Yeah carpal tunnel is a bitch. Its why I got into the X-Bows too 
I really recommend checking it out! You can pick up an X-Bows Lite to try out and see if you like it for about $50-$80 on eBay ā then sell it and upgrade to the Nature or Knight (in the $200-$300 range) if you want QMK and hot swappable switches, or just stick with the Lite if you like it enough. Thereās nothing wrong with its build quality or anything.
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Received a pair of emails from KFA yesterday. It was an invoice for return shipping: $6.
Back history: I had ordered Class60 + EC-kit from them last year. After a long GB wait, it got snatched on the way. After they refused to offer full refund, I reversed the charges and thought that was that. Until months later, they sent a replacement out of the blue. So I sent off a WTF message but didnāt get a reply. I left the box in corner unbuilt and had forgotten about it until yesterday.
This time they responded: they will be refunding the return shipment fee after they receive the box from me. Irritated but Iāll be shipping it back Monday to nail this zombie coffin shut.
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Youāre nicer than I would be- Iād say pound sand and keep it. If they ship you something that is for an order that has already been charged back, thatās on them by the USPS laws.
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Give them a shipping agent that is convenient for you, and have them set up prepaid shipping. No way should you go out of your way to return it and prepay for their mistake.
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Oops, wrong thread - moved it over to What did you order or think about ordering? - #1262 by Hache-eLle
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Fortunately, Iāve never needed to worry about this sort of challenge, but thought this was interesting both in that it exists and that it seems to work well:
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Interesting. I also wonder if MA keycaps would be āconicalā enough with height and separation, though I imagine you might also want something with shorter travel.
Just guessing here, but I feel like long nails would still collide with other caps at some point in the travel. Perhaps just 3D printed cylinders that are just 1-2mm wider than an MX stem could work?
Almost seems like this keycap shape is better suited for mechanical keyboards than having to manufacture a custom silicone sheet for every laptop layout.
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This reminds me very much of the Petticoat 5 computer for women.
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Hah! They nailed the vibe of those ancient computer demos and ā[some product] but now made for the ladiesā-style product laziness. Had me thinking āshe looks really familiar for some reasonā while falling for it before she popped out the tissue drawer. 
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Iām no stranger to making layout compromises to avoid stabilizers, but I donāt sense that was the primary goal here (did they really go THAT quirky in order to limit the BOM to 1u, 1.5u, and 2u keycaps?), and some of these choices are aesthetically baffling and are going to make replacement keycaps a chore. Also an odd choice to go low profile gamer board style with very utilitarian XDA keycaps.
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How would I know it was a spacebar if it didnāt say āSpaceā on it? Huh? Answer me that, experts!
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Not to beat a dead horse out of retirement or whatever, but this was quite the thread:
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Thanks for that! Shoulda searched, I guess. Donāt know why I assumed it was a new product. I wonder how itās sold for them.
Iām sympathetic to thinking outside the box, but it almost seems more like an advertisement that will live on peopleās desks than a keyboard.
Edit: Upon reading the whole thread, Iām reminded that (1) there but for the grace of lacking any corporate support to manufacture my weird ideas go I; (2) the interconnectedness and small-world nature of the overlapping fields of Linux, gaming, input devices, etc. amplifies this sort of thing in a bizarre way; (3) the community is not quite so negative as its made out to be, but its members do presume a very different social contract with small creators versus those with the resources to assemble a product line and marketing team; and (4) if youāre among the latter, you need to delete the first draft of your response before sending.
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In reading the thread that was from before my time here, I guess the idea is to maximize layout flexibility with the specific keycaps that came with the board. With how the hobby blew up during COVID, I think if this product would have come out even one year later, it would have been rather different and could have been better received. I think itās taking on a lot of technology-evangelism baggage that ultimately it didnāt need to, and doing it in a way that was uglier than necessary.
Still makes me go hmmm, but Iāll admit itās a more thoughtful āhmmmā now. 
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Hell yes I remember this thread, was absolutely lunar 
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Eh, no worries. If it makes you feel better, know that it took me three searches to find that post and I knew for a fact it existed.
I think this is the problem exactly. Open source, bespoke products for like a dozen die hard fans, and the like get such a wide berth to make mistakes and deal with delays. It feels like a small family/community with the camaraderie of āletās make this happen!ā
But when someone takes that and tries to turn a profit, it removes them from the āusā for a lot of people. Itās now a business transaction and for anyone in a high GDP country, the expectation is that commercial products should be on time, convenient, and priced competitivelyā¦ with a guarantee of a full refund in most cases. I fully understand that people want to make a living doing something they can enjoy and do well, but it can be a jarring shift when a popular free (as in beer) product suddenly has a price tag on it.
The System76 board still strikes me as odd more than insulting, with a number of puzzling choices seemingly at odds with the Linux/open source ideal of their marketing. And I really do think their team was caught completely by surprise at the mech world reaction. Definitely a āhmmmā situation all around.
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I started noticing crap sound and feel from loose keycaps more. They start snug but loosens up over countless keycap or switch swaps. My using PBT keycaps and long multi-stage springs couldāve made the problem more pronounced.
Anyone found a good solution for loose keycaps yet? I think Teflon tape may help but not sure. Would be nice if there was a crayon-like wax that I could rub keycap stem on before placing it on a switch. Donāt want bits of it getting into the switch so canāt be too brittle. Hmm.
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I can confirm Teflon tape is super helpful for loose caps. Thock Pop sells some thatās cut to a thinner size thatās convenient for this purpose:
That said, any plumberās tape will do, just might need to be cut or folded more.
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@Deadeyeās last post reminded meā¦some time ago there was a brief discussion about the safety of lubes. The movie Dark Waters looks at the Dupont Teflon scandal. Theyāve managed to make a facinating story really boring, but the message is harrowing.
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