4 ms·

How are they not getting replaced by chinese manufacturers? From a naive point of view those don't seem to hard to manufacture.

bpicolo 9y ago
Some are, some aren't (e.g. KeyCool). Lots of these have low production counts.
- sleepybrett 9y ago
  Maxkey, Tai Hao and others in the chinese market are making their presence felt, but generally the quality just isn't there for the enthusiast community.
  - nerdponx 9y ago
    Tai Hao is really coming into their own with the Cubic keycap profile. They're doing for keycaps what Kailh is doing for switches.
ljosa 9y ago
They are, but from the low end. Often the quality is not quite there: the colors are off, the legends and not properly aligned, the plastic is warped, the keys not quite aligned, and so on. It is probably because the production runs are so small that the only way to make a decent profit is to order a blind production run and ship it out no matter what it looks like. Higher-quality low-cost options are starting to appear as this new market matures. In contrast, the group buys in the enthusiast community are works of love, with multiple rounds of checks and adjustments to get it right. Sometimes facilitators like Massdrop force projects out the door because of cost even though the creator of the design wants to do more rounds of tweaking are necessary, and it shows. (Example: the recent /dev/tty keycap set.)
whywhywhywhy 9y ago
They are, XDA keycap form factor is from a Chinese factory IIRC and is kinda derivative of DSA caps which comes out of Signature Plastics. Seems to be quality issues with every XDA run so far though. Keyboard fanatics drop a good amount of money on these sets so quality is extremely important in such a small and passionate market.
emddudley 9y ago
Jelly Key makes artisan keycaps by hand. They are based in Vietnam. https://www.jellykey.com/ https://www.jellykey.com/

bpicolo 9y ago

Some are, some aren't (e.g. KeyCool). Lots of these have low production counts.

sleepybrett 9y ago
Maxkey, Tai Hao and others in the chinese market are making their presence felt, but generally the quality just isn't there for the enthusiast community.
- nerdponx 9y ago
  Tai Hao is really coming into their own with the Cubic keycap profile. They're doing for keycaps what Kailh is doing for switches.

ljosa 9y ago

They are, but from the low end. Often the quality is not quite there: the colors are off, the legends and not properly aligned, the plastic is warped, the keys not quite aligned, and so on. It is probably because the production runs are so small that the only way to make a decent profit is to order a blind production run and ship it out no matter what it looks like. Higher-quality low-cost options are starting to appear as this new market matures. In contrast, the group buys in the enthusiast community are works of love, with multiple rounds of checks and adjustments to get it right. Sometimes facilitators like Massdrop force projects out the door because of cost even though the creator of the design wants to do more rounds of tweaking are necessary, and it shows. (Example: the recent /dev/tty keycap set.)

whywhywhywhy 9y ago

They are, XDA keycap form factor is from a Chinese factory IIRC and is kinda derivative of DSA caps which comes out of Signature Plastics. Seems to be quality issues with every XDA run so far though. Keyboard fanatics drop a good amount of money on these sets so quality is extremely important in such a small and passionate market.

emddudley 9y ago

Jelly Key makes artisan keycaps by hand. They are based in Vietnam. https://www.jellykey.com/ https://www.jellykey.com/