deskthority

Update on keycaps. As I was describing in my previous post, I am working on full symbolics-style legends. Here is a preview—escape keys in experimental colors: https://keymacs.com/img/dt/legend-escape-720px.jpg XMIT keys (well, they do not exist on Symbolics keyboards but hopefully will make somebod...

Guys, I have some bad news. After some more extensive tests, I have run into an unexpected problem. Without going into technical details, I am not able to precisely mill the mount in the center of keycaps. I tried to get the deviations ≤0.05mm but no matter how hard I try, the best result is ≈0.2mm....

Quick updates from my shop: 1. I have included the Tai-Hao APC switches. 2. Full Symbolics legends now available. 3. More color schemes supported (old and new-style Symbolics, Cadet & fully custom) 4. For those who already have my keyboard, I offer upgrades of the function keys . Manufacturing of th...

Ok, here you have it: Keycaps and additional keys.

I will start the manufacturing in Jan 2023.

At a minimum of 4 rows with all having different sculptures, you need 4 moulds. If I calculate that right, from one set of moulds you can create a maximum of 10 full 1U sets. That is not mass production. After that you need to create all four moulds again. I am glad your doing this, because these k...

The result is really nice, but the amount of manual work that goes into each keycap.... just wow. I imagine if you had to do a thousand you would batch it and it would make much more sense that doing them individually. Thenk you for the video! Yes, I will proceed by doing clusters holding seven 1U ...

thefarside wrote: ↑

17 Sep 2022, 17:29

Looks great! Will the cluster manufacturing have a lower price compared to individual keys?

The pricing outlined in the beginning of the thread applies.

Progress report: I have successfully tested manufacturing in clusters. Instead of making one keycap at a time, I can make up to seven 1U keycaps. The first demo batch was made for Jae . He is probably going to resell these. The first batch was all MX mounts but if there is interest, I am sure there ...

Stock update: I have made a bulk order of the modern Tai Hao Alps clones and they arrived a couple of days ago. I have 5000 pcs. of the 55g version and the same number of the heavier 65g version. I do not have them as an option on my web right now but I am going to add them during the weekend. Some ...

KeebMeUp wrote: ↑

24 Jun 2022, 17:14

2.50U Topre mount would be greatly appreciated.

That's on the Japanese keyboards, right? I have just looked at pictures of some Realforce keyboards and it seems that the 1.5U keys adjacent to the 2.50U spacebar are also convex.

What about spacebar sizes?

9.00U for Symbolics / Cadet keyboards
7.00U for Winkeyless keyboards
6.25U ISO/ANSI standard keyboards
6.00U HHKB

Anything else needed or frequently used?

Cherry profile would be your best shot at mass appeal. It’s an epic profile. Also less material. MX mount is the all too obvious choice for the underside, but is where all of the competition is. Smart move is Topre mount, where lots of high end keyboard knobs like me have next to nothing to choose ...

Lovely! I'll look forward to seeing a full set when you get that tooling, but this has satisfied my appetite for now. Would you be open to doing entirely different profiles, if someone supplied you with the 3D models? A custom Cherry profile set would be incredible, and I do happen to have the file...

Yasu0 wrote: ↑

23 Jun 2022, 18:32

Looks good. What is happening at the 2:03 mark?

I clean a residue of the black PU from the dish in an isopropyl alcohol bath, making the edges of the legend sharper.

Some more teaser photos:

Amazing work. Do you have any full sets with the dual sublegends you could show us some photos of? :mrgreen: This was a proof-of-concept manufacturing. I made 16 copies of the A-key to determine success ratio of the manufacturing. By the way, all went good and with a perfect match of the legends an...

lispnick fantastic work!. I was curious if you knew how the dimensions of your keys compare to typical factory alps. For example if someone used your keys on a Focus keyboard would there be any issue of your keys being too close together based on the factory switch spacing? Thanks. I use standard 1...

ThermometerSandwich wrote: ↑

21 Jun 2022, 13:06

My plan was to use the stems on the larger keys as well. IBM did this on a couple of >1u caps.

I haven't produced >1u caps yet, but I post updates here when I get time: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=27105

I must admit I missed this thread. Shame on me! This looks very nice.

You've all the sympathy in the world from me :) Making keycaps is hard, time-consuming work. Given the outstanding quality, your prices make perfect sense. I would have been happy to pay 16€/cap for Space Cadet Model F caps if I had known how much time and money the R&D would cost. It sure is fun t...

If we're talking your basic vintage 101 key keyboard, that's a range between 404 Euro and 1616 Euro ($425 to $1701 US). That's cost prohibitive. I'm not saying it's not worth it nor am I saying that the manufacturing cost + whatever % you take as profit is too much. I just think a lot of folks that...

Real impatience exposed! :lol: 10 to 16 Euros a key… so, uh, how about colour matching existing keys? Colour matching is one of the things I am not very good at (the mix has a tendency to change colour as the PU cures and the results are very unpredictable). I would like to offer medium and dark gr...

With your process, it's not just that you can offer arbitrary legends for any national layouts (*)... you also could very well offer any given layout in a variety of styles: large centered sans serif letters? Yup; top left corner serif letters? Yup; bottom left italic letters? Yup (but don't do tha...

For those who are interested mainly in the keycaps, I have opened a new thread . This is my take on the Space Cadet theme: https://keymacs.com/img/dt/keymacs-cadet-keycaps-teaser-720px.jpg I hope you especially enjoy the one on the bottom-center: its top legend is slightly yellowish to imitate aged ...

Hi guys! I have succesfully tested a new technique to make polyurethane keycaps. My initial motivation was to make the manufacturing process simple enough, so that I can offer standard ANSI/ISO keycaps sets in addition to my Keymacs keyboard kits. As usual, the development took much longer that I ex...

Also do you sell the cosmetically flawed switches? I'd be willing to pay for them if they came in full alpha sets. Sorry, the tester board is no longer with me. I have some more leftovers though, … at least a few kilos but most of them are grey 2U keycaps. These 2U bastards are a nightmare—a tiny p...

I have made some experiments with Matias switches. The goal was to get the best possible sound and feel. I have used all the usual suspects: Matias Clicks (MC), Matias Quiet Clicks (MQC—these are actually damped tactile non-clicky switches despite their name), and Matias Quiet Linear (MQL—linear dam...

Hi guys. I have been busy with a couple of things but I hope to release some interesting videos in the near future. In the meantime, I have made a comparison of the loudest and quietest Keymacs keyboards built so far:

Serious question: are all the chassises (sp?) 20U in width? Because, me being me, and seeing how well you're handling the stepped keys, I'm seriously tempted to make an order... but it'd have to be with a layout that would be a bit different from the ones you've shown so far. Yes, I only have chass...

Cool. Rough textured caps are quite my thing. Trouble is: they soon wear smooth if they're ABS. How durable do you reckon yours are? Only time will tell. :lol: I did not have access to any machines to simulate the wear, I use mine as a daily driver with the first batch of keycaps for nearly three y...

The texture feels like neither I'd say. It's not slick like ABS but it's not as coarsely textured as most PBT caps are either. The keys feel remarkably dry and the texture is very fine. It's almost like you're typing on the tiniest gauge of sandpaper. That might have something to do with the fact t...