TL;DR
- GB will start really soon (few hours)
- order => what you committed (not less)
- colors will be: light blue, red, light gray, dark gray.
- the spacebars are actually already in production, you'll get them really soon
The story so far
A little by chance at the end of last year I found a manufacturer in Europe able to make the Topre spacebars in PBT. Only problem... a ginormous MOQ and quite a steep cost for the mold. Anyway I started this "purchase intent" to check on the interest of such a project and hopefully find some sponsors.
Sponsor that materialized in the form of Massdrop. Months passed and soon was clear that it couldn't be possible to produce the spacebar at a reasonable price point in Europe... so China it is.
From China with love
First of all let me say that all you hear about manufacturing in China is true. Making them do exactly what you need is a darn odyssey, but sure it's cheaper. Anyway, the purchase intent went well, so we have the numbers to proceed.
We ordered 8 prototypes. These prototypes are milled not injected, they are needed just to check that the 3d model is good. On that 3d model we will be forging the final mold.
And here we are now
I have the prototypes in my hands, the colors are still not perfect and there are few things to update, but that's what prototypes are for. Overall I'm very satisfied by the product. The 3D model is a perfect 1:1 replica of the original. Seriously you can't tell the difference.
I'm happy to finally be able to tell you that... the mold has already been paid for and it is in production! This means that when the GB ends the spacebars will be already done (or close to).
Shut up and take my money
The group buy will start very soon (it's a matter of hours now). I'll do my best to have some kind of bonus for all those who preordered but MOQ is still pretty high and margin very small. I hope you'll understand if that won't be possible.
The cost per key should be around what we estimated, $9, possibly something less, I'll know for sure in the next few hours. Volume discount will be available. It will be possible to buy 1 black and 1 white, 2 black, 2 white, 2 colors, all 4. I don't think it will be possible to buy only one, sorry. That is because the high MOQ.
Colors will be: white (aka: light gray), black (aka: dark gray), red, light blue. These colors have been chosen by you and I believe they are just perfect. Remember that you can always dye-at-home the white one.
Colors are all matched, but 100% match won't be technically possible.
Pre production samples
Let me thank the guys at Massdrop that made all this possible. Especially Andrew and Kunal. They agreed at running pre-production samples. This means that a couple of weeks from now, while you will be still ordering your spacebars, I will be holding a semi-final product. If anything is wrong with it, we will have 2 more weeks to fix it in time for the GB end.
I'm closing the "purchase intent" form now, if you participated, you are the one who made this possible. Thanks to the huge numbers we raised I was able to persuade Massdrop to join this adventure. As soon as the GB will be up I will be emailing you a friendly reminder. You can change your order, but please try not to order less than what you already told us.
Thank you everybody! Now let's inject some plastic!
Yours,
Matt3o
