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Showing 1 of 1541 conversations about:
batosi175
68
Jun 2, 2017
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so, it ships out in roughly a year. what happens if my address ends up changing during that time. is there a way to change the shipping destination in post. considering the giant timespan?
batosi175
68
Jun 2, 2017
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Blragcool. the longest drop i've done is for the ergodox, don't think ill be at my current place a year from now, but i also dont wanna miss out on these nice keys (especially for the SA profile).
Dgordon
325
Jun 2, 2017
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batosi175Omg one year? That's insane. I want to make my own 'MassDrop' for a custom set like this, but have no idea who to contact to manufacture it. I'd rather put the money out myself, and then just sell it on Amazon.
climbalima
269
Jun 2, 2017
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DgordonYou would need to contact signature plastics. Your wait would aslo be around a year.
smoyer
163
Jun 2, 2017
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DgordonAs @climbalima noted, if you used SP you'd still be waiting around a year but I'd also like to point out that if you're really looking to sell on Amazon you probably need to find someone producing keys that are a lot cheaper. It's my opinion that there's quite a gulf between the general keyboard buying public and the enthusiast market.
Dgordon
325
Jun 2, 2017
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smoyerI don't see why one needs to resort to a specialty keycaps manufacturer, especially if it takes one year. It's plastic. I'm sure there are general plastic manufacturers out there that can produce the same exact thing. Although that would take more work, but I'm sure it would be faster and cheaper in the end.
ChitownM2
736
Jun 2, 2017
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DgordonYou make it sound like just anyone can make keycaps because they are plastic. No matter which plastic manufacturer you go to, they are going to need to make molds to form the plastic. Molds are very very expensive. And if you're doing a sculpted set of keycaps, you're going to need a lot of them because there are tons of different key sizes and profiles depending on where they go on the keyboard. With just a quick look at my standard ANSI board I can see about a dozen different key sizes/profiles. I'm sure someone who has designed a keyset before will point out that there are more. And that only covers a single ANSI board, if you start getting into all of the custom layouts like 60%, 40%, split space, etc + corsair and you might have a quarter million dollars invested in just molds before you even produce your first keycap. So that is why you go to a specialty manufacturer. They already have the molds you need and the proper equipment to form keycaps because injection molding a small keycap is has different tolerances than doing a dashboard for your car or the handle or the stand for your monitor.
Dgordon
325
Jun 2, 2017
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ChitownM2I understand it would be a lot more work to create the molds. I guess I have no idea how much the molds cost. Isn't the mold simply some sort of clay that you can 'pour' whatever material you are using into it? How hard could it be to make molds from an existing keys? I get that you would need dozens of different molds, but I still don't see how you could come anywhere remotely close to the numbers you mention.
ChitownM2
736
Jun 2, 2017
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DgordonThe molds are made of steel because all plastic like this is injected at very high pressures. Even if you were to create a mold from an existing key, it would still be a lot of work. Also, molds are only good for so many uses as well before they go out of spec so you have to consider that too if you plan on making a lot of keys.
I don't know specific costs myself, but when /dev/tty was dropping and this was discussed I saw $10k per mold being floated.
Also, this is only taking about the keycap shape itself. If you want doubleshot legends (instead of painted) you need to make templates for each and every legend and novelty that you want. Legend templates are far less expensive from what I understand, but you need a lot of them to cover each keyboard and they last even less time than molds before they become unusable. Nobody is willing to accept blurry legends or misformed letters that might occur using old templates.
I don't know specific costs myself, but when /dev/tty was dropping and this was discussed I saw $10k per mold being floated.
Also, this is only taking about the keycap shape itself. If you want doubleshot legends (instead of painted) you need to make templates for each and every legend and novelty that you want. Legend templates are far less expensive from what I understand, but you need a lot of them to cover each keyboard and they last even less time than molds before they become unusable. Nobody is willing to accept blurry legends or misformed letters that might occur using old templates.
mkcolb
312
Jun 2, 2017
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DgordonNot clay, and the plastic isn't poured. The molds are either brass or stainless steel, and melted plastic is injected into the molds at high pressure. Injection molds are typically thousands of dollars each....so if you go to any company that doesn't already have those molds, get ready to pay quite a bit of money to get the operation running.
The other alternative is to not do injection molding (which makes doubleshots impossible, so you would be stuck with pad printing or laser etching), and then you could save some money on the molds, but you would have low quality keycaps with legends that would quickly fade.
EDIT: $12k price is what rex plastics quotes as typical/average cost of injection mold for a new part
The other alternative is to not do injection molding (which makes doubleshots impossible, so you would be stuck with pad printing or laser etching), and then you could save some money on the molds, but you would have low quality keycaps with legends that would quickly fade.
EDIT: $12k price is what rex plastics quotes as typical/average cost of injection mold for a new part
smoyer
163
Jun 2, 2017
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msimThe injection molds that I had made in the '80s were way more expensive than that ($25k-$30k) ... and were relatively simple. Ours had relatively straight sides and were cut by EDM. If your mold needs molds need moving parts, those are machined individually and then assembled. And those moving parts have to be automated by the injection molding machine when shot (often there are multiple moving parts that have to move in sequence).
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