I understand the doubleshot part because you get infinite wear and the keycaps feel more solid. But why are they all ABS? Is it because sourcing is harder for PBT or POM or is it because the majority of people actually want ABS material? Or is it a price thing?
I am just surprised to see so many ABS GBs when I see a lot of people on here who prefer PBT.
Can anyone enlighten me?
I believe a lot of this has to do with color selection, for a few reasons.
1. PBT does not like to doubleshot due to this particular plastic having a very large thermal expansion coefficient. In English, it shrinks a lot when it cools down making it a pain to do doubleshots with.
2. A lot of people like accent colors on mods and the two vertical columns of keys on the left and right side of the alphanumerics. The common solution for this most of the time is to just reverse the colors. This can't usually be done with PBT because of the dark legend on light colored cap restriction. This can be circumvented by doing what is usually called a negative dyesub where the entire cap is dyesubbed and leaving the legend the color of untainted plastic.
3. PBT is also very difficult to make space bars with because of the shrinkage during cooling will warp the cap. Sometimes to the point where it won't be able to be mounted onto a keyboard without fixing at home. There are a couple methods that I have heard of for this though. One involves hot water and the other involves a good hair dryer. Both involve a book to hold flat during the cooling process though.
4. This is purely speculation though but i believe that PBT may be more expensive of a raw material thus making finished products more expensive.
For what its worth I would love to see more PBT GB's though through. I would love to see some with negative dyesubbed mods to reverse colors as well. Although I am not sure how many manufacturers that we use have that capability. However, if you are really wanting something in PBT you should get in touch with imsto. He is from overseas but does a ton for the forums and the keyboard community in general in regards to PBT caps.
If I have anything wrong here guys please correct me.
Melvang
