Bad Gateron / EnjoyPBT keycap quality

[Matt_]

Nah, I haven't contacted the seller. Spoiler alert: it's Shadovved, the same guy doing the current GB. I don't think he cares much for DT, don't think he's got an account. Not sure I'll bother. I don't really need replacements, the ones I have are in theory fine even with the 3 broken stems because I'll never need the numpad.

I guess there's enough activity solely on GH to keep him quite busy, but don't hesitate to go there and shoot him a PM. He'll probably get replacements for this GB's blank sets at one point, so you could ask him to get a few for you. You never know, maybe one day you'll need those numpad keys.

[scottc]

Yeah, I wouldn't doubt it. I saw pictures of his apartment during the last GB... he's certainly got his work cut out for him.

[itzmeluigi]

Oh damn, so far my EnjoyPBT Cyrillic set has been great, but now im worried if they will last. I joined the GB for 3 more sets, they certainly feel high quality though. I like them much more than my GMK Cyrillic set.

I would use OG Cherry caps, but finding OG Cherry Cyrillic dyesubs is almost impossible and insanely expensive.

[scottc]

I was stupidly lucky and got a set cheap locally. Stupidly lucky! But yeah, I know what you mean. Honestly I wish I'd just found some lasered PBT early on and stuck with them. I thought about it recently, and the price difference between Cherry lasered and dyesubbed PBT is just insane for such a minor detail, when you think about it. Mental!

I sent Shadovved a mail to let him know since Matt_ was so convincing.

[pr0ximity]

Bummer, never heard of stems breaking when putting the caps on.

I'd caution getting the pitchforks out over it. This is the first time I've heard of structural integrity issues, though it does seem Gateron has less-than-stellar QC practices. I have a set of Ivan's R3 black-on-black caps that are pretty great, but ludicrously tight on the stems. To the point where I avoid removing them for fear of damaging the switches they're latched on to. But they're nice and thick and feel nice to type on.

[Muirium]

Pitchforks = criticism of any kind.

You just said yourself that they are ridiculously tight in your experience. Why pretend they're fine? What do we owe Gateron? Eternal thankfulness for even bothering to poop out a subpar product?

Groupthink!

We are customers, keyboard enthusiasts, and a community. Our loyalty is to each other.

[scottc]

Or maybe it's doublethink? Knowing that Gateron have deeply unsettling problems, yet knowing that they're perfect in every way.

[ohaimark]

Groupthink may account for OVERhyping them, but they are the only remotely palatable clone of Cherries on the market (so long as you buy linears and don't expect too much).

If they got their QC in order they could really stick it to Cherry... I think I'm grateful to them, but not because of their switch quality. I'm grateful because they're the first company to challenge Cherry's niche in the big 3 keyboard communities. Like I said in a different post somewhere or other -- maybe Cherry will refresh their tooling for the first time in 20 years in response to the Gateron epidemic.

[Muirium]

Perhaps. But I think Cherry may just as likely give up on keyboard switches entirely. Their corporate overlords are deeply disinterested in the MX renaissance that struck them in recent years by pure luck. And it's not like keyboard history hasn't seen a great empire fall to simple boredom before. In fact, quite the opposite: that's the way they always die.

I have little fondness for Cherry anyway. So I'm not bitter with Gateron over that. (Whole different story for me when you replace them with Topre and Noppoo!) I haven't a horse in this particular race. But I smell a coverup and a hype vortex. Do. Not. Like. It. One little bit!

[ohaimark]

Unicomp = zombie. Alps = R.I.P.

If Cherry left the mech business it would be terrifying, but it might usher in a new age of shitty Chinese clones and innovative new switches. Might do the market good.

[Matt_]

Their corporate overlords are deeply disinterested in the MX renaissance that struck them in recent years by pure luck.

And yet they release new products such as their RGB or "silent" switches, as well as yet another linear switch just a tad lighter than Blacks with a fancy name. Variations of an already half-assed design, detractors might say But it seems to me that there are well aware that there are still cows to milk and they want their share of the treasure. Which they will do hand in hand with crappy keyboard manufacturers.

On the other hand, there's Gateron who's willing to work with individuals (Zeal, GB organizers) and produces interesting stuff at a decent price. Sure, the QC is not perfect. And they can act as dicks too (see their ripoff of the Whitefox colorway, although I'm not sure whether Gateron or EnjoyPBT is to blame). But you can't blame enthusiasts from welcoming a new actor who's willing to lend an ear to what they actually want (even if the end goal is the same — profit).

[courtesi]

And I'd get a few real IBMs, if I were you, because Unicomp's not much better than these guys.

It must be the yank in me defending Unicomp.

[Muirium]

Careful now, Yankee, they're Bluegrass Country born and proud!

Or so says their website, anyway…

Unicomp is a computer keyboard developer and manufacturer located in the heart of Bluegrass Country, Lexington, Kentucky. We are a small business. We manufacture our products in Kentucky. To compete successfully against products made in Asia, we must focus on producing the highest quality products at the lowest possible cost while providing the highest level of customer service.

Highest level, indeed. It must be the cynical European in me attacking them!

[ohaimark]

Lazy bums who are capitalizing on the market pioneered by IBM and spammed by Lexmark is about right.

They've had so many opportunities to innovate. Instead they're fine with stagnating in the status quo.

[photekq]

Lazy bums who are capitalizing on the market pioneered by IBM and spammed by Lexmark is about right.

They've had so many opportunities to innovate. Instead they're fine with stagnating in the status quo.

Harsh but true. They really have done nothing with what was given to them aside from ruin the aesthetics of the Model M with their tacky LED labels and logo!

[Muirium]

Bums is a bit much. But the sentiment is true: Unicomp's doing the bare minimum possible with the IBM legacy. Their stuff is no better than what came before.

So, who else remembers all this?

keyboards-f2/unicomp-ssk-for-real-this-time-t7739.html

Bugger all became of it, of course. Sigh.

[ohaimark]

Murium advising moderation? Someone check his temperature.

I said bums... I meant bums. Bums squat on properties. They make properties less aesthetically appealing. They lessen the quality of said property, sometimes through vandalism. And the properties they're on almost always stagnate once bums are in place.

Unicomp needs some gentrification. (I'll stop my crazy metaphor now.)

[emdude]

Bums is a bit much. But the sentiment is true: Unicomp's doing the bare minimum possible with the IBM legacy. Their stuff is no better than what came before.

So, who else remembers all this?

keyboards-f2/unicomp-ssk-for-real-this-time-t7739.html

Bugger all became of it, of course. Sigh.

I was quite surprised when I learned of all this. I can't believe it has been nearly two years since Unicomp's announcement.

They have the barrel plates, and I believe they also decided to go with a layout more akin to the original SSK. Don't know what's stopping them from getting them out the door..

Still, I think there's a silver lining to Unicomp's lack of innovation; one can get (new!) replacement parts for their older Model M's if they absolutely needed to.

I say this since I have recently found myself with a few junked Model M's that I am in the process of cleaning up; I want to restore all of them and would be in a tight spot if I needed a spare barrel plate or membrane..

[courtesi]

Well this year my bank account is tied up with Ellipse; but if for some reason Unicomp announces a going out of business sale I'm going to try to make it down to the factory pick up some stuff and maybe take a few pictures before someone locks up the place.

[Muirium]

I did my bit to keep them in the caps business …


group-buys-f50/europe-unicomp-gb-shippi ... ml#p287339

They should indeed do tours. Although I really wonder what they've still got. Are they finally down to just warehousing now?

[scottc]

I did my bit to keep them in the caps business …


group-buys-f50/europe-unicomp-gb-shippi ... ml#p287339

They should indeed do tours. Although I really wonder what they've still got. Are they finally down to just warehousing now?

Where's your attachment gone?

[Muirium]

Attach what?

[scottc]

The picture. It's not showing up!

[Muirium]

Ha! Yet it does for me. Including your quote! I think I know why, too. I'll file a bug report with the duck.

[webwit]

You probably uploaded the attachment somewhere else and linked to it here. And "somewhere else" is a place where the complaining viewers do not have access, like in your PMs.

[Muirium]

Since you're here: no. I got one of those fucking instant "timeouts" on the message compose window, right after successfully uploading both pictures on my Unicomp GB thread. I cursed, upped a pic again, then grabbed the URL. I decremented the image number by 1. Voila, the previous upload was still there! Decremented again and saw the other pic. Perfect. I then just used img tags to link those.

And here's the thing: I did all that on my Mac yesterday. Yet they show up fine on my iPhone today, too. Weird, eh?

image.png (1.79 MiB) Viewed 6705 times

You're right: it's a permissions thing, much like externally linking to the contents of PMs.

Those timeouts really gotta go. I can see them ruining a huge picture post sometime. All it takes is one failure and all attachments are nuked. And rendered ghosts, apparently.

[webwit]

Well in the database they are not linked to a topic, hence seen as PM attachments. The row insertion of the attachment was atomic and fine otherwise, so it's not caused by a timeout.

If you have timeouts, complain to your ISP about their shitty peering with Germany.

[Muirium]

Everybody gets them. No matter the ISP. I've used 4 in recent months, no difference. Yet nothing wrong with any other site or service I use routinely. There's a nasty bug here at DT.

It's not timeouts either. But dropped connections. The server stops responding, very quickly indeed. I never have to wait to see them. Press Submit. BOOM! One time in maybe every 50.

[webwit]

I don't get them ever. Explain.

To me this explains it as a network problem between you and DT, where nobody in Scotland reads Bild Online, so your ISP doesn't care much about peering there. The solution we can provide is move hosting out of Germany to the UK or the US. We were hosted in the US before exactly because it has the best average worldwide peering (and cheap energy). I.e. your ISP has good connections to the US. Too bad about the Patriot Act.

[kbdfr]

Everybody gets them. No matter the ISP. I've used 4 in recent months, no difference. Yet nothing wrong with any other site or service I use routinely. There's a nasty bug here at DT.

It's not timeouts either. But dropped connections. The server stops responding, very quickly indeed. I never have to wait to see them. Press Submit. BOOM! One time in maybe every 50.

Never (written in full: never) experienced any of that.
How far away are you from the next nuclear plant?