*Help* Screw in stabilizers not fitting in Dropshift V2 keyboard
I'm trying to build a mechanical keyboard with screw in stabilizers, I've build some mechanical keyboards with click-in stabilizers, never with screw in. Somehow one of the pins of the metal top-part collides with the screw in stabilizer of the numpad "enter key". I already tried grinding of a bit of the pin that collides with the stabilizer, but unfortunately I can't make it fit/close properly. You can see that the pin of the toppart leaves a mark on the bottompart of the stabilizer, see picture 2. What am I missing? Using Durock V2 in a Dropshift fullsize V2. See pictures below, thanks in advance!
Apr 23, 2024
Small batch high quality cnc is expensive.
Most of the lower priced cases are cast or dramatically simpler manufacturing, they also tend to be thinner low profile cases that use substantially less raw aluminum.
Even if mass producing the case would drive the price down to say $100, that wouldn't happen at 100 units or probably even 1000 units but at like 10000 or 100000. And the demand just isn't there for that.
the pok3r case is also something like 1/4th the thicknesss of this and is produced to a much larger scale than this. You seem to think economics is some sort of magic where the things you want are produced to scale so they can be made cheaper just for you regardless of if there is any demand to support it. I bet vortex produces 1000s if not 10s of 1000s of cases a batch. even at $100 a case this would never sell that many. So while yes, there is likely some way to lower the price, there is not enough demand to make doing so viable.
You cannot not produce a Ferrari for the same price as a Hyundai, and in the same way, you cannot produce a high end/well finished CNC case for the same price as a low end cast and coated one. its not just a small difference. It uses substantially more and nicer raw material CNC cases start as it starts out as a single billet of metal and has a much slower more expensive manufacturing process. A slower more expensive finish. fewer can be produced at a time. Etc.
Yes, if you just up and dropped the price, they would sell more, but would they sell ENOUGH more. You are doing economics backwards. You don't set a price based on how it would sell then try and figure out how to make something reach that price. You need to actually be able to produce the product for what you are selling it for.
So for example, let's say they could somehow produce this case to sell at $100 by making 25,000 of them. The biggest keyboard group buy I've seen sold like 4000-5000 units if I remember right (though it was a keyset), but lets just say we hit that hypothetical, we list for $100 and sell 5000, the problem is we still have to buy the other 20,000 cases, lets say production cost on the cases is $80 a pop... thats a cool 1.6 MILLION dollars in spend to buy 20,000 cases you may well never sell, all to get $100k profit or an operating loss of 1.5 million.
I bet if you were lucky, they could drop the price like $10 at 1000 units or something. You need high margins or easily scalable production to make economies of scale really pay off. You also need HIGH VOLUME.
Sure, if you are apple you can pull it off: https://blog.bolt.io/no-you-cant-manufacture-that-like-apple-does-93bea02a3bbf
" What happened when Apple wanted to CNC machine a million MacBook bodies a year? They bought 10k CNC machines to do it. How about when they wanted to laser drill holes in MacBook Pros for the sleep light but only one company made a machine that could drill those 20 µm holes in aluminum? It bought the company that made the machines and took all the inventory. "
This is how you drive pricing down... You have to reach automation scale. But, most companies cannot afford the outlay of hundreds or thousands of cnc machines, and even the companies they contract out to don't have that kind of production capacity.
Plus, this is actually a CHEAP keyboard case. People pay $600-800+ for stuff like Duck keyboard kits. You not being able/willing to afford something does not make it overpriced. Just because you don't wanna pay what it costs, doesn't mean it can magically be made for what you are willing to spend. I'd love to know what exactly in my argument makes it a straw man argument.
Your argument is that all they have to do is mass produce to magically make it affordable and somehow skyrocket demand to justify it. You aren't actually providing any evidence or reasoning behind your argument. It's easy to say "the price could be reduced in one way or another ", but I'm curious if you actually have any ideas on HOW you might do this. What is one way you would cut costs? How much do you think this case costs to produce? What do you think the profit margin is?
My argument is that CNC manufacturing IS expensive and can only be made so cheap. No matter how much you cry about the pricing, realistically there is no VIABLE way to drive the pricing down much lower without compromising on quality, and for a great many of us, the whole point IS the quality. If I wanted a cheap cast and powder coated case then I'd just buy a pok3r case.
And also, let's be real here, lowering pricing is not gonna be some magic bullet here... The lambo case is only $80 and it's only sold 30 units so far. Pricing is just one part of what drives demand... quality is another. If this case is SOOOO overpriced as you say, then why have twice as many people purchased it despite it costing twice as much?
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=44698462095&ft=t&toSite=main
This one has small production and even can request custom-made features, at the cost of just a bit > $90.
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=44698462095&ft=t&toSite=main
Closest example im aware of is the kbdfans 5degree case.