TL;DR: Cases half alright, electrophoretic coating ended up worse than expected, factory will fix things, just need a new finish (or compromise on an old one) for brass parts.Alright, now that everything is settling down for me, time to give an update on the situation.
To start off, the good news. All due parts have arrived, meaning all the cases, plates, weights, and PCBs.
https://imgur.com/a/MWGQPXjPurble, Blue and Clear cases:
Black Nickel, Gold and Silver plated parts respectively:
Polycarb Plate:
All the electroplated parts and the polycarb plate turned out great, as you can see. The issue exists with the rest of the brass parts that received the electrophoretic coating and with some of the cases.
https://imgur.com/a/CF261I5More
For reference, 6/30 brass weights passed QC. Some number of them was more acceptable with no visible flaws showing through the poly case, but I don't have a number handy. The plates are better, but majority have dirt under the coating on the underside or even worse, on top. Notable mention that the 2 untreated sets ended up scratched up to hell and also failed QC.
Moving on to the cases, most of the cases exhibit a bending issue, while some have some blemishes on the outside of the case. While all but the worse cases assemble fine, the bending makes assembly more difficult and well, I'm sure not everyone will be happy about it.
Changing topics to the PCBs, they all look fine from initial inspection, only issue is that the wrong production hex was flashed on to it, so I have to go through and reprogram every PCB to add back the bootloader
(
So after all this bad news, I'm relieved to say the factory is willing to replace parts with the above issues, given I am reasonable in setting my expectations.
For the cases, this means that there will most likely be a slight bending of the base, but not so much that it makes it difficult to assemble. Once assembled, the issue goes away for all of the cases. The remade cases would not have alignment nubs on the base, as they are part of the cause of the bending.
For the brass parts, the situation is a bit more annoying. We're back to the brainstorming stage on what finish would achieve the ideal appearance of mirror polished and coated. One suggestion my manufacturer had for me was a matte sandblasted finish (factory-quality pic as usual
):
This is a different look, but it will be easier to get consistently good.
The issues with each finish summarised:
Untreated: Tarnishes, harder to clean
UV coated: Dust speckles all over, bad side has wavy lines
Silver Electroplating: It's silver, one side will have flaws (amount random)
Gold Electroplating: Costs 40USD/part, one side ends up inconsistently matte:
https://i.imgur.com/HD0C7Mq.jpgElectrophoretic: Slight flaws on both sides, dust on both sides
I will keep thinking about what a good compromise would be, but please do leave comments on what you think here or in PMs. Do you mind the defects? Is there something I'm overlooking? Let me know.
The GB will naturally be delayed based on how long we take to start production, as well as how long it takes for me to check and pack parts afterwards, I'll put it as early August now (sigh). Since there are some parts that meet standards, I will try and arrange to ship out some units early, provided people are willing to pay the premium that I have to pay to ship packages individually vs as a bulk. More details about that when I have a more clear overview on what parts are good to go.
Extras are unlikely to be available, if they are, I'll mention so after the main orders are available to ship out. This will not make Keycon even at the earliest because I have to fix the PCBs and source screws (factory forgot to include them), I won't give any dates for how early I can get things ready or I'll end up more exhausted than I am.
Mx is a tired boy.