Massdrop and @MiTo - some of the printing isn't great.
How do we get replacements from Massdrop?
Here are two examples. EDL is crooked and LAND is off-center
Nearly all the prints in all the sets I received are honestly about 0.3mm off center to the left. Some are worse than others. But I want replacements for the ones I'd considered misprinted. A few examples below.
MiToThanks. Done. I honestly suspect more people will notice theirs are like this after I posted it. I've been looking at the photos posted here and on reddit and see a lot of printing alignment issues.
octavecat@MiTo I looked over my kits as suggested by octavecat and I have to say over 75% of my keys are slanted either left or right. Some of the mods are especially egregious in tilt. Is there a tolerance level I should be working with or should these be dead center straight? This has never been an issue on other dye sub sets I have.
Edit: the slant is crystal clear on milkway planet keys with the straight lines. all of the print tilts up from left to right when the key is centered.
rockydbullIf a legend isn’t show “slanted” on imagery used for sale then I don’t think it is it meant to be slanted in real life. That said I recommend you to open a ticket if you think there’s something off.
octavecatTo be honest, I am noticing a lot of issues. The T is off to the right, on the Colevrak kit both T's are off. The I is off to the left and the ;/: looks really weird where the distance between the dot and comma on semicolon is way too large. This is my first kit from Massdrop and am really dissapointed.
On top of that there wasn't a deep dish T with my Colevrak kit. Just two regular ones.
Another issue: The D from the Colevrak kit is both slanted and off center. Pics attached.
harlekeinYup, same problems with mine. The semicolon one is particularly absurd. Oddly enough it doesn't offend me as much as the misaligned ones, because in my head I can rationalize it as "perhaps NASA's keys would have looked odd in the 60s." I'd like it fixed of course.
I've also continued this thread here after seeing the same printing error in dozens of photos from people celebrating their new keysets:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/ceedbo/godspeed_mt3_has_printing_errors/
gattermannA few days ago I've received my Godspeed MT3 keycaps. Unfortunately I'm having the same quality problems as many of us.
I've ordered the following sets:
Two of each
- Solar Alphas
- Apollo Mods
- Norde
One of each
- Apollo Milky Way
- Lunar Milky Way
- Apollo Numpad
- Mitonauts
- Novelties
- Arrows
- 6.25U Space Bars
Unfortunately, quality control missed quite a few printing errors and there are also wrong and missing keys. The errors/problems are all production or QC mistakes that could have been avoided, not problems with the design or the product itself.
I've contacted Drop and am eager to find out what they are saying/offering.
Here is my list of errors and problems (In cases where I have two of the same set I've put the bad keys into the second one. The faulty keys were originally evenly distributed between the sets.):
Solar Alphas 1/2
- ok
Solar Alphas 2/2
- 4, 5, -, =, B keys crooked print
- ‘A’ key has a dark spot (dirt in plastic) at the top edge that isn’t removable
- D key has a dark spot at the bottom right corner that isn’t removable, crooked print
Apollo Mods 1/2
- two 6.25U space bars, no 7U space bar; I’ve ordered two Apollo mods kits, so should have two 7U space bars
Apollo Mods 2/2
- both ABORT keys (R0 and R1) print too far right
- F1, F11, F12, PITCH, YAW print crooked
- R2 1U MAL print crooked
- R4 1.75U TRANSMIT print crooked
- 1.25U PULSE print crooked
- R4 UP print too far left
- 1U SAS print crooked
- 1.5U ORBIT print crooked
- R4 1.25U SYSTEM and STAGE print crooked
- RIGHT print too far left
- 1U AUX print too far right
- R4 1U STBY and RCS print crooked
- 7U space bar bent
Norde 1/2
- 6 with umlauts (two dots above) printed too high
Norde 2/2
- 6 with umlauts (two dots above) printed too high
- 7 printed too low
- Ä print crooked
- R4 ‘Y’print too far left
- ‘#’ print too far left
Apollo Milky Way
- mostly ok (some slight label misalignment on many keys but I don’t want to photograph all that and it is subtle enough to ignore it, shouldn’t happen nonetheless…)
Lunar Milky Way
- mostly ok (same as with Apollo Milky Way)
Apollo Numpad
- regular and deep dish 5 keys not centered, print too high
Mitonauts
- ok
Novelties
- both R5 Godspeed keys (“NASA”/Godspeed logo) are missing
- R3 red ABORT and PANIC keys’ print is crooked
Arrows
- ok
6.25U Space Bars
- white and orange space bars are bent
gattermannDrop wants to replace all my sets with faulty keys, even when just one or two legends aren‘t centered. No individual keys for warranty replacement.
They also confirmed that the font weight is slightly different in the replacements due to the production process... that basically means keeping a lot of keys with misaligned legends or mixing keys from different production runs with different font weights. Great.
gattermannYes I just posted about this on Reddit too. I decided that the font weight issue is the compromise I can live with. It's not as "bad teeth" obvious as the misaligned legends. I will take a picture of mine tonight. Here's an example in the meantime
octavecatTo me that’s worse than off center print. I notice the font weight instantly. I guess everyone is different.
I‘ve asked Drop for a partial refund if I don‘t take the replacement kits. I really don’t want to mix the keys from different production runs. And even if the replace my whole order, who guarantees there won’t be new printing errors.
@MiTo has designed such a great profile/set of keys, it’s a shame the production/print quality doesn‘t match the design.
octavecatWhich one is old and which one is new?
Also, wth. Because now they are sending me a replacement Colevrak kit and I have to mix that one with alphas from a different font weight. Come on Drop...
harlekeinThe lighter hits are the new sets. I'm a designer so of course the inconsistencies drive me insane. But I realize the chances of getting a perfect set are slim at this point. Rotation looks far worse than the type weight. If you want to play a game, try to identify which keys are inconsistent here:
(waiting on 6u spacebar from massdrop)
search
I can see them. But i can also tell you I'll take inconsistent weight over that improperly aligned STOW, LAND, and PITCH if faced with the decision.
octavecatLooking at the image I notice the S is upside down.
Lighter keys are: STAGE(?), MAL(?), LAND.
Indeed hard to say, so that's promising.
What about new Colevrak kit compared to earlier legends?
harlekeinHaha I know! I realized that about 10 seconds after I took the photo. I was doing this at like 2 am and my brain was fried.
So, STAGE is lighter. You are right about MAL and LAND, but DOCK too, as is the top ROLL PITCH YAW block.
The I is also lighter since the earlier one I received was so misaligned.
You may also notice that the baselines are off in the qwerty row, but it felt like that "fast cheap or good, pick two" scenario. I was faced with
consistent font weight
horizontal centering
vertical centering
0º rotation
and I opted for a visually consistent font weight in the qwerty row, horizontal alignment, and 0º rotation, figuring that if i did another set of returns on the solar alpha i'm gambling with yet a new issue i hadn't considered yet :)
I did not get the colevrak kit specifically, but if you mean the solar alphas (sorry if i have the terminology wrong) the alignment was better but the font weight was lighter as well.
octavecatWhat a headache this is turning out to be. They're now expecting me to mix the new lightweight Colemak keys with the heavier alphas from the initial run. I guess I'll wait and see, but looks like I will have to get my alphas kit replaced for the Colevrak kit to make sense.
harlekeinDrop is sending me replacement kits. My offer to keep the bad keys if I get a partial refund was refused because they are offering me replacements which they say have a different font weight. So I’ll take a look at those and see which keys I’ll keep to make things better. Very bad first Drop experience overall.