Some tolerances seem to be off. Beige spacebars don't fit CTRL HP, pushing stab stems apart so that they rub against their housing, and the key gets stuck. Anyone have the same?
UPD: FWIW Mine Ares and Apollo colored spacebars from the 6.25u extra kit are both fine. Either the beige one from the same kit or the one from Apollo Mods is sticking. (I can no longer tell them apart, it didn't occur to me to mark them before installing). My Ares Mods spacebar is definitely sticking. Tested on 3 very different boards, including with PCB-mounted and plate-mounted stabilizers, to the same effect. Also checked my other spacebars, none are sticking, including /dev/tty R2 (same mold?).
@MiTo That aside, thank you for this gorgeous set, it is my new favorite now.
bbroncoAs of right now, I can confirm the issue with my spacebar from the Ares mods. The Apollo mod spacebar seems to be ok, but I need tyo check it on a couple more boards at work. The Ares spacebar sticks on two GMMK TKL and one Ducky I have at work, where my /dev/tty does not. I pulled the Apollo space when I got home, and it works on my K-Type, so I'll take it in tomorrow and check, and will update you. I didn't think to bring the Ares space home to check side by side, not sure why.
MiToJust to add to things, I brought the spacebar from the Apollo mods in and tested it ont he same boards, and it works fine, so the space from the Ares mods seems to be the problem child here.
Thanks for working this, and thanks again for more Godspeed in the correct profile.
Juka@Juka no I didn't buy a spacebar kit, the blue one in the review is actually a Signature Plastic SA spacebar I had from another set.
I tried multiple spacebars and while the ones from my other keycaps set worked fine, the one from the Ares Micon kit got stuck. And you can actually tell it's warped as the bar doesn't sit flush when pressed against a flat surface
bbroncoHave just checked my 6.25 bar from Ares micons and I've got the same issue. It's only slightly warped, doesn't quite seem to cause the spacebar to stick but is definitely messing with the stabilizers and you can see it's bent when you put it on a flat surface. I've heard with PBT spacebars it's possible to flatten them out by soaking in hot water and then leaving under a heavy weight, like a large book. Never tried it myself and not sure if it'd work on MT3 since they're quite thick caps, but worth a go maybe?
BecauseRacecarSame here with the spacebar (from the normal alphas kit, or the Ares mod kit, don't know anymore where it was in) on my GMMK TKL. Even happens if I pulled out the switch below the spacebar, so it's really the stabilizers and not the switch. Frustrating.
Works fine on my Ducky One TKL, though.
Edit: And yes, it's slightly bent: If I put it on a flat surface (table), both ends have a gap of maybe a millimeter (or even less) to the table.
nubbedindaribsWow, that’s bad. How can something like this (and all the other issues) pass QC with no way for @Drop+MechKeys to fix this?
I would have produced 5% more of everything to fix my mistakes if I were Drop.
I’m still waiting for my two sets (with Norde, Milky Ways and some more) and hoping for the best.
@MiTo Any insight on how @Drop handles such mistakes? A bent spacebar or wrong profile key makes the whole set useless in my opinion as you pay for a complete set. Should qualify for a complete refund with free return shipping.
gattermannFrom what I understand Ares Micon is like 10 orders or so. I don't think we'll see anything from drop as it not such a widespread issue. I think we have to try and fix it ourselves
But yeah..
gattermannI don't really know if they made them all at once or grouped by batch but as far as I can tell reading the comments, only those who have ordered the Ares Micon mods have a sticking bar. Original post has been updated and seems to confirm that
gattermannQuality control can be done by myself to only a certain extent, unfortunately I can’t do anything regarding return policies, etc. I live in Brazil and I am just the designer of the product, it is a shame that some of us are experiencing these issues. All I can do is recommend you to open a ticket and request the appropriate keycap replacement.
MiTo@MiTo wrote:
> All I can do is recommend you to open a ticket and request the appropriate keycap replacement.
Just did that and got a (non-automatic) response within minutes:
> We will need to reach out to the vendor directly to source the replacements keycaps. I have put in a request for the following replacement keycaps to be sourced: 7u and 6.25u spacebar from the ARES MODS kit
Now that's a quick and satisfying answer!
BTW: The 7u spacebar from my Ares Mods kit is even more bent than the sticky 6.25u spacebar.
The 6.25u spacebar is only slightly bent, but enough to stick in my GMMK TKL even without switch, just with the stabilizers.
The 7u spacebar is bent even more, but I currently don't have a board to test if it sticks, too. But since it's bent even more, I assume it sticks even more, too, in case it can be fitted onto a keyboard at all...
I also attached several pictures showing:
both spacebars together on a flat surface, show both ends of each spacebar not touching the surface,
both spacebars together on a flat surface, pressing onto one end (the picture shown above),
each spacebar alone on a flat surface, pressing onto one end,
JukaYeah, I can very well imagine: I wouldn't want a partial refund for a $280 order where the only two spacebars in the whole order are unusable, i.e. the whole order is unusable. (I actually ordered more, namely also the Ares Ortho kit and Minuteman, so I actually do have two usable sets, but the remainder of the order of about $280 value is rather unusable in the moment without fullsize spacebars.)
And I also don't understand why Drop handles the obviously same issue so different from customer to customer.
I wonder how many of the Ares Mods kits are affected. If it's a not a small percentage, I would expect Drop send replacement spacebars to anyone who purchased the Ares Mods kit as they did in the past with other fuckups (e.g. like missing keys or misprints in some kits).
XTaranI’ve ordered two Apollo sets (Alphas and mods) plus extras (two Norde, two Milky ways, novelties, mitonauts, arrows, numpad) and a 6.25U space bar kit.
One Apollo mods set came with two 6.25U space bars, no 7U and the 7U bar from the second set is bent. The solar and ares bars from the space bar kit are also bent. That’s three out of seven bent space bars while one is also the wrong size.
I also have a lot of printing errors (crooked, off center) and the two R5 Keys from the novelties set are missing.
Will have to open a ticket with lots of pictures soon... It’s a shame that the QC is so bad.
XTaranSo I got a reply back after linking this thread to the CS assigned to my ticket. He said it is not possible and he can't discuss orders from other members. So I guess the solution is varied from one CS person to the next. You are fortunate to have a good one.
JukaSo what they are saying is that it‘s basically a gamble whether you receive a good quality product and replacements are not an option (in most cases?)...
Shard9Indeed. And there even came more spacebars than expected: Today I got a package containing a complete 6.25u spacebar kit (i.e. all three colors) and a complete 7u spacebar kit (i.e. all three colors). So they seem to have sent out the smallest set of existing kits which contains all the keys which weren't ok in my ordered kits.
So of course I feel thankful towards Massdrop in how they handled my bent spacebars.
But it seems that they haven't handled all customers with the same issue that way — at least according to this thread. So if that's really true — and still the case — that's a IMHO very unprofessional behaviour of Massdrop.