Hey everyone,
It’s been some time and I’m back with a much more substantial update on MT3 Susuwatari. We apologize for how much longer this project turned out to be - but do feel it’s imperative that we complete a project like this correctly with the aim to exceed the expectations of @matt3o and everyone who has joined.
Current Status
First, we need to update everyone on how everything is going. The good news is the end is in sight!
Tooling, which was the most time-consuming part of this project has been completed. We’ve run test shots through the tool and the initial results are promising. I will share a few photos of the initial samples below -
Note the extra thicc keycaps
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Steps that are still pending before we ship include - adding minor texture to the keycaps via updates to the tool.
Matt3o is also finalizing a few of the colors - for example, while the green shot is the exact color we picked the effect when combined with the darker modifier means the green legend actually looks more washed out than intended. We’ll be making some adjustments for cases like this.
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Once everything is confirmed, we’ll be entering full production to get these produced. The aim is to have everything shipped by October but that is a stretch goal - we will definitely have these fulfilled before the end of the year unless something completely unexpected happens.
So what happened?
For those who are interested in the nitty gritty on this project, I’ll share more information here.
When the project was initially conceived, we had laid out plans to fulfill these by the end of June. In fact, we thought we had baked-in sufficient buffer time as well and everything should proceed smoothly.
However, as we started prepping for the initial tooling, we ran into issues with the thinner legends and what the tool realistically can support. One way out of this problem is to brute force it - we will produce far more keycaps than ordered and manually pick out those that did not meet our specs.
In the end, we decided this was not the correct path to take as it would produce an immense amount of unnecessary waste. In addition, it would take a lot of manual labor to pick out those that were not to spec and there is no guarantee that 100% of all problematic keycaps would be sorted out.
Instead, we switched gears and completely overhauled our tooling plan - we went ahead and made a set of doubleshot tools that is more robust with more features. This will aid us in getting a beautiful set out to everyone and we hope with this move, we'll be able to create keycaps that stand the test of the community.
Closing Thoughts
We did not expect this journey to have taken as long as it did, though I am glad we went the more difficult route and I hope the final results speak for themselves.
I’ll be sending out more samples to @matt3o in the coming days so he can evaluate the final test samples before signing off on production. I’m really proud of these keycaps and I can’t wait to share them with the rest of you.
YanboWuMaybe it is only the picture but the color of the modifiers looks very similar to the alphas. The renders depicts the mods in a darker tone. Looking forward to the real deal :)
deroanthSome abs sets have a sort of texture where it takes a while to shine and when it does, its incredibly hard to make it even since it takes so long to shine in the first place. If its gonna be shiny anyways, I would prefer it to be even from the start
RaymondLuOh absolutely. I love smooth caps! SPSA is wonderful, but I'm just saying, at least they'll probably smooth on their own some. Might also try an acetone vapor bath? Not sure if I'd want to risk it myself though heh...
forter4Considering how popular this set is for the colorways used, I'm sure it will be available multiple times over like @Matt3o 's /dev/ttyX set. The MT3 profile has to be my favorite I've ever used.
matt3o@matt3o are there any plans to release an un-textured variant? MT3 is my favorite profile, but I really don't like the texture so I'm torn over whether to keep it on my primary keebs. I would be ecstatic if you made a smooth and shiny version of MT3! I'm so looking forward to this set.
internetpartyfunny you asked, I tried to ask for a smoother surface but they already finalized the molds with the textured surface
edit: just to be clear, the set is still amazing, just we couldn't work on the texture as much as I wanted to. Manufacturing such a complex set is a complicated endeavor and we can't always have what we want
matt3oThanks for the update! I prefer light texture, so that’s fine by me. Inevitably not all preferences can be accommodated to the hilt at the same time.
YanboWuHi YanboWu,
My name is Barsoum. I understand from following this thread that people have 'drop'ped out of purchasing this key cap set due to the unexpected wait times.
I have recently purchased the Drop Ctrl Barebones keyboard and would love to jump onto this drop (heard raving reviews on MT3 and love the color scheme), is there any way I can also this join and replace any one of those people who left the drop?
I look forward to your response.
Kind Regards,
Bars
beebzThere will be extras available once the ones for the GB participants ship, you can ensure that you are notified by pressing the button at the top of the GB page