Preparing files for manufacturing ✅

Summer kicked in and a few weeks went by without updates. We were hoping to reach a milestone that took a 3 more weeks to reach than expected but here we are. It is not much but enough to get us excited: we got all production files ready!

We will talk more about the process, but for the most impatients:

TL;DR

Current state is production files are finished, we are now waiting for the mold files, that are cooked by our manufacturing partner. We are producing molds in 2 stages. One set of molds first, then the rest. We expect the mold design for the first molds to be done next week, and the rest a couple weeks after. Until then, it's all in the factory's hands, and we sit and wait.

We are still on schedule for Q1 2025.

Production files?

For doubleshot legends, molds are significantly more complex than standard/singleshot keycaps. Each legend is a different file and mold. We (and by we I really mean Andreas!) ended up with a lot of files to check. We had some back and forth with very small alignment issues that are now all fixed.

Assessing legends placement and stem/molds structure was not easy!

Molds production

We split molds production in 2 stages.

Stage 1 is making a few molds, to make sure stems match the single shot test molds we had done before, legends come out well, and spacebars aren't warped. These are actual production molds, we just make them first to avoid any issue that would impact production.

Stage 2 will be to make the other molds, while we handle the rest of the things we have to take care of, such as packaging and the CNC artisans.

We should receive the molds design files next week for the first molds, then we can move forward with the machining, and injection tests, where the real fun begins!

Timeline update

There is still a lot to do, and the samples testing stage is where it can get tricky. We had included some buffer in our original timeline for unexpected events, that in our experience always happen. We have started to take some of this buffer out, with a 3 weeks delay due to the back and forth on the legends and files testing that wasn't supposed to take so long. BUT, we are still on track to deliver Q1 2025.