Topre light on dark dye-sub?

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Apparently, Topre "black" keyboards use dye sublimation to achieve the "gold" (dark yellow) legends.

Dye sublimation cannot increase the colour of the material. What are Topre doing to circumvent this restriction?

Also, unlike normal dye sub, where the ink soaks in and leaves a flat surface, Topre "gold" on "black" legends are very visibly a thick substance laid down onto the keycap, like the uncoated pad printing that you find on, for example, Dell Latitude laptops. This appears to rule out the idea that it's simply bright yellow ink that, combined with the dark plastic, yields a much darker shade.

Whatever process this is, it's surely not normal dye sub.

[002]

Where did you hear about this?
I asked a representative at Topre a while ago directly how they achieve the gold colour on their legends and was told that it's simply lasered with no infill. Besides, the legends on their lasered caps wear away so quickly that there's no way they're dye-subbed. I think there is just some wishful thinking out there that Topre would never stoop to some peasant level marking technique but, really, I don't think there's anything special about them.
I would love to get my hands on a few caps and put them under a macro lens...Surely there must be some close-up shots of them somewhere?

[002]

Here we go:

LASERRRSSS.png (14.7 KiB) Viewed 1642 times

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Where did you hear about this?

Your own wiki page on the Realforce! ;-)

[Daniel Beardsmore]

This is the closest I've got:

Topre gold legend detail.jpg (237.28 KiB) Viewed 1634 times

Not sure why the lettering has that white outline. I don't have the keyboard to hand.

[002]

Hmm... I'm no laser technician but could the outline simply be a temperature variance (cooler) at the edges?
I'll have a read through the Realforce article this afternoon. Maybe I can reword it to avoid confusion.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Ah, it's my mistake. Most dark grey ("black") Realforce keyboards used black on dark grey dye sub, right? But European dark grey Realforce keyboards (i.e. 105UB) used lasered legends. It's a European model peculiarity, and I didn't spot this discrepancy in the Realforce Model Reference table.

[002]

Ah, it's my mistake. Most dark grey ("black") Realforce keyboards used black on dark grey dye sub, right?

That's right, yes. There's only one ANSI Realforce that I'm aware of (i.e. on the Model Reference) that comes with lasered caps and it's the very sexy (and very rare) ML11K0:

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Oo now that's nice. I should hassle Topre for one of those nice black labels and relabel mine. Never did like the silver label. (I removed it, but after realising that there are simply gaping holes above the LEDs, I put the now scratched label back on.)

The thin white margins around the lettering is not a trick of the camera, although it's only barely visible to the naked eye.