deskthority

color matching will be done on black and white only. Colors will be chosen on pantone...

... unless this becomes incredibly popular. By incredibly I mean like 5000 spacebars popular.

matt3o wrote: ↑color matching will be done on black and white only. Colors will be chosen on pantone...

... unless this becomes incredibly popular. By incredibly I mean like 5000 spacebars popular.

Fair enough, thanks matt3o

Just out of curiosity, matt; do you know if the creation of the PBT spacebar is going to make other caps any easier because the mount will be known then or does it not really matter? I suppose the prohibiting factor is always going to be MOQ but I still dream of an Olivetti or Red Alert Realforce

no, unfortunately the spacebar doesn't help with other caps.

not long ago SP was extremely interested in building the tooling for Topre keyboards, we had a quick conversation about that a few months ago and they asked me which topre keyboards to buy to make tests.

Then the SP dark age came and everything is on hold now.

Actually it would be quite inexpensive to contract the work in China, I probably know a couple of companies able to do such a thing, but it's not easy to deal with them, so ultimately I preferred the BSP route.

ok, after a very quick start we definitely slowed down. We definitely need a "sponsor".

MechanicalKeyboards.com dropped the ball, Massdrop seems still interested. I'll talk with them again tomorrow. If that doesn't work, I'll send an email to all retailers I know to see if we can sell a couple of thousands here and there.

matt3o wrote: ↑ok, after a very quick start we definitely slowed down. We definitely need a "sponsor".

MechanicalKeyboards.com dropped the ball, Massdrop seems still interested. I'll talk with them again tomorrow. If that doesn't work, I'll send an email to all retailers I know to see if we can sell a couple of thousands here and there.

Yes, so it is with functions that approach an asymptote. Too bad about MK. I hope that Massdrop will remain interested. I have been frustrated recently trying to interest companies in producing keycap sets for keyboards with Matias switches -- a classical Catch-22 or chicken-egg scenario. If there were more keycaps available, more people would buy Matias-switch keyboards, but because more of these are not sold, no one will commit to making the keycaps.

*fingers crossed*

We had some new orders yesterday.

We are at 37%

Color preference changed a bit
Community impact also changed. Basically geekhack alone is 50%, reddit and deskthority 20% each, then the others.

On Monday January 5, I'll contact all the resellers I could think of (please help me make a list), it is clear at this point that we can't proceed our own, but if we find 4-5 resellers willing to buy 1000 each we could still have our spacebar done!

If by January 16 I'm not able to get this sorted out, I will throw the towel and declare myself beaten!

Please keep ordering!

Aside from the very obvious stores, you could try contacting the following Topre stockists:

http://www.mechkb.com/ (Australia)
https://www.diatec.co.jp/ (Japan)
http://www.leopold.co.kr/ (Korea)

Let me know if you want any help getting in touch with the first two, but should be pretty easy.

matt3o wrote: ↑We had some new orders yesterday.

We are at 37%
<snip>
Please keep ordering!

1/e of the way there!

Hypersphere wrote: ↑

matt3o wrote: ↑We had some new orders yesterday.

We are at 37%
<snip>
Please keep ordering!

1/e of the way there!

From a physicists point of view, we are good to go then!

There is a reddit user by the name
who posted in the last 24 hours that he has "unrestricted access to an injection molder, a CNC mill, and other manufacturing equipment". He's asking for suggestions on what to produce. This is the perfect opportunity, IMO. A manufacturer tailoring to enthusiasts and open to damn near anything.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyb ... lity_caps/

I'm more intrigued at his mention of a magnetic switch — sounds like the ideas being floated at geekhack a while back.

Hopefully this chap knows how to cool PBT properly :)

We are at 45% now

Honestly it's a hell lot of spacebars for a community based project, I would be pretty shocked if a vendor wouldn't want to join the wagon. Anyway today I will be sending out a dozen emails and also will talk again with MassDrop.

I'll keep you posted.

Color preference so far:

45% is pretty good! Almost 1000 spacebars then, right?

Since we are where we are in this, I'd be willing to double my order if it helps getting things moving!

Once again, thank you for trying this matt3o!

How did I not notice this until now? O.o
Just put in for 2 white and 2 black.

I'd go for 1 black and 3 white if the UI let me. Anyway, we're getting there. Just needs a store to bite, really. Keyboardco? EK? Teraset?

Will filling out the form a second time, overwrite your previously placed order, or will it add onto/subtract from the first one?

Use the same email address and it will OVERWRITE. So the opposite to 7bit's system.

I'm talking with other manufacturers. There's still hope!

Keep ordering!

I'll keep the IC open another week, it seems it could be actually done!

Ordered 2 black/grey and one color pack

Finora va tutto bene!

Status update

All retailers backed off.

MassDrop is still willing to do it if we can find a cheaper manufacturer that we might have found. We are sending a sample spacebar to the new manufacturer that will make a quotation. This might require some time, I guess at least 2 more weeks. I hate this situation as much as you do, but honestly 1 month ago I had a quote from the manufacturers and 3 retailers fighting for the exclusive, now we got nothing.

Fortunately I haven't asked anyone money yet.

-----------
side note

Admittedly I'm a bit fed up of manufacturers saying that they can do it, but they actually can't... of sending emails and receiving replies after weeks... of retailers super excited wanting to participate at all costs and then backing off... I believe the next time I will be much more cautious when evaluating the feasibility of a project.

I believe noone here is upset because of you! I am running into similar problems with manufacturers, sometimes I have the feeling that they don't read the email entirely...

You are doing a great job!

Did they at least give excuses?
Or just disappear? :S

Counting the days until Matteo starts casting his own PBT…

I looked into it before. Apparently it's a resin, so it would be feasible. But I couldn't find any non-industrial quantities for sale.
Also colour matching would be literally impossible.

What material do you use for your WheyClacks? (My name I invented right now. Not necessarily for the best…) My understanding is that PBT is pretty tough work. It cools funny, and bends. Plus it melts at a higher temperature than its easy cousin ABS. That's how it can cope with the oven temperatures of dyesub.

Polyurethane resin, pretty much the basic hobbyist casting resin.

Muirium wrote: ↑What material do you use for your WheyClacks? (My name I invented right now. Not necessarily for the best…) My understanding is that PBT is pretty tough work. It cools funny, and bends. Plus it melts at a higher temperature than its easy cousin ABS. That's how it can cope with the oven temperatures of dyesub.

I coined that term ages ago! I get the commission!