Round 5 and Round 6 kits for sale!

Muirium · 16 Dec 2014, 17:18

Leverage to do what? Let them sell their own inventory!

Actually, that reminds me: does SP manufacture before receiving payment? They did with DSA Dolch (the money flew away with Druger) so wound up selling the produced inventory themselves.

7bit · 16 Dec 2014, 17:26

Round 3: 50% before production
Round 4/5:100% before production

All I need to pay is partly for shipping and more grab boxes.

Data · 16 Dec 2014, 17:49

So they've taken the money and held it for 6 months, then produced about 75% of the order, meanwhile repeatedly assuring you that it was only a few more weeks to completion.

I'm not suggesting that you cancel, but dropping hints about cancelling might light a fire under them. A canceled order this big, this far into production, would absolutely put them in a bind. It wouldn't put them out of business but they'd take a hit on the entire run.

Did you sign a contract?

7bit · 16 Dec 2014, 18:05

If I would cancel, I would have 423 people after me who want their money back and SP sitting on 100,000 key caps that had already been paid for.

Would not the most comfortable situation for me.

BimboBB · 16 Dec 2014, 18:10

Good thing is SP can be nominated for Ping Award in 2015 again! Hope they win it!

7bit · 16 Dec 2014, 18:12

Noooooooo!

spuit · 16 Dec 2014, 18:22

Was a production end/delivery date (however vague) ever discussed beforehand? If it was and they failed to meet it, and then they failed to meet several estimate dates after that. And with no products actually delivered. You might be within your rights (not sure about US legislation) to ask for the money back.
Or at least threaten to do so, while giving them an absolute deadline to ship the order to you.

Perhaps write them a strongly worded email with the above and ask them if they even serious about honoring their part of the agreement? I mean at this point we've heard the "at the end of X month" several times before from them. What's to say they won't miss this one as well.
Maybe incentivise them a little less drastically by, instead of cancelling outright, negotiating a discount every time they miss a deadline.

At any rate, it's in your hands.
No rush, but I'd like to get them sometime this decade.

Same goes for 5a, if it's not too late maybe make some agreements to avoid this from happening to my precious 5a space-cadet lookalikes.

7bit · 16 Dec 2014, 18:36

My plan is to push Round 5a through Pimp My Keyboard, to ensure they get delivered before Round 5 has been finished!

Data · 16 Dec 2014, 18:45

7bit wrote: ↑If I would cancel, I would have 423 people after me who want their money back and SP sitting on 100,000 key caps that had already been paid for.

Would not the most comfortable situation for me.

And it's for that very reason that I'm only suggesting you talk to SP about it, not that you actually cancel.

Again, it's leverage. But of course now that I've had to explain it, and on a public forum, it's reduced to a bunch of hot air.

Muirium · 16 Dec 2014, 18:49

That's all it was to begin with. They have the money. They own the whole lever!

A system of reduced payments when they go over their deadline does make a lot of sense, in future. Well, for us. If I was SP, though, I'd say who the hell gave you this phone number?

7bit · 16 Dec 2014, 18:56

I've asked WhiteRice (who organised Round 1) before I started Round 3 and he gave me Melissa's e-mail address ...

Data · 16 Dec 2014, 19:13

Muirium wrote: ↑That's all it was to begin with. They have the money. They own the whole lever!

A system of reduced payments when they go over their deadline does make a lot of sense, in future. Well, for us. If I was SP, though, I'd say who the hell gave you this phone number?

That's a very pushover-ish way to look at it. Would you continue to allow SP to bump you indefinitely? They do not hold all the cards. Stop giving them so much power.

Whatever. I'm not an R5 participant, but it seems to me it's high time someone stood up and said enough is enough.

Muirium · 16 Dec 2014, 19:20

They have the money. Whatever "leverage" we have in Round 5 consists of whining…

The way to a good system involves not starting from here.

Fortunately, new GBs come along faster than historical eras. Well, usually.

Data · 16 Dec 2014, 20:36

I don't really understand your reference or why you're pushing this defeatist angle, sorry. There's a lot more that can be done than just whining.

7bit · 16 Dec 2014, 20:47

I've told them my opinion and that I want the keycaps they already have right now!

I've also mentioned that I've sold 5 times more kits than matt3o, who leads PMK the ranking.

Halvar · 16 Dec 2014, 22:22

First of all, they should take photos right now of what they did so far, so you/we can spot obvious errors and they save a lot of money and time for unnecessary returns.

Their internal QA hasn't exactly been trustworthy lately (hashbang, granite r2 int'l sets, Filco sets ...).

ccc24 · 16 Dec 2014, 23:14

7bit wrote: ↑My plan is to push Round 5a through Pimp My Keyboard, to ensure they get delivered before Round 5 has been finished!

How would that work for those who ordered through the bot? Would we get refunded and have to go through PMK to purchase?

7bit · 16 Dec 2014, 23:45

Halvar · 17 Dec 2014, 00:22

YES!

7bit · 17 Dec 2014, 00:29

They used the tool for the rejected Yen symbol again.
¥

In the last picture you can see it in the printout and here the wrong version on the key cap:
http://deskthority.net/w/images/9/96/Ro ... im1270.jpg (the first from left in the center-row)

facetsesame · 17 Dec 2014, 00:42

Ah. That's quite an admission. On and off I've had the impression that they were doing exactly that (stopping production of Round 5 for other purchases) for reduced pricing by some prior agreement. The nature of the agreement may be what it all comes down to - if agreements with other customers (perhaps Filco, I will speculate) have defined penalties for not meeting deadlines, then it's inevitable that they will gain precedence.

As far as PMK goes, I dunno. I specifically asked how Round 5 would affect Extras production while we were still debating legends and was told delivery of Extras would be impacted by Round 5. When discussing outline timescales later, it always seemed to be PayPal that was the real definer, not the other buys - once the process got going on PMK, it seemed to go broadly to time, with the manufacturing seemingly well within the 4-6 weeks advised.

Photos of what's been made so far would be good. As I found to our (and SP's!) cost with the Extras, early photos (especially for new tooling) prior to shipping are an invaluable resource for addressing problems before they are distributed - a vital QA step as well as an excellent hors d'oeuvre to the keys!

I've been rambling so slowly and for so long that this is obsolete!

The interrobang is real... and Arial?

beltet · 17 Dec 2014, 01:08

7bit wrote: ↑They used the tool for the rejected Yen symbol again.
¥

In the last picture you can see it in the printout and here the wrong version on the key cap:
http://deskthority.net/w/images/9/96/Ro ... im1270.jpg (the first from left in the center-row)

To bad... Should the question mark look like that? (above the empty 6)
But otherwise they look great!

facetsesame · 17 Dec 2014, 01:19

beltet wrote: ↑
7bit wrote: ↑They used the tool for the rejected Yen symbol again.
¥

In the last picture you can see it in the printout and here the wrong version on the key cap:
http://deskthority.net/w/images/9/96/Ro ... im1270.jpg (the first from left in the center-row)

To bad... Should the question mark look like that? (above the empty 6)
But otherwise they look great!

That's the interrobang!

I'll give all the pics another look through tomorrow when I've calmed down again.

Thanks for chasing these up and posting them, 7bit!

beltet · 17 Dec 2014, 01:23

facetsesame wrote: ↑
beltet wrote: ↑
7bit wrote: ↑They used the tool for the rejected Yen symbol again.
¥

In the last picture you can see it in the printout and here the wrong version on the key cap:
http://deskthority.net/w/images/9/96/Ro ... im1270.jpg (the first from left in the center-row)

To bad... Should the question mark look like that? (above the empty 6)
But otherwise they look great!
That's the interrobang!

I'll give all the pics another look through tomorrow when I've calmed down again.

Lol, didn't know that. Thanks for the clarification.
Thanks for chasing these up and posting them, 7bit!

Muirium · 17 Dec 2014, 01:29

ALPS is one of the best MX caps ever. I must keep an adapter aside for it.

Great to see (some) of these guys for real. That red is looking rich, and the white sublime.

Memoren · 17 Dec 2014, 06:59

was round 5 TKL/Graphite black alphas with grey modifiers or the other way around?

Kouni · 17 Dec 2014, 09:43

Damn that red is sexy. Too bad SP suck at deadlines.

Muirium · 17 Dec 2014, 10:02

Yup. It's rich RAS:

Memoren wrote: ↑was round 5 TKL/Graphite black alphas with grey modifiers or the other way around?

Other way. Which is to say the right way.

7bit · 17 Dec 2014, 10:21

Here are the same graphics with errors marked.

I've told them not to use that bigass-font on some of the keys, but nobody seems to read my messages:

Muirium · 17 Dec 2014, 10:26

You need an agent to talk to them. Your complaints are always ambiguous (To anyone who doesn't spend too much time here!)

It'll take a "robust approach" to ever get SHIF…T fixed!

Anyway, nothing major here to annoy me. I don't use arrows on my cursor keys, and I'm all out of ¥. (Just bought an HHKB…)