[IC] GMK CYL Delta Round 2 - We need your feedback! (WS2 replacement color)

[NoPunIn10Did]

For the new Delta set, as long as everything uses this same new white plastic, it will probably be a great replacement.

I'm not 100% sure about it being a full replacement for WS2 moving forward, as I think there are going to be some who want that old-florescent-light-in-a-basement look.

Were there other candidates that maybe weren't quite as close in terms of delta-E, but still captured the hints of blue without using the problematic brighteners?

[Cringelord]

Left has a bluer tint which makes me think that's WS2.

I'd be interested to see some actual scientific measurement how much better the new colour is at resisting yellowing. Presumably some kind of elevated heat/UV light would be needed to get the data in a reasonable timeframe.

We're going to try some not super rigorous, but still scientific methods to test yellowing.

We bought a small UV lamp off amazon.
We have a metal mixing bowl.
We'll cover the top of the bowl with foil, and leave a little hole for the UV lamp to shine through.
We'll place WS2 and the new cap in the bowl with the UV light on
We'll take the samples out and take photos of them every 30 minutes for a few hours, then every hour for a few more hours until we have to go to sleep.

We can also try to measure delta EAB against some control samples.

No idea if this will replicate yellowing or work out well, but we're willing to sacrifice a few caps to at least try.


I've posted a link to the WS2 message on a few discords trying to get more feedback - once I have more feedback, I'll reveal which one is WS2

Finally someone addressing WS2 issues, really like cool tint white but designers have avoided it due to yellowing. My bleached sat in a carry case and yellowed, never really saw that much sunlight if that helps. I like to think I was my hands often so maybe UV and sweat are not the catalyst.

[twitchytheinsideman]

I also think that the left one is WS2 due to the blue tint. Hope I am wrong on this one.

[upas]

I think enough time has passed -
The one of the left is the new white.
The one on the right is WS2.

We really like the left white color, and we're going to go with that for GMK Delta R2!

We're currently undergoing UV testing of the caps - so far we're about 20 hours in and neither cap has shown signs of yellowing.
We'll continue to do more hours to try to see if we can get WS2 to yellow - but we're still going with the new color because we know that WS2 has yellowed in the past (not for us, but for others).
Interestingly, the caps do look quite different under direct UV lighting:

The WS2 cap "glows" whereas the new white does not. Under normal sunlight though, they look virtually indistinguishable imo.
(The #~key is WS2, the B key is the new white)

We'll try to get some photos showing the new white with the other delta colors up soon.

We are going to confirm with GMK shortly, and then set a group buy date!

[VXQN]

Nice! Looks like some pretty positive developments.

Anecdotally it seems that UV exposure is (sometimes) not the lead cause in plastic yellowing. There are plenty of people who have stored things in the dark for years, only to discover yellowing upon unboxing.

I think for WS2, the issue seems to be heat, or just general, hard to quantify "aging". There are pictures floating around of yellowing that's happened in the UK and god knows there's not much UV hitting the ground there.

What wavelength is the UV bulb tuned to? I presume a broad spectrum emitter (most of the UVA band, with maybe a bit of UVB?) would be required to get faster, more accurate data.

[upas]

Nice! Looks like some pretty positive developments.

Anecdotally it seems that UV exposure is (sometimes) not the lead cause in plastic yellowing. There are plenty of people who have stored things in the dark for years, only to discover yellowing upon unboxing.

I think for WS2, the issue seems to be heat, or just general, hard to quantify "aging". There are pictures floating around of yellowing that's happened in the UK and god knows there's not much UV hitting the ground there.

What wavelength is the UV bulb tuned to? I presume a broad spectrum emitter (most of the UVA band, with maybe a bit of UVB?) would be required to get faster, more accurate data.

That's a good call out - we aren't really testing heat, or aging - though our WS2 caps were from the original Delta run and are now quite old.
We do know that WS2 has yellowed - I've seen plenty of photos - so that's why we're going with the new white.

The UV bulb is LED based - so not broad spectrum.  It's 395nm @ 3W.

We should have a GB thread going up soon with a date!

[pixelpusher]

Left has a bluer tint which makes me think that's WS2.

I'd be interested to see some actual scientific measurement how much better the new colour is at resisting yellowing. Presumably some kind of elevated heat/UV light would be needed to get the data in a reasonable timeframe.

We're going to try some not super rigorous, but still scientific methods to test yellowing.

We bought a small UV lamp off amazon.
We have a metal mixing bowl.
We'll cover the top of the bowl with foil, and leave a little hole for the UV lamp to shine through.
We'll place WS2 and the new cap in the bowl with the UV light on
We'll take the samples out and take photos of them every 30 minutes for a few hours, then every hour for a few more hours until we have to go to sleep.

We can also try to measure delta EAB against some control samples.

No idea if this will replicate yellowing or work out well, but we're willing to sacrifice a few caps to at least try.


I've posted a link to the WS2 message on a few discords trying to get more feedback - once I have more feedback, I'll reveal which one is WS2

Also it could be EVA foam off-gassing that causes the yellowing.  I know I recently discovered my SWK Yang switches were very yellow after only a few months.  They had been in a keyboard case with foam.  Just a thought.  A lot of people store their keycaps in spaces with foam off-gassing.  IDK... throw a cap or two in a strong smelling case and check after a week?

[Piperaceae]

I've had switches yellow in sealed jars, stored in dark locations. I suspect off gassing plays a bigger role than we've suspected with certain types of plastic.

[DeathShadow]

Nice! Looks like some pretty positive developments.

Anecdotally it seems that UV exposure is (sometimes) not the lead cause in plastic yellowing. There are plenty of people who have stored things in the dark for years, only to discover yellowing upon unboxing.

I think for WS2, the issue seems to be heat, or just general, hard to quantify "aging". There are pictures floating around of yellowing that's happened in the UK and god knows there's not much UV hitting the ground there.

What wavelength is the UV bulb tuned to? I presume a broad spectrum emitter (most of the UVA band, with maybe a bit of UVB?) would be required to get faster, more accurate data.

That's a good call out - we aren't really testing heat, or aging - though our WS2 caps were from the original Delta run and are now quite old.
We do know that WS2 has yellowed - I've seen plenty of photos - so that's why we're going with the new white.

The UV bulb is LED based - so not broad spectrum.  It's 395nm @ 3W.

We should have a GB thread going up soon with a date!

Do you have an ETA already? Also will there be other vendors too?

[Rhienfo]

I think enough time has passed -
The one of the left is the new white.
The one on the right is WS2.

We really like the left white color, and we're going to go with that for GMK Delta R2!

We're currently undergoing UV testing of the caps - so far we're about 20 hours in and neither cap has shown signs of yellowing.
We'll continue to do more hours to try to see if we can get WS2 to yellow - but we're still going with the new color because we know that WS2 has yellowed in the past (not for us, but for others).
Interestingly, the caps do look quite different under direct UV lighting:

Show Image

The WS2 cap "glows" whereas the new white does not. Under normal sunlight though, they look virtually indistinguishable imo.
(The #~key is WS2, the B key is the new white)

We'll try to get some photos showing the new white with the other delta colors up soon.

We are going to confirm with GMK shortly, and then set a group buy date!

Guessed it  :cool:

Would be pretty embrassing if I didn't guess that, I have ws2 on hand lol

[upas]

Nice! Looks like some pretty positive developments.

Anecdotally it seems that UV exposure is (sometimes) not the lead cause in plastic yellowing. There are plenty of people who have stored things in the dark for years, only to discover yellowing upon unboxing.

I think for WS2, the issue seems to be heat, or just general, hard to quantify "aging". There are pictures floating around of yellowing that's happened in the UK and god knows there's not much UV hitting the ground there.

What wavelength is the UV bulb tuned to? I presume a broad spectrum emitter (most of the UVA band, with maybe a bit of UVB?) would be required to get faster, more accurate data.

That's a good call out - we aren't really testing heat, or aging - though our WS2 caps were from the original Delta run and are now quite old.
We do know that WS2 has yellowed - I've seen plenty of photos - so that's why we're going with the new white.

The UV bulb is LED based - so not broad spectrum.  It's 395nm @ 3W.

We should have a GB thread going up soon with a date!

Do you have an ETA already? Also will there be other vendors too?

We're in the process of reaching out to other vendors.
We hope to run this in August.

[upas]

Apologies for double post - but I think this is worth sharing.

GMK is establishing this new color as a stock color named "WS32"
Since it's so close to WS2, it's meant to replace WS2 (though I believe that WS2 will still be available for those who want it)

So if you have any other yellowed sets, ask the lead vendors for re-runs with WS32!

[upas]

I'm going to be starting a GB thread later today - but we're locked in for an August 1st GB!
Unfortunately, the Dark base kit did not have enough interest. In today's environment - we're choosing to go with just the light base kit.

Perhaps we can run the dark base kit as a separate GB, later (GMK Delta Dark)

The vendors are expected to be as follows, but subject to final confirmation:

US: CannonKeys
UK: ProtoTypist
EU: KEYGEM
CA: DeskHero
AU: KeebzNCables
KR: SwagKeys
SG: iLumKB
CN: zFrontier

We've asked all vendors to also price drop with us - but we are leaving it to each vendor to decide.

[Trackpoint]

Aww, really too bad about the dark base kit. Probably way too late to include at least an option for the Greek sublegends in white?

[dvorcol]

I'm going to be starting a GB thread later today - but we're locked in for an August 1st GB!

More

Unfortunately, the Dark base kit did not have enough interest. In today's environment - we're choosing to go with just the light base kit.

Perhaps we can run the dark base kit as a separate GB, later (GMK Delta Dark)

The vendors are expected to be as follows, but subject to final confirmation:

US: CannonKeys
UK: ProtoTypist
EU: KEYGEM
CA: DeskHero
AU: KeebzNCables
KR: SwagKeys
SG: iLumKB
CN: zFrontier

We've asked all vendors to also price drop with us - but we are leaving it to each vendor to decide.

Thank you for bringing price drops back. They were the original reason for keycap GBs, and why I started making order graphs.

I'd be happy to make graphs for GMK Delta R2 if you'd like. GLWGB!

[upas]

I'm going to be starting a GB thread later today - but we're locked in for an August 1st GB!

More

Unfortunately, the Dark base kit did not have enough interest. In today's environment - we're choosing to go with just the light base kit.

Perhaps we can run the dark base kit as a separate GB, later (GMK Delta Dark)

The vendors are expected to be as follows, but subject to final confirmation:

US: CannonKeys
UK: ProtoTypist
EU: KEYGEM
CA: DeskHero
AU: KeebzNCables
KR: SwagKeys
SG: iLumKB
CN: zFrontier

We've asked all vendors to also price drop with us - but we are leaving it to each vendor to decide.

Thank you for bringing price drops back. They were the original reason for keycap GBs, and why I started making order graphs.

I'd be happy to make graphs for GMK Delta R2 if you'd like. GLWGB!

Show Image

Sounds great! We'll be happy to share numbers - though we can't promise other vendors will be prompt, we'll try our best.

[upas]

I have an update on WS2 vs WS32 yellowing:

After keeping both caps in our DIY UV Light chamber for more than a week (380 hours total) we've finally been able to show that WS2 has indeed yellowed and WS32 did not.
The room we kept it in got pretty hot and also has rubber flooring, so between heat, UV light, and rubber floor off-gassing something definitely makes WS2 yellow.



Note that it's not like super yellow - but it's finally started yellowing somehow.

[dvorcol]

I have an update on WS2 vs WS32 yellowing:

After keeping both caps in our DIY UV Light chamber for more than a week (380 hours total) we've finally been able to show that WS2 has indeed yellowed and WS32 did not.
The room we kept it in got pretty hot and also has rubber flooring, so between heat, UV light, and rubber floor off-gassing something definitely makes WS2 yellow.

Show Image

Note that it's not like super yellow - but it's finally started yellowing somehow.

Can you add new-ish, non-tested WS2 & WS32 keycaps to the photo so we can see the difference?

[IOVERCALLHISTIOCYTES]

thats some nice even yellowing. if WS2 looked like that across ~87 keys Id use it still, but variation across caps stored in the dark and in light is really fairly variable.

[upas]

I have an update on WS2 vs WS32 yellowing:

After keeping both caps in our DIY UV Light chamber for more than a week (380 hours total) we've finally been able to show that WS2 has indeed yellowed and WS32 did not.
The room we kept it in got pretty hot and also has rubber flooring, so between heat, UV light, and rubber floor off-gassing something definitely makes WS2 yellow.

Show Image

Note that it's not like super yellow - but it's finally started yellowing somehow.

Can you add new-ish, non-tested WS2 & WS32 keycaps to the photo so we can see the difference?

Good call - here it is

[dvorcol]

I have an update on WS2 vs WS32 yellowing:

After keeping both caps in our DIY UV Light chamber for more than a week (380 hours total) we've finally been able to show that WS2 has indeed yellowed and WS32 did not.
The room we kept it in got pretty hot and also has rubber flooring, so between heat, UV light, and rubber floor off-gassing something definitely makes WS2 yellow.

Show Image

Note that it's not like super yellow - but it's finally started yellowing somehow.

Can you add new-ish, non-tested WS2 & WS32 keycaps to the photo so we can see the difference?

Good call - here it is

Show Image

Nice, looks like they are both performing as expected. Congratulations for finding a successful solution!