[GB] the Heavy Grail, a Norbauer housing for the HHKB

They had a hard time getting the molds right (covid delays ect.) but they have said that the 2u and spacebar kits are coming the the next few months.

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I’m glad someone else is finally solving this problem so I didn’t have to. :sweat_smile:

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What are people replacing realforce/leopold caps with? Aren’t they pretty much best in class?

I’m gonna grab a set of des to try, but TBH i think i’m gonna enjoy the sound of topre over the sound of mx. Hard to beat stock leo.

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They’re nice caps, but at the same time you have very limited color options compared to the hundreds of MX sets out there.

In case anyone wants a HHKB Pro Classic(white with blank keycaps) to use the internals for building a Heavy Grail please let me know. I didn’t up ordering the Heavy Grail so the keyboard is unfortunately sitting :frowning:

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I was really looking forward to something that you had hinted at, but I was predicting some kind of hybrid topre/mx keycap solution from what I could gather. I would still be interested as I am sure many others would be in the something like that as well :upside_down_face:. I have been hearing a lot of horror stories about the residual supply chain effect of this continuing pandemic, but also looking forward to hearing about the impact that it has had on the grail production. For some reason (I have theory’s) some of my favorite posts here have been around the trials and tribulations that you go through to deliver the high quality products that you do.

sent you a DM.

I have been holding out hope for a keycap solution on topre stems myself. Trying to decide if I should try out the new DES sliders or keep holding out…

In theory the solution exists and has already been made via the TMX keycap mount

https://i.imgur.com/8TUi3Do.jpg

Downside is no one wants to use it so :man_shrugging:

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I have a TMX artisan and it always saddens me that more people don’t use it. I guess it’s cause Topre sucks, right? :persevere:

It’s because they’re known to break and casting them is harder

MelGeek seems to be open to investing in new molds, etc over the past few years. Would be pretty interesting if they (or Domikey) tried out a mass-produced TMX set. Probably a pipe dream but it should address the issue with stem breaking (this is an issue with TMX artisans, no?)

I guess it depends if the stem breakage comes from material failure or design failure

Even if there is no breakage or design failure, there are probably not many people look for these. Many topre users are already content with stock. Unless you can charge a huge amount for these keycaps, there is probably not enough incentive to make these.

Granted, MX keycaps are easy money right now and there isn’t much incentive to do anything different, but it would be interesting to know what sort of MOQ would be required to break-even on new molds (based on an existing design) with Topre-compatible stems. Clearly there is a demand for custom keycaps (just look at what hipro sets sell for), but most of the current options are noticeably inferior to stock, but people keep asking about and buying them (based on what I see on Reddit at least).

A KAT set with Topre stems would be amazing.

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i know almost nothing about topre but would’t it be easier and cheaper to just put in mx compatible topre stems(or what ever they’re called)?

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Untitled

Well … joining the wait with everyone else in this thread. :slight_smile:

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Thanks, my friend!

Now might be a good moment to provide an update, by the way. We have literally every single component of the R1 Heavy Grails in hand at the moment other than the switch plates. We sent back the initial batch of those due to some frankly fairly minor issues (I’m indulging my tendency to be very fussy with this project) and the factory has promised them to us in time to be able to ship around or before the end-of-summer (22 September) anticipated ship date listed in the original GB page. I’m really happy with how this project has turned out and I can’t wait to get these into people’s hands!

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The problem with TMX-like solutions is that you can’t engineer a keycap stem that is cross-compatible without having also one or the other sit slight higher or lower than its normal height relative to the switch plate (and thus the housing upper face), which is visually noticeable and not aesthetically desirable. It’s a problem I looked into fairly deeply about a year ago and came to the conclusion that a truly perfect solution is simply impossible given the geometry of both stem standards. I’d love to be proved wrong, but this was a conclusion I came to after a lot of prototyping and experimenting.

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