Author Topic: Blank, translucent keycaps in Europe?  (Read 6399 times)

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Offline kernel_panic

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Blank, translucent keycaps in Europe?
« on: Sun, 19 June 2016, 06:49:32 »
Hi everyone!

My first post here, though I've been reading the forum since a couple of years by now. I bought a Ducky Shine 4 about a year ago after reading a lot here, and I've been looking for a translucent keyset in Europe. I wanted a (ISO) spanish dvorak set ("H" and "R" are switched regarding the english dvorak, and the "Ñ" is added in the position of ">"), but it was almost impossible to find it, so I gave up and started searching a blank, translucent one. However, every blank set I find is a full set (105 or 88 keys), but I only need the letter caps, I don't need nor want the rest of the caps.

Could someone point me in the right direction? Thanks in advance :D

Offline xtrafrood

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Re: Blank, translucent keycaps in Europe?
« Reply #1 on: Sun, 19 June 2016, 08:55:21 »
Well, if you can buy stuff from the US you could possibly order some DIY legend keycaps from Signature Plastics

A good example of those keycaps - https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=82868.msg2199892#msg2199892
(sold) Chris Schammert (Christopher Schammert)

Offline kernel_panic

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Re: Blank, translucent keycaps in Europe?
« Reply #2 on: Sun, 19 June 2016, 10:31:05 »
Thanks for your reply! Yes, I've been looking at Pimp My Keyboard a lot of times, the problem is that shipping to Europe is pretty expensive. Also, buying 30 individual keycaps seem to cost a lot, though I've never bought keycaps and I don't even know if the set I'm looking for exists...

Offline suicidal_orange

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Re: Blank, translucent keycaps in Europe?
« Reply #3 on: Sun, 19 June 2016, 11:17:01 »
Yeah direct from SP is expensive and you'll probably get hit for customs on top of that, ISO-UK is hard enough to get let alone Spanish and adding dvorak to that I think it's safe to say you're not going to find what you want.

When it comes to blanks but that usually means either DSA or G20 (all caps the same height, would look and feel weird with your current mods) or thick PBT caps which aren't going to be translucent, and you'll probably have to buy a whole set...
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Offline kernel_panic

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Re: Blank, translucent keycaps in Europe?
« Reply #4 on: Sun, 19 June 2016, 13:30:32 »
Yeah direct from SP is expensive and you'll probably get hit for customs on top of that, ISO-UK is hard enough to get let alone Spanish and adding dvorak to that I think it's safe to say you're not going to find what you want.

When it comes to blanks but that usually means either DSA or G20 (all caps the same height, would look and feel weird with your current mods) or thick PBT caps which aren't going to be translucent, and you'll probably have to buy a whole set...

Thanks for your help suicidal_orange :D
Yes, I assumed that I wouldn't find a Spanish Dvorak keyset anywhere, but I asked just in case. I don't care anyway, I never look at the labels so I started looking for blank, translucent keycaps. From what I've learned, my ducky shine 4 has a DCS keyset, so I'd need that kind of caps. The most close I was to find them was this link:
http://pimpmykeyboard.com/dcs-translucent-1-space-keys-sold-individually/
But... they're 2 bucks each cap, I need 30, plus the shipping to Spain... It would  be more expensive than a complete keyset, I think. I could buy opaque caps, but it would be a shame to waste the LED capability. I've also seen an opaque keycap that has a little translucent dot or square, but I can't find a pic just now. I guess those ones would solve the problem too.

Offline suicidal_orange

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Re: Blank, translucent keycaps in Europe?
« Reply #5 on: Sun, 19 June 2016, 13:39:55 »
Ducky are actually OEM profile which is similar to DCS but not identical.  This pic by jacobolous shows lots of keycaps to compare:



If you do go for DCS it's cheaper to but a 60% set of these than 30 individual caps - hope you like red or blue!
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Offline kernel_panic

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Re: Blank, translucent keycaps in Europe?
« Reply #6 on: Sun, 19 June 2016, 14:16:31 »
Ducky are actually OEM profile which is similar to DCS but not identical.  This pic by jacobolous shows lots of keycaps to compare:

If you do go for DCS it's cheaper to but a 60% set of these than 30 individual caps - hope you like red or blue!

Yes, I was looking for a blue keyset, actually :D
Thanks for your help!

Offline Findecanor

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Re: Blank, translucent keycaps in Europe?
« Reply #7 on: Sun, 19 June 2016, 14:24:41 »
Ducky are actually OEM profile which is similar to DCS but not identical.  This pic by jacobolous shows lots of keycaps to compare:
Huh? DCS is more similar to Cherry profile. OEM profile is higher than both.
The biggest difference between DCS and Cherry is that the angle of the two bottom rows is more acute on DCS.
🍉

Offline suicidal_orange

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Re: Blank, translucent keycaps in Europe?
« Reply #8 on: Sun, 19 June 2016, 17:39:44 »
Ducky are actually OEM profile which is similar to DCS but not identical.  This pic by jacobolous shows lots of keycaps to compare:
Huh? DCS is more similar to Cherry profile. OEM profile is higher than both.
The biggest difference between DCS and Cherry is that the angle of the two bottom rows is more acute on DCS.

If the mods are OEM would you rather put DCS or Cherry alphas with them?  Cherry are even shorter so I would rather have DCS even if there were Cherry profile trans blanks available, which I don't think there are...
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Offline kernel_panic

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Re: Blank, translucent keycaps in Europe?
« Reply #9 on: Sun, 19 June 2016, 18:06:58 »
Ducky are actually OEM profile which is similar to DCS but not identical.  This pic by jacobolous shows lots of keycaps to compare:
Huh? DCS is more similar to Cherry profile. OEM profile is higher than both.
The biggest difference between DCS and Cherry is that the angle of the two bottom rows is more acute on DCS.

Ducky are actually OEM profile which is similar to DCS but not identical.  This pic by jacobolous shows lots of keycaps to compare:
Huh? DCS is more similar to Cherry profile. OEM profile is higher than both.
The biggest difference between DCS and Cherry is that the angle of the two bottom rows is more acute on DCS.

If the mods are OEM would you rather put DCS or Cherry alphas with them?  Cherry are even shorter so I would rather have DCS even if there were Cherry profile trans blanks available, which I don't think there are...

To be honest, I'm not very familiar with keycaps profiles... This ducky shine 4 is the first mechanical keyboard I own, and I use it mainly for coding (also for gaming, but I bought it for programming tasks), and never bought an aditional keyset, partly because they are expensive, partly because I didn't know which one to buy, partly because most of keycaps are sold on the US and shipping is expensive too. Actually, I didn't ordered the keyset you showed me yet. I've seen in some youtube videos that an opaque keycap could let the light pass, if it's not very thick . I'm considering that option too.
This one, for example

Offline suicidal_orange

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Re: Blank, translucent keycaps in Europe?
« Reply #10 on: Mon, 20 June 2016, 02:30:04 »
Those are some bright LEDs!  You'd want to turn them down with trans caps :))

Actually if you want thin you could get an ISO set from WASDKeyboards and you could get your Spanish dvorak legends too.  They're pad printed so will wear off the most used keys so might look better with blanks, depends how keycaps have reacted to you in the past...
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Offline kernel_panic

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Re: Blank, translucent keycaps in Europe?
« Reply #11 on: Mon, 20 June 2016, 06:07:16 »
Those are some bright LEDs!  You'd want to turn them down with trans caps :))

Actually if you want thin you could get an ISO set from WASDKeyboards and you could get your Spanish dvorak legends too.  They're pad printed so will wear off the most used keys so might look better with blanks, depends how keycaps have reacted to you in the past...
Hahaha yeah, those leds are really bright, maybe you're right with translucent keys. I'm still confused about profiles, in the pic you showed me, OEM profile has certain angle between rows. My keyboard has certain angle between rows too. Now, the set from WASDKeyboards has diferent angles between rows too, but they don't specify which profile are using so should I assume it's OEM? Also, I've seen some keysets in ebay (I won't post the link because I'm not sure if I'm allowed to), that claims to be OEM, but in the pics all the caps seem to have the same inclination.

Offline tomboy

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Re: Blank, translucent keycaps in Europe?
« Reply #12 on: Mon, 20 June 2016, 06:38:03 »
maxkeyboard has a translucent set with many options: http://www.maxkeyboard.com/max-104-105-87-88-key-cherry-mx-black-translucent-keycap-set.html
I'm pretty sure they're open to custom requests too.

Offline kernel_panic

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Re: Blank, translucent keycaps in Europe?
« Reply #13 on: Mon, 20 June 2016, 07:33:53 »
maxkeyboard has a translucent set with many options: http://www.maxkeyboard.com/max-104-105-87-88-key-cherry-mx-black-translucent-keycap-set.html
I'm pretty sure they're open to custom requests too.

Yeah... the problem are customs and shipping. Shipping to europe costs around 20€ in the best of cases. You have to sum the customs cost. If the item is over 22€ (and it is), you'll have to pay the 21% of the value (as taxes) and 12 to 15€ as administration costs. In the end, you end up paying around 80 bucks for a single keyset. So... I think it's not worth to import it from US  :(

Offline kernel_panic

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Re: Blank, translucent keycaps in Europe?
« Reply #14 on: Wed, 06 July 2016, 07:44:30 »
I finally bought a chinese full set. PBT, blank and blue caps. I'll post photos when it arrives :DDD
Thanks for your help everyone!