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Off Topic / Grown up culture.
« Last post by tp4tissue on Wed, 29 April 2026, 06:18:30 »
Adults have made drinking neurotoxins the main sport and cornerstone of social polity. Inescapable, multiple times a week sometimes twice a day. Is it reaaaaaly any wonder that the ruling class is filled by brain malfunction?

It's not any 1 instance of neurotoxin, it's the culmination of years of poisoning under social duress.

We're in the tubes now.

The youths may need to revolt, but most likely they will ready to fill the trenches.
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Keyboard Keycaps / Re: LARD keycaps: A breakthrough in DIY lettering
« Last post by Hak Foo on Wed, 29 April 2026, 01:15:00 »
I've done a few more rounds, and some further insight:

* Perfect focus may be suboptimal-- at least with this 'raster' laser-- you can see the lines between rows with some burns, but if you slightly defocus the laser, it disappears.  Ramping up the burn time might help too, as that likely provides enough heat to expand the area ablated.  Someone with a more professional laser might have some interesting research options.

* The dye reproducibility is poor.  Dump 20 identical caps into the same batch, and some will come out notably lighter.  It seems to be very prone to "dark touch surface, lighter sides" effects too, making the caps look sort of like cheap no-name "five side dyesub" sets.  Maybe a longer dye soak or a more precise dying process could help to "fill out" the colour, but I worry there might be a point where the dye "overpowers" and you end up shooting past the expected colour, or just seeps in deep enough that it can no longer be reliably ablated.

* The level of laser output required for a good burn through varies *hugely* depending on the keycap stock and dyes.  Some require just 10-12ms (and seemingly, they're really prone to smelling awful as it engraves) while others require 40-60ms.  Overburning sometimes results in worse results-- probably charring the underlying material, or grunging up the texture  It seemed like for some caps, you'd even see different performance from top-row versus other rows, or modifiers (maybe they were manufactured differently even if they came in the same bag).  After some sacrificial effort, I've ended up putting the extras in bags marked with notes to improve reproducibly.

* Front legends are an option here, if you can find a good jig to mount the cap.  Since I have a regular keyswitch mounted to my engraver, I mount a sacrificial cap to that, and use masking tape to attach the one I want facing front to one side.

* Beyond a certain point, running two burns of shorter duration-- like two burns at 20ms-- may produce cleaner results than one longer shot.  This seems to produce a less ragged edge.  Again, part of the experimental cycle.

* The melamine sponge does help to an extent in that it adds a matte factor to the overall cap surface that reduces "competition" for the contrast of the engraved characters.  Some caps have a prominent grain that "sparkles" and reduces contrast.

* Dying over a non-white stock cap works to an extent, but you have to expect even lower contrast.  It's never as good as doubleshot and that's even worse.

* The engraver mechanism may have resonance vulnerabilities.  I found I had a lot of issues with an uppercase "M" getting distorted even after several runs-- I suspect that it was jerking the engraver head in just the right way it keep it out of alignment when the next pixel was due.  This smells like a part working loose, and the whole thing is held together with the one size of Allen bolt that I don't have a driver for. :P

I suspect this mostly fits in a narrow economic niche.

For a full set, a proper dyesub offering like Yuzu is probably better.  Yes, if you've got the process down, you could buy a $20 set of PBT blanks and a $10 worth of Rit and produce a more-or-less workable output, but the results will be B-tier and it requires a lot of handholding and tweaking.

But if you need a specific mix of rows and profiles that's widely off from what's available in vendor catalogs-- like the 25 nonstandard caps in my 130% design-- ordering from a custom service may be uneconomical-- you might have to either overbuy to get the desired coverage or buy a bunch of individual caps at $3-5 each.  Similarly, it might be interesting for things like meetup souvenirs where you could bring the engraver and make caps on demand.  If you had a solid supply chain and a good way to vent the fumes :)
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Off Topic / Re: What are you watching? The thread about what you're watching.
« Last post by noisyturtle on Wed, 29 April 2026, 00:07:03 »
Rewatching The Office.
It really isn't worth watching past season 7. After Michael leaves, it is all downhill.
There are a handful of standout episodes in season 8, but season 9 is trash.

Andy is by far the worst character on the show(imo). Such a selfish, idiotic, kiss ass, man-baby piece of ****.
I mean, there are characters I don't like but are played well, like Nelly and Robert California, but Andy is just such a ****ing piece of ****.
He is right up there with Peggy Hill as one of my least liked television characters of all-time.

Also, I feel like they messed up with RC's arc. Instead of 'normalizing' him and just exposing him as a sex freak, they should've leaned into his weirdness and mystique a la Creed Bratton.
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Off Topic / Re: Best mug design
« Last post by tp4tissue on Tue, 28 April 2026, 21:45:55 »
It makes one wonder. Does the ideal tea exist at a constant temperature, or is the flavor an ever moving // evolving construct as the tea cools.
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Off Topic / Re: What's Bothering You? (The thread about what is bothering you.)
« Last post by tp4tissue on Tue, 28 April 2026, 21:43:36 »
Entering gang territory tomorrow. It was nice knowing such fellow hughmahns..
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Interest Checks / Re: [IC] GMK Zero Sugar - 4/15 update
« Last post by dvorcol on Tue, 28 April 2026, 20:01:08 »
Any chance for a blue alpha set matching the mods? I love the blue on white contrast!

If there is enough interest in it, it's a possibility!
I'll throw my vote in for that as well :)

i originally wanted to keep the blue to a minimum due to the can only have a little bit of it in there but once i look through the feedback i can see possibly adding that as an extra kit?

Are possible Alt Alphas just blue legends instead of metallic grey? Or are you thinking about accent alphas?

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Keyboards / Re: What layout and switch do you use and why?
« Last post by Afterburne on Tue, 28 April 2026, 18:32:25 »
I am new to the hobby, but I have used commercial "ergonomic" keyboards for the last 25 years or so. Namely the Microsoft Natural keyboard. At any rate, since discovering the mechanical keyboard world I have tried 2 Alice style boards. A Keychron Q10 Max and a NEO Ergo. I bounce between the two trying to figure out what I like the best. I also have on order a QK Duo (I ordered it just a day or so before the discontinued stock ran out).

The MS keyboard was obviously membrane and it was tactile and required quite a bit of force - more than the 63.5 gram linear switches I am using at the moment. I am trying both tactile and linear switches that are heavier since that is what I am used to. I am using Gateron Jupiter brown tactile and KeyGeek Briny linear.

We will see what I eventually end up with.
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Interest Checks / Re: [IC] Ursus - Symmetrical wkl 65%
« Last post by Xanira on Tue, 28 April 2026, 17:34:21 »
How is the EC PCB coming along?  :)

It has been on the back burner for a little while, but I'm hoping and expecting to have it ready for the public group buy
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Interest Checks / Re: [IC] GMK Zero Sugar - 4/15 update
« Last post by Keyboard_Dad on Tue, 28 April 2026, 11:38:05 »
i originally wanted to keep the blue to a minimum due to the can only have a little bit of it in there but once i look through the feedback i can see possibly adding that as an extra kit?
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