DCS Alps Pingmaster (Closed; Fredington is creating new thread)

Important Update (11/2): Due to life getting in the way (nothing bad though!), I will be closing this IC. Fredington will be picking this up soon though!

Hi Everyone!
Fredington and I teamed up again to bring you DCS Alps Pingmaster!

Like many in this hobby, I discovered Alps switches and ended up loving them. But unfortunately, there isn’t that much choice for Alps lovers when it comes to keycaps. It seems like the only choices are Tai Hoa sets (but dolch is always out of stock), the sets from those two GBs from back in the 2010’s, or a yellowed vintage set. And good luck finding a set with a 1u Zero keycap for the numpad. Honestly, as a fan of Alps switches, I kind of just want a new keycap set haha

A few key things about this set:

• The set is PBT with Dye-sublimated legends
• We went the PBT route since Alps keycaps in Doubleshot ABS tend to have an issue of very fragile stems, and SP informed us that because the PBT Alps keycaps are single shot molded, fragile stems shouldn’t be an issue
• The longer spacebars (6u, 6.25u, 6.5u, 7u) will be in ABS as the PBT spacebar is known to warp pretty badly
• The set was inspired by the IBM Pingmaster because I’ve always liked the Japanese Alps keycaps.
• (UPDATE: 7/28) We have gone back to one base kit; this time, with both text and icon modifiers, to be more faithful to the Pingmaster keyboard, incorporating elements from both the Japanese and Chinese variants
• (UPDATE: 7/28) We included full compatibility for JIS layouts
• All Modifiers will have MX mounts for stabilizers

If you are interested in this set, please fill out this form here! There also may be a question regarding future sets


Kits:

Base Kit

After even more deliberation, we felt it was best to make the set more faithful to the Pingmaster, but incorporating both text and icon modifiers into the base kit, using inspiration from both theChinese and Japanese variants
The legends have also been changed to more accurately reflect the Pingmaster legends. Specifically, we moved the English legends from the top left, to the bottom left

JIS

Offers full JIS layout compatibility; accents included

Numpad

We initially wanted the base kit to include everything, but due to the legends, it got a bit pricey. So we split out the Numpad to make it a bit more affordable.


Split Spacebars

We added a Split Spacebar kit for more compatibility with various layouts. Please note which spacebars are marked as ABS



Other Considerations:

• We wanted to include relgendables in the GB, but they only offer them in a couple of PBT colors. And because the tooling was made for ABS, the PBT tends to shrink
• We really wanted to try to include a Big Ass Enter, but unfortunately, it's just not possible right now

Standard SP Color Codes:

• Alphas: GKK
• ABS Spacebars: Color matched to GKK (in the event that we can’t color match, this will be GSL)
• Modifiers: GDE
• Blue Accents: BFD
• Pink Accents: RCA

Special Acknowledgements:

• Thank you again to Fredington for creating the fonts, kits, and just being a pleasure to work with
• Thank you to kidviddy and konstantin for helping Fredington with the new text and icon modifiers
• Thanks to ai03 for giving us his blessing. It was genuinely a mistake that this set looks like his SimpleJA keycap set; we honestly forgot that he had already created a PBT set with Katakana sublegends

To-do’s:

• Gather feedback
• Possible polling
• Finalize kits
• Finalize colors
• Vendors (currently reaching out)
• Pricing (in progress)
• Renders (in progress)
• GB Date

Changelog

• 7/28/20
  Revised modifiers to both text and icon to be more in line with Japanese and Chinese Pingmaster variants
  Revised kits from separate Alphas and modifiers, back to one Base Kit
  Added full JIS layout support
  Finalized color codes
• 7/4/20
  Revised legends so English Alphas sit on the bottom left, being more in line with the Pingmaster's legends
  Broke out Alphas, Icon Mods, and Katakana Mods
  Unfortunately, had to remove the BAE kit
• 6/25/20
  Added Icon Modifiers Kit
  Broke out accents to be combined in other sets
  Included standard accents in Base Kit
  Included Icon BAE keys with accents in BAE Kit
  Broke out ISO into its own kit, and included accents and Icon ISO Enter Keys with accents
  Added Split Spacebars Kit (note: Similar to the base kit, the longer 6u and 6.5u spacebars will be made in ABS)
• 6/19/20
  Confirmed that the spacebars will be ABS