[Production]Debian Novelty Key

[Vierax]

I almost forgot to order, right on time

[napalmbrain]

The DSA Caps Lock better hit 50...

[alinh]

The DSA Caps Lock better hit 50...

It will don't worry

[DanielT]

Daily update, actually the last day update:

Debian Red on White | 124 pcs Tipped and now only $2.25 !
Debian Black on Grey | 23 pcs
Vim 1u DSA | 172 pcs Tipped and now only $1.50!
Vim 1.75u DSA | 48 pcs Tipped !
Vim 1.75u SA | 26 pcs and finally Tipped!

This is the last day 11 hours to go, the last chance to join this GB and get your Vim and Debian caps.
The Black on Grey Debian will be tipped by us today, there is no way to let it drop
Debian Red on White has big chances to hit the 150 units tier with a price of $1.75, Alin and i will buy at least 20 pcs
Vim 1u DSA is doing great, and has all the chances to hit 200 units and the price will be only $1.25
Vim 1.75 DSA will hit soon the 50 units tier with a price of only $3.75
And finally SA lovers will be getting their 1.75u Row3 Vim cap

It has been a thrilling experience for us running this GB and we thank you all for joining.
And remember !!!!!

Spoiler:

LastVader.jpg (62.11 KiB) Viewed 6653 times

[DanielT]

OK, Alin and I placed our orders.
As promised Debian Black on Grey is a reality now, we made it happen.
Debian Red on White is at $1.75
1.75 DSA Vim is at $3.75
And 1u DSA Vim is close to 200 units and that's only $1.25

All you guys who have joined at the beginning of the GB and payed the premium price go ahead and buy more, in 7 hours you will be refunded and for the same money you will get more

And for the last minute buyers, go now and buy, the prices are low and can only go down from now on !

BUY MORE!!!!!!

[DanielT]

It's over, now we are moving to production. All the kits will be produced

The summary of this GB:
DSA 1u Red on White Debian 174 purchased at $1.75
DSA 1u Black on Grey Debian 32 purchased at $7
DSA 1u Vim 265 purchased at $1
DSA 1.75u Vim 66 purchased at $3.75
SA Row 3 1.75u Vim 29 purchased at $7

A total of 557 caps have been purchased, some of them will be a rare item

Thank you all for joining this GB !!!!

Spoiler:

Vader_MM_Over.jpg (65.59 KiB) Viewed 6617 times

[Muirium]

Congratulations. Triple figures, eh? Impressive.

Next up: the Hash Bangs to match your ducks, uh, I mean swirly Vimians!

[DanielT]

Those Hash Bangs and Ducks are awesome, too bad I don't have Round 5 anymore Sold it and got a lot of goodies with that money

[Muirium]

I suspect that once the wait is over, and when it finally ships, and DT gets covered with pictures, Round 5 will find you again! I'll surely do my part.

[DanielT]

I have my doubts (at least my wallet hopes so), we'll see how it goes, never say no
For the moment I managed to balance my past keyboard spending spree and if the planets align the only thing left on my wish list is an aluminum case for a 60% but it must be something special.

[DanielT]

Alin and I have collected info about the progress of the GB. We have compiled all the data and made some nice charts
I think it is some interesting information for someone running a GB as you can clearly see the trend:

Spoiler:

DSA_Debian_Black_on_grey.jpg (61.25 KiB) Viewed 6591 times

DSA_Debian_Red_on_white.jpg (76.28 KiB) Viewed 6591 times

DSA_Vim.jpg (81.54 KiB) Viewed 6591 times

DSA_Vim_Caps_Lock.jpg (60.25 KiB) Viewed 6591 times

SA_Vim_Caps_Lock.jpg (56.12 KiB) Viewed 6591 times

[Muirium]

PMK definitely gives people the impression they should wait until the end, for a better price. The untipped, initial pricing is a disincentive to get in early on. Despite the fact that everyone pays the same when it's done!

Those closing day upticks are good to see. They do vary quite a bit, though. There's no predictor what will really take off in the end. Although it never hurts to be popular in the middle, too, I see.

[alinh]

PMK would be way better if you could say : "I'd buy X kits at max Y$ per kit".
Once enough people input their choices the system can automatically unlock tiers.

At the moment if a key costs 10$ for 25 units sold, but only 1$ for 250 sold, there will be some who try to tip it to 25 (by buying 1-2 keys) and then it slowly increases until the next tier. With the other system I'd join and say : I want to get 20 keys at max 2$ per key - and only 230 keys needed until 1$ tier is unlocked, or 130 for the 2$ tier to be unlocked.

I think this way GroupBuys would be settled from day 1. No more waiting for the last day to see what the price will be.

[DerpyDash_xAD]

PMK would be way better if you could say : "I'd buy X kits at max Y$ per kit".
Once enough people input their choices the system can automatically unlock tiers.

At the moment if a key costs 10$ for 25 units sold, but only 1$ for 250 sold, there will be some who try to tip it to 25 (by buying 1-2 keys) and then it slowly increases until the next tier. With the other system I'd join and say : I want to get 20 keys at max 2$ per key - and only 230 keys needed until 1$ tier is unlocked, or 130 for the 2$ tier to be unlocked.

I think this way GroupBuys would be settled from day 1. No more waiting for the last day to see what the price will be.

Contact them, see what they say, because that would be awesome!

[Muirium]

Right now, they can't even calculate shipping right, or count comments on their own site. But you're right, that would definitely be an improvement too.

[scottc]

Agreed. I just paid $40 shipping on a $20 order due to their shipping problem. $30 was promptly refunded, thankfully. If not for Melissa's helpfulness, it'd be pretty frustrating to deal with it. Thankfully, I know that they're quite reliable and I know that they'll sort this stuff out for me - in less reliable places, the bugs would probably be a deal-breaker for me.

[gioele]

If not for Melissa's helpfulness, it'd be pretty frustrating to deal with it.

And I was thinking: the Debian red on white group buy was worth 304.5 USD in total. To me this seems such a small amount of money that I cannot understand how they can have somebody spending time answering emails and redoing calculations.

[Muirium]

Fortunately, the whole business doesn't hinge on Vim! My last invoice for Round 5 (end of May) says the total order was 102,500 caps at that point. I don't know 7bit's margins for shipping etc., but a rough guess is maybe 50 cents paid to SP for each cap, so something like $50k. That's a lot better, obviously, but even an order like that won't keep the company running by itself.

I think SP's work with the keyboard community is basically something they do on the side, to fill excess capacity. Albeit a lot of it falling on Melissa! Their core business surely lies elsewhere.

I'm thankful they are this flexible. You know how much worse things would be for us if the best supplier we had was like GMK.

[napalmbrain]

I can't wait for this to ship.

[alinh]

Melissa just sent me this message :

"Attached is a picture of the white/red Debian Swirl keycap - please let me know if this is acceptable and we will produce the balance."

Debian Swirl Photo.jpg (192.66 KiB) Viewed 6397 times

To me it looks a bit too right aligned.

I've zoomed out the pic to about a keycap size and it looks OK.

What say you?

[Muirium]

Looks a little off centre to me, too. The swirl bottom as well as the bowl shape at the top would improve if moved maybe 5% the width of the cap to the left. A bit less than the line thickness on the left… (easier to show in an image).

There, like this:

MOCK!!!

Debian%20Swirl%20Photo.jpg (196.48 KiB) Viewed 6393 times

It's actually a bigger shift to the left than I thought. About as much as the thickest width the red legend has.

[alinh]

Looks a little off centre to me, too. The swirl bottom as well as the bowl shape at the top would improve if moved maybe 5% the width of the cap to the left. A bit less than the line thickness on the left… (easier to show in an image)

yeah... I *think* I imagine what you meant, but I'm about the exact measurement description

Edit :

I see what you did there... That looks centered to me
What about the printing quality? Zoomed out it looks OK imo. Can we get better results?

[Muirium]

Here's a little something I cooked up in my ancient copy of Photoshop:

My Guess in Photoshop.tiff (481.74 KiB) Viewed 6390 times

I put some guides on the view, and those made the original photo's orientation pretty obviously flawed. So I moved it up a bit and, purely by guesswork, put a new layer in front with the logo centred better. Then I pulled down the opacity so you can see how much I moved it. It's a fairly big shift.

I'll see if I can figure out how to colour the two differently. (Really not a Photoshop master!) Because the effect just now looks confused and blurry…

[alinh]

argh... image doesn't load for me...

PS : selling that SSK?

[Muirium]

Try this: the little dots on your legend help show how I moved it.

My Guess in Photoshop.png (340.1 KiB) Viewed 6377 times

Picked the wrong version in the upload dialogue. Odd how TIFF doesn't work everywhere, though.

I've got plans for the SSK. Bluetooth!

[DanielT]

The legend is great, if Melissa will center it just wee bit is perfect. The way it looks in Murium's picture is perfect.

[alinh]

Melissa said :

"The image has been adjusted and is now centered. Please be aware that there is always some chance of slight variation as there are a number of factors that affect the registration.

We will be printing these today and hopefully shipping out the VIM and Debian orders tomorrow.

Thanks!"

so, yeah

[DanielT]

Shipping has started Get ready for the swirl