Acrylic case for Filco Tenkeyless Keyboard

[laggy-gaga]

now I feel sry for myself,
after all I have done so far, I just cant get a tiny piece of respect,
u only care about ur design
I live in OZ and work fulltime,
feng lives in USA and now is in Easter Trip to Las Vegas,
hippo lives in China,
b4 yesterday I never make any personal contact with feng,
so enjoy ur moment to find out all the un-matched story

btw, no worries beacuse u r dealing with some pieces of retard
one is me who wants to copy ur design and ask u to post it to china, even he know u never find out if he send from Oz to China,
one is feng who is begging u will never find out he is selling the copy of cases on GH,
one is MKC who spent fXXking 20 days to copy ur design, even he makes some awesome metal keycaps(I guess he copys that as well)

[off]

HUG IT OUT BITCHES!

Anyway, stumbled across this: http://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?p=16956#p16956
That shows taeyung posting similar acrylic cases in july 2011.. Admittedly, these don't have the telltale height thingy that litster came up with, but are eerily similar in other aspects.
How I see it, mkc or w/e copied the stand/feet from litster, and possibly something about a cable; can't tell.
But the underlying thing is,
*We love keyboards.
*We love design.
*We share, copy and use everything.

And yes, like webwit said, attributing inspiration is something absolutely mandatory in an honourable sense, but sometimes that is either hard, impossible, forgotten, or awkward. Actually you'll find that inspiration is unquantifiable and comes from everywhere, and simply put you'll never be able to thank/credit everyone for the influence they've had on whatever you are, do or create.
And honestly, as much as I bloody love the look of litster's cases, the chance of me getting one have always been 0, and having these alternatives pop up is very good for poor slobs like me.
For this, I'm thankful to all involved.

[webwit]

There's nothing new about acrylic cases, especially in the Korean communities. If you're gonna make one you still need measurements and a design though. I don't know how these measure up, but those litster feet were a very specific solution...

[off]

There's nothing new about acrylic cases ... those litster feet were a very specific solution...

Well ofcourse, meant to point to the 6 hex screws in the top, 5 in the bottom- all very logical, but one could think that litster copied that (was inspired by that).
Ofcourse, his stunningly simple idea (as also planned in ergodox') to use layers to cut costs and simplify production immensely; is invaluable and probably he was the one to bring that to the keyb community- but it can be argued that it is a very simple technique that has been used in a lot of areas for a long time, so it was only logical for someone to make that connection (thankfully- it might be of great help to me personally when scratchbuilding one of my boards).
And the feet flow from that technique, a very logical way of implementing them when building a case out of layers.
I won't dispute the similarity of the size/looks he chose and those mkc 'chose' though.
Anyhow, I'm just saying, together we go far. Looking at geekhack, with fighting we can fall far too. No disrespect.

[feng]

tons of misunderstandings.

before yesterday, I only contacted gaga few times through a Chinese keyboards/mice/mousepads forum.

So at the time when I posted my words here, I didn't realize that gaga and I didn't mean the same person when we say "the 3d person". my bad. sorry. please slap my face.

And I thought gaga sent litster's case to the "3rd person" that I was talking about, and the guy sent it to MKC. But it's not so true after I talked to gaga yesterday. MKC probably just got the ideas from the picstures on the websites. And he doesn't have the "real litster's case" on his hand which I used to think he has one. so please slap my face twice, thank you

on my vacation in Vegas now, I don't wanna destroy my girl friend's vacation, although I've destroyed mine. So we'll talk about this later, after digging out more details with the others.

[dirge]

I don't think anyone here would want to ruin your holiday, enjoy yourself honestly bud

[feng]

What feng said and what laggy said don't match up.

Please just don't waste your time on the matching up thing. As I've said there're also some misunderstainds between gaga and me, not just you.

I'll explain more after my vacation. c u guys later. Happy Easter.

[litster]

Laggy, you said it yourself, in Chinese:
过后几个礼拜河马问我规格，想自己山寨
After a few weeks, Hippo asked me about the measurements, thinking to make copies.
我说要么你借我朋友那套吧
I said if you want you can borrow the case from my friend
过后几天mkc＂研发＂了透明外壳
a few days later, mkc "developed" a new clear acrylic case
I asked Hippo, he said he did indeed told mkc the measurements
问过河马，他说他的确告诉过mkc尺寸规格
I asked Hippo, he said he did indeed told mkc the measurements and specifications
我本意的确是想弄个便宜的透明外壳
My original idea really was to create a cheap transparent case

There are 2 issues here. One, you sent my case over to China with the intension to copy it. That you said it yourself. That you did not tell me when you bought the cases from me. That, you lied to me.

Second issue is whether MKC copied my design or not. No one has MKC’s case now, so everything is speculative. But with the pictures shown, MKC’s case is almost an exact match to my design. Sure, Koreans have been making acrylic cases. They have been making cases for their custom keyboards with a flat PCB bottom. They do not need to accommodate Filco’s USB cable plug or Phantom’s Teensy controller. As far as I know, no one made any acrylic cases specifically for Filco, let alone Phantom. If there were any, I haven’t seen them. No one else except BiNiaRiS and I have Phantom. Why would MKC make a cut on that middle bottom plate to accommodate Phantom’s Teensy control, which is on the opposite side of the Filco USB connector on the PCB?

Another obvious indication is the frosted area on the top plate, above the arrow cluster and below the 6-pack. If you don’t have a Filco, you would not know why that area is thinner on my acrylic case. It is thinner because Filco’s controller is at that location, sticking out over the mounting plate. The controller actually pushed the top acrylic plate up in that area, and it bugged the hell out of me, although you wouldn’t notice it if I didn’t tell you. More importantly, due to the wide margin of acrylic thickness specification, this is not a problem if the *second* acrylic layer is 1/32” thicker. Yes, only 1/32” difference, less than .8mm. But that is enough to change the top acrylic plate from flat to popping up. I didn’t design the case to have that area made thinner until very, very late, only a week before my cases went into production. To make it thinner, material is removed. With clear acrylic, you can see that area is no longer transparent after material is removed. With opaque acrylic, you can’t see the difference. Somehow MKC’s case also has that area made thinner, even though PLU doesn’t have its controller sticking up over the mounting plate.

All that above isn’t really necessary, as you already said that MKC has the measurements and specifications to my case from Hippo, who got that information from your friend in China. That is enough to implicate.

Feng got caught in this only because he wanted to resell cases from MKC without knowing how it came about. He is just an innocent bystander who just wanted to make a buck and bring some cool keyboard stuff over from China.

I am not happy that you, from the get go, wanted to make copies of my case without telling me. You tried to downplay the significance of getting the design to MKC. And you now are saying MKC didn’t copy my design by providing pictures of the KMAC cases, which doesn’t really prove any point.

Let’s pretend all this didn’t happen. My original intention to design a case was to have a case option for people who are building Phantom without a Filco case. I was able to desing one, but I wasn’t able to make it at a reasonable price. If I knew someone in China who could make this case with my design for this cheap, I would have included it in the Phantom group buy. If the end result of all this is getting reasonably priced acrylic cases for the keyboard community for the Phantom project, my original goal would be accomplished.

Once people have tested this case from China, if it is good quality at a reasonable price, I would be happy to see a group buy organized around this case from China.

[off]

[off off of topic] And that's when I realise that not only did I not attribute my 'hug it out bitches' to the source I quoted, but that Biniaris actually uttered those words here before me as well, also uncredited though. Went looking through his posts for the 1800's he was planning to sell, found that. [/off off of topic]

[kaiserreich]

Spoiler:

Laggy, you said it yourself, in Chinese:
过后几个礼拜河马问我规格，想自己山寨
After a few weeks, Hippo asked me about the measurements, thinking to make copies.
我说要么你借我朋友那套吧
I said if you want you can borrow the case from my friend
过后几天mkc＂研发＂了透明外壳
a few days later, mkc "developed" a new clear acrylic case
I asked Hippo, he said he did indeed told mkc the measurements
问过河马，他说他的确告诉过mkc尺寸规格
I asked Hippo, he said he did indeed told mkc the measurements and specifications
我本意的确是想弄个便宜的透明外壳
My original idea really was to create a cheap transparent case

There are 2 issues here. One, you sent my case over to China with the intension to copy it. That you said it yourself.
That you did not tell me when you bought the cases from me. That, you lied to me.

Second issue is whether MKC copied my design or not. No one has MKC’s case now, so everything is speculative. But with the pictures shown, MKC’s case is almost an exact match to my design. Sure, Koreans have been making acrylic cases. They have been making cases for their custom keyboards with a flat PCB bottom. They do not need to accommodate Filco’s USB cable plug or Phantom’s Teensy controller. As far as I know, no one made any acrylic cases specifically for Filco, let alone Phantom. If there were any, I haven’t seen them. No one else except BiNiaRiS and I have Phantom. Why would MKC make a cut on that middle bottom plate to accommodate Phantom’s Teensy control, which is on the opposite side of the Filco USB connector on the PCB?

Another obvious indication is the frosted area on the top plate, above the arrow cluster and below the 6-pack. If you don’t have a Filco, you would not know why that area is thinner on my acrylic case. It is thinner because Filco’s controller is at that location, sticking out over the mounting plate. The controller actually pushed the top acrylic plate up in that area, and it bugged the hell out of me, although you wouldn’t notice it if I didn’t tell you. More importantly, due to the wide margin of acrylic thickness specification, this is not a problem if the *second* acrylic layer is 1/32” thicker. Yes, only 1/32” difference, less than .8mm. But that is enough to change the top acrylic plate from flat to popping up. I didn’t design the case to have that area made thinner until very, very late, only a week before my cases went into production. To make it thinner, material is removed. With clear acrylic, you can see that area is no longer transparent after material is removed. With opaque acrylic, you can’t see the difference. Somehow MKC’s case also has that area made thinner, even though PLU doesn’t have its controller sticking up over the mounting plate.

All that above isn’t really necessary, as you already said that MKC has the measurements and specifications to my case from Hippo, who got that information from your friend in China. That is enough to implicate.

Feng got caught in this only because he wanted to resell cases from MKC without knowing how it came about. He is just an innocent bystander who just wanted to make a buck and bring some cool keyboard stuff over from China.

I am not happy that you, from the get go, wanted to make copies of my case without telling me. You tried to downplay the significance of getting the design to MKC. And you now are saying MKC didn’t copy my design by providing pictures of the KMAC cases, which doesn’t really prove any point.

Let’s pretend all this didn’t happen. My original intention to design a case was to have a case option for people who are building Phantom without a Filco case. I was able to desing one, but I wasn’t able to make it at a reasonable price. If I knew someone in China who could make this case with my design for this cheap, I would have included it in the Phantom group buy. If the end result of all this is getting reasonably priced acrylic cases for the keyboard community for the Phantom project, my original goal would be accomplished.

Once people have tested this case from China, if it is good quality at a reasonable price, I would be happy to see a group buy organized around this case from China.

In terms of frosted area, MKC can claim that it is meant to hide the PCB color.

As to the bottom plate cut out, I think you are referring to the picture below, would the PLU had fit without that?

2.JPG (121.05 KiB) Viewed 5259 times

[off]

In terms of frosted area, MKC can claim that it is meant to hide the PCB color.

Ofcourse, yet in this case I'd say point to litster.

[dirge]

As to the bottom plate cut out, I think you are referring to the picture below, would the PLU had fit without that?

Without half of it, sure. Isn't the phantom's teensy controller on the other side?

[mkawa]

agreed litster, i think we should all try to forget that this happened.

feng: since you seem to know mkc reasonably well, do you think you could mediate between litster and mk on manufacturing a litster design in a way that gets litster a return for his design investment? i would love to have litster's careful, awesome designs with chinese volume and economy...