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geekhack Community => Reviews => Topic started by: neverlast74 on Thu, 21 August 2014, 11:53:15
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Review of the custom WASD Keycaps bought from WASDkeyboard
http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/products/keycap-set/105-key-iso-cherry-mx-keycap-set.html
I bought a custom set of key caps German ISO 105 from WASDkeyboard for a Zowie Celeritas
Observations:
- Took (only) 12 days from placing the order +shipping from US to Europe
- Space bar does not fit (not their fault Zoewie seems to have a special Space bar)
- There is a keypuller included and you need one as sit firmly on my MX browns...
- Caps are made out of an OK quality
- Caps have a cross around the stem so O-ring mod is easily doable
- red caps are red but with an orange touch (I find this ugly & wont use it) --> http://imgur.com/tzaBjpm
http://imgur.com/sTSNywB
....... I put in a couple of red items on the photo so you see the difference
- blue caps are also different than the blue I expected
- 2 Keys have the wrong color (long shift should be red -but is grey, and one numblock is grey instead of black)
Cost: 50 USD + 15 Shipping
*Update: They offered me to send me the right caps PLUS a different color for the reds I do not like - so very nice from them*
** UPDATE 2: the package with the "right" caps never made it to me - it was sent to the wrong address.
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Great service here Friends come to try though.
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Will likely be using this for a colemak 60% set shortly.
My colours will be neutral so I'm not too concerned with orangey reds.
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WASD keycaps offer a level of customization that no one else on the market can. It has a lot of value because they bring something new: availability, customization and an affordable price.
However from my experience their keycaps are not OK quality, they are somewhat low. Only after a couple of months my keycaps looked like they had been scratched a lot. They were losing their coating or something, it had never happened to me before. This was of course an incentive to adquire new PBT keycaps and dye them as I wished. Almost as affordable and much better quality.
Source 1 (https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-inCqZf9uwZU/VEqr0wJ6IVI/AAAAAAAACLM/iJ69emb2HTI/w2149-h1225-no/IMG_20141024_204251.jpg) Source 2 (https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Z9e_bEDLfYw/VEqrya4EDsI/AAAAAAAACLU/rDO4Gjt8n5s/w2149-h1225-no/IMG_20141024_204230.jpg)
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WASD keycaps offer a level of customization that no one else on the market can. It has a lot of value because they bring something new: availability, customization and an affordable price.
However from my experience their keycaps are not OK quality, they are somewhat low. Only after a couple of months my keycaps looked like they had been scratched a lot. They were losing their coating or something, it had never happened to me before. This was of course an incentive to adquire new PBT keycaps and dye them as I wished. Almost as affordable and much better quality.
Source 1 (https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-inCqZf9uwZU/VEqr0wJ6IVI/AAAAAAAACLM/iJ69emb2HTI/w2149-h1225-no/IMG_20141024_204251.jpg) Source 2 (https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Z9e_bEDLfYw/VEqrya4EDsI/AAAAAAAACLU/rDO4Gjt8n5s/w2149-h1225-no/IMG_20141024_204230.jpg)
How do you dye your own PBT keycap legends?
I wonder if it is so easy and comparable in price, why wouldn't WASD offer that as an option?
From my understanding, making PBT keycaps was only done by a few specialized plastic companies, and mostly overseas, and mostly only in large batches.
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How do you dye your own PBT keycap legends?
I wonder if it is so easy and comparable in price, why wouldn't WASD offer that as an option?
From my understanding, making PBT keycaps was only done by a few specialized plastic companies, and mostly overseas, and mostly only in large batches.
Here's a picture guide on how to dye your own caps, keep in mind you won't be able to do legends and really only blanks of a certain color you want to achieve.
http://imgur.com/a/P6RHv
Probably because they don't have the machines or tools to do dyesubbing so they'd really only be able to do blanks which SP already has but with colored PBT instead of dyed.
making blank PBT caps themselves isn't hard but making them with legends is.
You can get a thin PBT keyset for as low as $20 on Banggood
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Sweet I wonder what making legends with dyesubbing involves.
I thought it would just be as easy as masking off the legend onto the keycap, adding the chemical that dye's the key, and then exposing it to UV or whatever activates it, and then maybe adding a coating.