Challenge Ursa – new key profile for Topre boards

Look, I do not need to be the man who all the time writes about bizarre keyboard stuff. I’ve different pursuits. However I would like to inform dozens Edge Readers with Topre keyboards about these keycaps. Ursa New spherical Doubleshot key profile for Topre it’s obtainable for group buy till Might fifteenth.

Response to the earlier proposal will probably fall into three camps:

1. I acknowledge a few of these phrases
2. Already broke this checkout button
3. Purchase a gaggle of keycaps? In 2024? In a brand new profile? For Topre boards? What might go improper?

Normally I am within the third group, however at this time I am within the second group. In case you’re within the first group, here is what a few of these phrases imply. Topre keyboards corresponding to Blissful Hacking Keyboard Skilled, use switches aside from commonplace mechanical keyboards. They use small rubber domes with a pointy, heavy tactile really feel that you could’t Actually get elsewhere (I attempted).

However Topre is a tiny a part of the massive mechanical keyboard market. In contrast to commonplace MX fashion mechanical keyboards the place there are alternatives for the keypad, change and keycap. each the quantity is within the 1000’s – there are only some Topre boards and only a few methods to customise them.

Moreover HHKB, Topre switches are additionally present in Realforce keyboards and a few Leopold boards, e.g. my favourite FC660C. With just a few exceptions, they do not work with common MX-style keys, and the important thing set is small.

There are commonplace keycaps which can be created from dye-infused PBT, however they’re solely obtainable in just a few colour choices. Eat a number of extraordinarily costly loud keycaps from discontinued keyboards and a few crappy aftermarket kits. Most individuals who need to substitute the keycaps on their Topre boards find yourself putting in MX-compatible sliders.

(In case you’re questioning why individuals spend tons of of {dollars} on the right keyboard proper out of the field, after which spend a ton extra money altering every part about it, all of us have brainworms.)

So, again to Ursa. Ursa profile designed by designer Andreas Chlupka and manufactured FCCaps. I am already following its improvement. for a few years now, as a result of I am an individual who likes good keycaps. And they’re stunning, with superbly sculpted spherical tops and centered lettering. To my information, these are the primary Doubleshot PBT keycaps obtainable for Topre boards.

Ursa keycaps can be found. in basic grey and creamy white, black with white lettering (with elective crimson or blue modifier keys), and Minitel 1– brown, inexperienced and cream colours in retro fashion. For $80 you get a package that may embrace the HHKB or FC660C; a full-size Realforce will value $120. If you don’t need the legends (the half that tells you which ones key it’s), a full set of caps in black or basic colour will value $60.

They’re anticipated to go on sale within the first quarter of 2025, which appears a great distance off, however leaves comparatively little room for a gaggle buy of the keys.

So much can go improper! It appears the FKCaps group seems at issues fairly clearly. Probably the most instant is that if they do not obtain sufficient orders to pay for the double motion instruments, they will not have the ability to make the keycaps and the group buy can be cancelled. Personally, I do not want this consequence.

Then there’s the group shopping for mannequin itself, which is widespread in fanatic communities, however requires paying for the product lengthy earlier than it’s really produced and trusting the vendor to pay the producer, the producer to make the merchandise and ship it to the vendor, and the vendor will ship it to you. Many group purchases fail at certainly one of these phases!

Simon Tarchichi, co-founder of FKCaps, advised me through e-mail: “We perceive that the circumstances should not appropriate for a gaggle buy, and if we might, we would definitely do it otherwise. On the similar time, we have now expertise in producing new keycap profiles; that is our fifth enterprise (after MBK, hexagonMNT Pocket and SLK), and even though this selection is extra advanced, since they’re double, we’d not gather cash from purchasers if we weren’t 100% certain of the consequence.”

The following process, in fact, is making the keycaps. Proper now, along with 3D printed prototypes, FKCaps solely gives disposable cap samples from its producer., and a few stems are crooked. This can be a widespread drawback with aftermarket Topre caps just like the KBDfans set I am utilizing now. PBT is a troublesome materials to work with and shrinks loads, so it may well take a number of makes an attempt to straighten the rods and get the lettering proper, so FKCaps developed and perfected the instruments in 5 months. Tarcichi advised me that this is identical producer that makes different keycaps, and that he has expertise making Doubleshot PBT keycaps, which is encouraging.

I am not going to inform you to purchase these keycaps. Group shopping for is dangerous, and manufacturing is troublesome – FKCaps resorted to a gaggle purchase solely after it could not discover an investor to place cash into what’s, in any case, an extremely area of interest product. And nobody wants spending that form of cash on keycaps for an already costly keyboard.