Not All Linears Are The Same!
Figure 1: Not even all of these (mostly) KTT-made linears are the same! After all of my years of collecting, reviewing, and obsessing over switches, I can say with certainty that linear switches are the most misunderstood of all of the switch types. No, I’m not talking about mechanically either, as all of the claims of them “just going straight up and down” are somewhat kind of true. (Not too much though, don’t get that excited.) The part that is often misunderstood, though, is usually in what is being implied when people say that these switches just go straight up and down – “All linears might as well be the same.” If the title of this article didn’t make that obvious enough to you, I find that sort of idea to be completely and utterly wrong. The people who make these implications wouldn’t say that a Cherry MX Black is the same as a Novelkeys Cream switch? They also certainly wouldn’t ever claim that every Gateron-made linear is the same as every fancy TTC one out there...
May 29, 2024
High-Strength Material Not all ABS plastics are created equal. Different raw material ratios in ABS blends will change specific material properties. DCX keycaps are made of the same high-quality ABS plastic that make up MT3 double-shot keycaps. That means you can expect the same color vibrancy and shine resilience that so many have come to love. The manufacturing process that we're using is expected to be compatible with PBT as well—so once we've gotten our ABS production humming along, we'll be experimenting with PBT to see what we can come up with.
Expansive Kit Compatibility Like many of our offerings, our goal is to have a single Base Kit that can accommodate a variety of popular keyboard layouts. The Base Kit that will be offered for initial DCX keycap sets will include the following: We’ve also designed the DCX toolsets with extensibility in mind, with plans to add sublegends, novelties, alice, ortho, 40s, icon mods and anything else the community comes up with too. In-Stock Availability DCX Keycap sets will be produced with the same ethos as all of our keycap offerings: to expand community accessibility via in-stock availability. It takes us 4 – 6 months to go from an idea, to color matching, to resin acquisition, mass production, quality control, and finally shipping. When in production, we can make sets quickly and efficiently at scale so that we can deliver preorders and have sufficient inventory for drop.com and other distribution channels. As part of our launch program, we'll be revealing an interest check/poll for the community to vote on different colorways. The most popular selections will go into production and ship in Q3 2022. DCX tools will be available to any designer who wants to release a set of keycaps that meets MOQ requirements. What's next? Next week, we'll review some close-up studio photos of the keycaps, start the poll for a future colorway, and talk about sprue marks and Mac compatibility. (edit: profile name change)