew on Mon, 17 January 2011, 03:37:43: I had been mulling over trying to order some double-shot replacements for the windowed keys, like Caps Lock. What I had in mind is that the key legend is made of the clear plastic, so when the function is activated the label Caps Lock would light up. I don't know how well it would work with the LED placement, particularly getting the label evenly illuminated. If the key-stem was made of the transparent material then it could be effective.

Also, I want a return key that says Return. Why is that the only key Ducky prints in italics?
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: Moogle Stiltzkin on Mon, 17 January 2011, 05:50:29: Ducky led is situated to the bottom.

Also you can see the light leaking from underneath the cap. The ducky cap is longer compared to the SP doubleshots, so it's more embeded into the key slot.

Anyway the led light option there are 4 i can think of.

option 1:

This is a proto type by click clack
(http://keyboardporn.com/files/gimgs/50_7.jpg)

option 2:

You can harvest these from old Cherry boards. I managed to get 3 from donor boards.

(http://keyboardporn.com/files/gimgs/41_9.jpg)

option 3:

Clickclack can make imitations of the option 2 keys, but without legends. No price mentioned yet.

Option 4:

7bit's Signature Plastic MO may be able to make doubleshot windowed keys without legends. It won't look like the Cherry, but it may be sufficient if you just want a better looking window key. Also i needed one that matched the white/beige of Sixty's doubleshot set to be used on my Ducky keyboard.

(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=14685&stc=1&d=1294691775)
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: laden3 on Mon, 17 January 2011, 06:34:15: If it's possible, I would like to buy some clear (ice) keycaps for all the keys with led underneath (caps lock, scroll lock, num lock)

clear doubleshots with legends if possible :biggrin:
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: Airscrew on Mon, 17 January 2011, 20:38:28: Thanks Moogle. Guess I'll have to scrap the illuminated legend idea.

Option 4, using the top left key might look okay. Since its already double-shot, there'd be no harm in also using the transparent material to make the label instead of having a blank key.
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: Moogle Stiltzkin on Wed, 19 January 2011, 07:24:24: @airscrew

I posted pictures and review here

http://geekhack.org/showpost.php?p=280961&postcount=31
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: itlnstln on Wed, 19 January 2011, 08:03:21: Quote from: ripster;279023
Like Topres. The highest price is not always the best in all circumstances.

OT, but this it is the case in countertops. Generally speaking, Silestone is cheaper than granite or Corian, but provides (arguably) the best countertop surface on the market.

Carry on.
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: pang0011 on Thu, 20 January 2011, 11:07:10: sounds great! Please count me in, if you're willing to accept order from far east. As I'm planning to buy a Ducky9008 white-on-white now, black keycaps would be better than beige color. Hope your plan will succeed.

the pics is from my friend
(http://i458.photobucket.com/albums/qq302/pang0011/1012240108c69754ceb8948652.jpg)
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: Moogle Stiltzkin on Thu, 20 January 2011, 16:14:39: @pang

Thanks bro.

Hm ... black doubleshots with white fonts. If you want that color, the only option is 7bit's doubleshot set. As for the ducky kit, you could try ask him if it's also available in black color to go with his full set. The ducky kit i'm getting is intended to go well with Sixty's beige/white key set.

For the ducky kit you can pm or post in 7bit's thread

http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?t=13664

PS: Sixty and 7bit both do international shipping.
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: digitalleftovers on Thu, 20 January 2011, 16:48:51: I don't want to totally derail, but as long as you are talking about replacing the windowed ducky keys, would these keys be compatible with the Leopold/archiss as well? They appear similar, but I don't know if they are compatible.
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: Moogle Stiltzkin on Thu, 20 January 2011, 17:54:22: Quote from: digitalleftovers;281939
I don't want to totally derail, but as long as you are talking about replacing the windowed ducky keys, would these keys be compatible with the Leopold/archiss as well? They appear similar, but I don't know if they are compatible.

I don't see why not.

But keep in mind from the options mentioned, it is uncertain whether we can get replacement windowed caps at this point.

If you did what i did and somehow managed to get numlock, scroll lock and caps lock windowed keys from a donor cherry board; you still need to modify the capslock to be compatible with the ducky by centering the stem. Since i don't have the modding skill for it, i'm sending it to Ripster to mod on my behalf.

As for F9, F10, F11 that depends on either 7bit or clickclack coming through.

At worse, you just stick to using the Ducky windowed keys. You can see from my pictures how that looks, and whether you can live with it. I personally rather not :/ which is why i've been going through all this trouble to rectify that.

PS: the small windowed keys should work, but as for the capslock i am unsure. The Leopold/archiss seem to have some oddities about it such as the spacebar being a different size. I am unsure whether the capslock is affected etc etc.
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: digitalleftovers on Thu, 20 January 2011, 22:50:00: I was worried about that (the stems being different). I want to pick up a leopold and mod it with some different colored caps. I'm hoping that once EK gets them, the market for a group buy should benefit all yee Ducky/Archiss/Leopold modders.
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: Moogle Stiltzkin on Fri, 21 January 2011, 01:30:06: If you intend to get a leopold/archiss then install doubleshots, i seriously advise you check 7bit's thread concerning the compatibility.

From what i read, the spacebar compatibility seems rather bleak. There might be other incompatibilities but i wasn't paying attention to what/if there anymore.
Title: Ducky double shot replacements. Support needed
Post by: Moogle Stiltzkin on Fri, 21 January 2011, 15:28:15: The ducky kit got dropped :{ not enough takers unfortunately.