You spent 1,000 yuan and waited for a keycap for almost a year. Have you ever understood it?

Hello everyone, I am Taotie

I think when it comes to keycaps, most of the friends should think of the cheap ABS keycaps with free shipping for 9.9 yuan, or the slightly better PBT keycaps with dye-sublimation patterns. Indeed, for many consumers, most of the mechanical keyboards they use do not exceed two or three hundred yuan, and some people even use the keyboard for a lifetime without changing the keycaps, let alone buying additional keycaps.

So when I took out this set of keycaps that cost nearly 1,000 RMB and waited for a year to get them, many readers were probably surprised, "What! A set of keycaps can support my five keyboards, and I have waited for such a long time. , Has this person's brain squeezed the door?"

Hahaha! This is true, because this set of keycaps looks like that, ordinary, nothing special, not inlaid with gold or diamonds, why is it so expensive, why is it so crazy?

Maybe at this moment your mind is running around trying to figure out why.

OK, let's not keep it secret, let's talk about the story and analyze the truth.

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The manufacturer of this set of keycaps is Signature Plastic, referred to as "SP", which is a two-color keycap manufacturer in the United States. The height of the two-color keycaps produced by SP includes DSA (short ball cap), SA (high ball cap) and DCS (similar to OEM height).

At first glance, the American company, with its high price, must be a super big company. When you go to Baidu excitedly, the result will surprise you. In fact, this is an out-and-out small workshop. Yes, there is no Advanced assembly lines, no neat factory buildings, but old green leather machine tools everywhere, simple and honest American aunts, can you imagine that hundreds of keycaps are produced in such an environment.

At this time, you will definitely ask, "Damn it, you are fooling me. With this environment and this equipment, can you make such an expensive set of keycaps?"

This is indeed the case. It is reasonable to say that the world's top keycaps should be made with the most cutting-edge equipment and the most sophisticated instruments, but why can Laomei still sell keycaps to such an extent in this state.

Or as the old saying goes, "If you don't have that diamond, don't do that porcelain job." Not to mention, they really have a unique skill, that is "ABS two-color craft keycap".

The two-color molding keycap technology is simply to fuse two different colored plastics together to form the printing on the keycap. The printing created by this technology is integrated with the keycap itself, and it will not be scraped off even if it is scraped with a knife. This technology was born in the 1980s, but it has been abandoned by most keyboard manufacturers due to its high cost.

Maybe some smart friends asked again, "ABS? Isn't this a garbage plastic that is oiled as soon as it is used? Two-color process, what's so difficult about it, just fiddle with the mold machine and it will come out."

Harm, or if we could do things with our mouths, human beings would have flown out of the Milky Way long ago. It can be so simple, do you think that with the ingenuity of these bigwigs in China, they can't figure it out?

Although I am also a novice in the two-color process, in my memory, Maxkey and JTK, which were the first to produce ABS two-color in China at that time, were comparable in terms of plastic material, character thickness, surface air marks, and theme design. SP has a big gap. Although the domestic ABS two-color has caught up a lot in terms of overall performance in recent years, I think it still cannot meet the SP standard in terms of color accuracy.

All the history, technology, and capital may be the reason why SP can develop to the present.

After talking about the brand and production process, some friends suddenly realized, "Oh, after talking for a long time, isn't it because SP has a bit of technology accumulation and advanced technology, so the keycaps are not so expensive, right?"

In order to further explain, I would like to divide this question into four parts to answer.

First of all, you can’t buy SP keycaps on Taobao or Jingdong. Even if you have them, most of them are second-hand in the seafood market. Why?

Because these keycaps are made to order, that is, the key ring is commonly known as "driving".

For example, for the set of keycaps I bought, there are only 287 sets of base kits in zF's order. That is to say, for domestic players, SP will only make these 287 sets for China, and there will be no more sets. And when buying, you can only go through the so-called renderings, and you have to judge whether to buy it within the specified time period, and then hand in the full prepaid amount directly.

That's right, no deposit, no credit, full payment is required! After all, Americans are not stupid, and if the money is not in place, they will never do it for you.

Because it is an order system, SP will only buy enough materials for this batch of keycaps, call out a set of colors, and make a set of molds. When the keycaps for this order are made, the molds and materials will be used up and discarded. . Therefore, for one production, the production of keycaps is one-time, and the cost of materials, color matching and molds will inevitably be allocated to the cost of keycaps.

So if some players are too interested in this set of keycaps, what if they cry and ask SP to do it again?

Sorry, this batch of keycaps can only be called R2, which means the second round (Round 2), and the personalized keycaps are often different from the previous batch to distinguish them. Speaking of this, maybe you understand how the rarity and non-reproducibility of SP keycaps come from.

Let me mention here again why it takes a year to buy a set of keycaps?

It's very simple. After all, SP's entire factory area is only so big, and its production capacity is only so much. Without batch equipment such as assembly lines, it will not be fast. No matter how many orders there are, you have to queue up. After all, people don’t have to worry about not having work to do. It’s not even a thought to ask the Americans to work overtime for you.

The burrs of the keycaps are scraped with a knife, the colors are classified into small bowls, coupled with the order-based production mode and the reason of the previous epidemic, the entire keycap production process is extremely slow, so the order for SP keycaps starts at least More than half a year.

The final factor must be the finale, that is, SP or the top foreign keycap manufacturers have a large number of original designers, and the keycaps they design can be called classics in terms of color matching and theme. I think this is also the case. The reason why they can sell so expensive and so crazy.

Clown (EVA first machine) Designed by Thesiscamper

Troubled Minds uses a large amount of contrasting purple and green. The strong visual contrast comes from the swing between out-of-control and self-discipline, justice and evil in heroes and villains in various classic animation works. This set of keycaps was created by author Thesiscamper after reading "Batman: The Killing Joke". The purple-green color scheme is the theme color of the clown, and it is also the color scheme of the first EVA machine. The impact of the two strong colors also reflects the complexity of the inner worlds of the clown and Shinji.

Top Gun Designed by Data

Attention to pilots: this is not a drill, the mission is about to enter the danger zone! The SA Danger Zone Dangerous Zone/Top Gun set was designed by Data, using a combination of yellow, gray and navy blue, with a lot of aviation theme personality and the same Gorton Modified house font on the flight controller in the 1950s, to the great battle Congratulations to the pilots.

Laser Designed by MiTo

Put on the leather jacket, put on the sunglasses, start the engine...Laser is MiTo's super homage to classic science fiction works, from "Neuromancer" to "Blade Runner" to "Stranger Things", you can be on this set of keycaps Find their shadows.

That's right, from theme to inspiration, from design to finished product, each set of keycaps does not appear out of thin air. It represents the designer's thoughts and thinking, and also represents their future, and this is precisely the reason for many domestic keycaps. The spiritual thing that manufacturers really lack.

Take a copy of a hot color, a copy of that mature work, and look at the "big carbon" and "camping" on Taobao. To be honest, I feel very uncomfortable.

Are there not enough good designers in China? Obviously not, there is never a shortage of talents, but what we lack is the environment for cultivating designers and the matching respect for them.

I think from the above introduction of SP keycaps, my friends also feel that in many cases, the price of a product is actually determined by the consumers themselves. No matter how high the price is, if the supply is still in short supply, the natural pricing power lies with the manufacturer. hands, and consumers must obey the rules of others. If you want to break this situation, you need another manufacturer that can replace him, impress consumers with lower prices and better quality, and shake the entire spire.

Now many domestic manufacturers are working hard to complete the above things, such as JTK, Maxkey, EnjoyPbt, Domikey and other two-color manufacturers are constantly improving their technical strength, so that Chinese people can use better and cheaper ABS two-color keys cap. So if you already have the ability to buy ABS two-color keycaps, support domestic brands, because they are the pride of domestic two-color keycaps. Of course, if you feel that it is not worth it, it doesn’t matter. After all, for a set of keycaps, the price is indeed a bit exaggerated, so if you are not an enthusiast, there is no need to fall into this trap.

Then the meaning of my writing this article is not to talk about how high-end, atmospheric, and high-end SP keycaps are, but to let friends know that there is such a keycap, such a factory, and such a keycap in this world. A group of people who are fighting for domestic two-color keycaps.

Still the same sentence, I come to buy, you come to see, even if it is the greatest encouragement for me!

Well, the above is the whole content of this article, thank you for reading!