[Closed] Unicomp GB of Dooom!

[andrewjoy]

i am happy to do ether , would be nice to have the alp for the silver label but if everyone else is waiting i am happy to wait

[davkol]

Oops. I'd actually like to have the caps by August, if possible, because I might have to move then (thus may not be able to keep the BS keyboards).

[Anticube]

I understand your brother, I have few time to ship boxes too... Excuse me if now I say something that was obvious yet: did you consider to plan the shipment as a box picking so that carrier arrive you your brother door, dlin dlon (or driiiin) and just give the box, with sender and destination written on it by hand (no boring prints) to the carrier boy? Problem still remain if he is willing and available to do this. On one side I would proxy, import duty is generally 27 euro for these things, but italian shipments are expensive. My importer friend is far in New York and arrive to Italy only in july so not much useful. At least I make proxy for other italians, but apart one I'm not aware of anyone else.

[Spikebolt]

Damn. January is so far away :/

[XMIT]

Just catching up on this post.

UPS in the US is like DHL in France. Trust them for nothing. I had a package scheduled to arrive at 1pm on a Friday and saw "Your package was not unloaded from the trailer. Delivery is postponed until the next business day." Yeah, that's a Monday, or a Tuesday over a holiday weekend.

USPS is rock solid here in the US. FedEx is almost as good. UPS is I guess only attractive because they give commercial shippers good rates. I have nothing else good to say about their services.

I'm always happy to forward orders along as needed.

[Muirium]

I just marked a few orders as completed in PayPal, because of automated nagging. Nothing in reality has changed. I'm thousands of miles away from the box full of caps! Have patience.

Next time I run any GB, I'll insist on gift payments. (PayPal never gave me any trouble over collecting and spending >$600 on this GB at Unicomp.) Better yet, I should really get a Euro bank account and get with the cool kids on SEPA. Wonder how you're supposed to do that when your dumb, dumb country doesn't want to join the Euro (and might even soon want out of Europe entirely)?

[Muirium]

Deep necro! But a good one. Look what I found:

IMG_0704.jpg (388.39 KiB) Viewed 52188 times

IMG_0705.jpg (304.81 KiB) Viewed 52188 times

That's a fair old load of caps there. Not only caps in fact: there's a few SDL cables and a couple of SSK barrel frames too. I haven't been through the nitty gritty details yet to be sure that Unicomp got every single little thing just right. But I will. These guys will be coming back with me early next year as promised. And then on to you.

[chzel]

I see RGBs, the non-existant barrel frame and latex sheet! Happy puppy!

[Muirium]

Latex sheet: well spotted. I was wondering what that was!

Incidentally, I opened up one of the "universal" blank sets and they do indeed have a fairly broad selection of mods. Including an (oh so exotic) ISO Return and no less than 6x 1.5u mods (one of which would be Tab).

Universal Mods.jpg (151.58 KiB) Viewed 52165 times

1.25u on the left. 1.5u on the right. ANSI backslash above.

Now I need to figure out where this leaves me short with my XTant…

[Muirium]

Hammelgammler asked me about SDL cables. Here's what Unicomp's look like:

Unicomp SDL Cable.jpg (135.54 KiB) Viewed 52127 times

Okay, but not as nice as a vintage IBM original. Note the plastic clip on the SDL end, instead of chunky metal clips on the couple of IBM ones I have. Also: no logo!

Anyway, I'm considering a **small** round 2 for this GB as there's already a couple of people pestering me about it, and I have a little space for it. But we'd have to move fast this time. Absolutely must ship before February!

[snoopy]

I need some stuff from unicomp, but I think it's too much...

[Muirium]

Possibly. Make a list and I'll see.

[davkol]

If this is reopened… I'd like to add at least one 1x key to my order; I need a gray F7 key for my white-label IBM Model M (white-gray color scheme). Is it actually "Gray" Single Unit Key - printed w/ "F7" label? Or is "Pearl"/"Pebble"? Because "Gray" on my unicomps w/ black cases looks darker.

[Muirium]

"Gray" is Unicomp's own colour. If your board has IBM original caps, you're probably looking for Pebble or Pearl. Is F7 a light or dark colour on your board? Pebble is dark, like the mods, while Pearl is light, like the alphas.

Looks like they updated their site a bit since Round 1. Still the same murky ordering process, though!

[davkol]

Thanks, that clears things up. It's darker, thus "Pebble", I guess? The Pearl-Pebble color scheme has always looked more like slightly yellowed beige/brown to me, but maybe that's only because of Redshift (f.lux for non-GNU/Linux users).

[Muirium]

Here's a real world example:



Unicomp's Grey is the 4th row down. Beneath the Pebble + Pearl kits. It's a cold, bluish colour compared to the oldschool IBM style.

[Samir]

I'm surprised UPS messed up their shipping. I used to spend $1500 a week with them shipping auto parts and could count on one hand how many times they missed a scheduled delivery. The good thing is that they guarantee their delivery, so you can call and get a refund on the shipping if it comes late.

Next time you have to do something like this, I don't mind being a proxy where you can ship everything until you get in the state and then I just ship the box to you (unless you already have someone that does this for you). I also have a UPS account so my UPS rates are as cheap as they get.

[Muirium]

Okay, so I trial packed my luggage. Looks like we are good to top this up with a *small* second round of Unicomp! Who's interested? Anyone in the first round (or in my NeXT, EliteKeyboards or Hypersphere's Rings GBs) will be able to save a bit on final European shipping, of course.

I have to keep things quite limited. Single keys and RGB mods? Great! Whole sets? Hmm. There's already several people after SSK barrel frames! I'll work out how to split the shipping when I know how many people to expect want in on this.

It's DEFINITELY a smaller round than the first one. And my second bag must wait until the end of March (when I have other relatives flying back from here who can carry it for me) unless we all want to split my airline's $100 extra baggage fee (which would get everything back to Europe together in February).


@Samir: I was surprised too. It's the first time UPS failed me. Mostly my own fault for leaving things too late, of course. I'm not making that mistake again this time. I'll get this second round wrapped up with weeks, not days, to go before I leave! Damnit.

[Muirium]

<PM Placeholder>

So you'd like to order some **small items** from Unicomp? (Or are willing to pay extra shipping for bigger stuff.)

Cool, tell me what they are.
And include your shipping address!
I will calculate your bill and PM you back with PayPal details.

</PM Placeholder>

[Muirium]

Round 2 is now underway!

Keep your orders small! I have **limited** luggage space. Some arriving back in Scotland in February. Some arriving end of March. I can purchase an extra bag to fly back in February for $100, but you'll need to pay for that so let's keep this small, eh?

Caps are good. Especially single Escape keys and RGB sets. Take your pick:

http://www.pckeyboard.com/page/category/Buttons

Pricing is 1.1x Unicomp's figures, to cover PayPal and taxes, and we have $30 of US shipping to split between us too. Let's call it $1 minimum per small item (like an RGB set) I will be collecting in US Dollars via PayPal. PM me your orders!

This is a very quick affair by the way. Gotta ship out of Unicomp in the next week or so to be sure of avoiding a repeat of Round 1's missed plane! So be quick or stay home.

European shipping is not included. I will work all that out when I'm back home. Should be bubblemailers for the small stuff, costing about 5 Euros Europe-wide shipping via Royal Mail. And no taxes, because I'm shipping from inside the EU. Naturally, if you're in my EliteKeyboards, NeXT or Topre damping rings GBs, or were in Unicomp Round 1, shipping will be bundled.

I'm going with the same pricing system as I did at EK. Nice and easy to calculate, and I can keep my head screwed on this way.

[andrewjoy]

Okay, so I trial packed my luggage. Looks like we are good to top this up with a *small* second round of Unicomp! Who's interested? Anyone in the first round (or in my NeXT, EliteKeyboards or Hypersphere's Rings GBs) will be able to save a bit on final European shipping, of course.

What did i order if anything from the unicomp group buy i forget

[Muirium]

Like my other US to Europe GBs, this one closes soon. So all aboard, folks, it'll be over before you know it!

@Andy: I'll dig out your details. Expect PM.

[Muirium]

Attention: Anyone still waiting on an invoice? Please PM me. It's been a busy week, and this GB is closing for orders at the weekend.

This is also the last opportunity for late arrivals. Be quick!

[Muirium]

Ah, I forgot Martin Luther King Day. (Yes, I'm European, like we know the date!) So I'll push back my final order with Unicomp to Tuesday when there'll actually be anyone there to process it.

That means this stays open a few more days. It's not a :roll:ing deadline. It's a civil rights thing!

[Muirium]

I just wrapped up my Topre Damping Rings GB. Let's end this one on Monday (a national holiday here in the US), so I can prepare the order and get it into Unicomp when they're back in the office on Tuesday.

[Muirium]

This GB is now closed to new orders. I'm digging deep through the details now. Currently, here's my draft total order for Unicomp:

Unicomp Round 2 Order Condensed


Full Sets

2 black blank
1 grey blank
2 white blank
2 pearl & pebble blank

Mods kits

5 RGB printed
3 RGB blank
1 Linux new mono Tux grey
1 Pebble Alternate Ctrl-Caps kit


Spacebars

3 large grey
4 large black
2 large pearl


Single keys

2 stepped black blank
3 stepped pebble blank
1 stepped pebble Ctrl
2 stepped grey blank
1 stepped white blank
2 2.75u white blank
1 2.0u black blank
2 1.5u pebble blank
1 1.5u pebble BackSpace
1 1.25u black blank
61 1u black blank << maybe some homing markers added? @t!ng
1 1u pebble F7
2 1u red Esc
5 1u red blank
16 1u dark blue blank
16 1u light blue blank
7 1u orange blank
2 1u orange Fn
4 1u yellow blank
4 1u yellow triangle arrows / blanks
1 1u lilac :3
1 1u grey F6 << sure not pebble? @pcaro
2 ISO Enter green Enter
3 orange PANIC
2 red PANIC
1 pebble PANIC


Misc

5 pivot and spring assemblies
1 LED cover black LEDs on bottom
3 SSK barrel frame

Something I haven't added yet: my own stuff! Besides my XTant keys, I'm thinking of a couple of white sets for dye purposes. And some of those tasty orange etc. blanks that people got in Round 1.

[Muirium]

Okay, finally all done. It's all in Unicomp's hands now. I went back to Round 1 and corrected a couple of things I missed back then too.

Total order: $583.77 so not quite the small GB I had in mind. Oh brother!

[pcaro]

Okay, finally all done. It's all in Unicomp's hands now. I went back to Round 1 and corrected a couple of things I missed back then too.

Total order: $583.77 so not quite the small GB I had in mind. Oh brother!

Big and pretty order! Thanks for all again.

[Muirium]

Aaaaand I forgot my 10x 1.25u pebble blanks for the XTant. Ticket submitted…

[Muirium]

Good news: Unicomp was good enough to accept my fiddly last minute changes and has now shipped! The parcel will be with me in a week or so. All in good time before I fly home.