Domikey and Maxkey seem to have an imperfection in SA molds?

Hi guys! I’ve recently made a review and done a photoshoot of the SA Domikey Semiconductor caps from KPRepublic, and noticed something that I find that barely anyone (or maybe nobody at all) has talked about: The folds on the caps larger than 1u. After seeing this imperfection, I scoured reddit and found this…thing… on most if not all Domikey and Maxkey SA’s!

Being completely new to SA profile in general, I was wondering if this folding is a feature or imperfection that one could attribute to the molds/tooling of the 1u+ caps. I have yet to see this in people’s pictures of caps made by Signature Plastics, and the imperfection is way too consistent to be a defect on the set that I’ve gotten.

I’m really just asking if anyone with SA keycaps could either confirm or deny this thing that I’ve noticed! Also my first ever topic, please tell me if there’s a better place to post a question like this!

I can definitely say that Signature Plastics sets don’t have that. I haven’t really noticed it on my MaxKey sets but I’ll have to check now

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Thanks for checking! I’d really love to make sure that all the information I’m gleaning on the net is correct!! I’m deducing that Domikey and Maxkey use the same molds, if not even have the same manufacturer (latter most likely false because people have said that they have different textures)

It sound like drama …

quick check:

SP SA Pulse

  • has folds on keycaps bigger than 1u
  • smooth finish/texture
  • bad quality of keycaps bigger than 1u, not because of folds but because of streaking (my believe: caused by to different mixture of plastic, caused by colorpigments ?), this set has the worst quality of all my SA sets regardless manufacturer.

SP SA 7bit Round 5/6/7

  • no folds
  • smooth finish/texture
  • no real blanks ? blanks are e.g. black on black

Maxkey SA Max Ashen

  • no folds
  • finish/texture looks a bit rough but feels smooth but not as smooth as SP
  • known quirks like “Back Space”, “SHIF T” etc.

Maxkey SA 2600

  • no folds
  • rough finish/texture
  • early Maxkey quirks removed

I had also SP SA Dasher & Dancer, quality was good, did not check for folds years ago.

ergo:
1x SP SA w/ folds
2x Maxkey SA w/o folds

sidenotes:
Maxkey can produce different textures/finish.
SP can have a bad production run.

my views:
I have no problem with the Maxkey quirks from the early days.

To equip a full 104 keyboard, the value of Maxkey SA Max Ashen (119 keycaps for € 79) vs. SP SA Pulse (125 keycaps for € 134) is still unbeaten.
If you account the bad quality of SP SA Pulse, pricing of SP SA Pulse should have been € 69 to have a chance to compete.
(all prices incl. S&H, customs, final effective costs may vary for your region/country)

Quirks went away, pricing is quasi on par now.

What is your use case ?
Do you use your keyboard with pretty keycaps as an input device and mostly looking on your monitor ? So it is about asthetic when approaching the desk/workplace or viewing the desk from far ?
Or do collect and display your keycaps as a hobby or to distance yourself from the masses or even your peers ?

Embrace the quirks !
Accept imperfections !
It’s just plastic.

Thank you so much for giving your input from sets you’ve owned! I’d also love to know when you acquired each of those sets, that is, if you can still remember, haha.

I do indeed accept the imperfections, but this entire time, I wondered why nobody specifically called out the presence of the folds. Again, being new to SA, I wondered if this was a feature or not.

What I found interesting from your post is that even SP sets could have these folds, and Maxkey could also not have them! Makes me wonder how often the molds change!

Heads up, though; I’m not out to make drama; my ultimate goal was to get consensus as to the presence of these folds, because it seemed like nobody had really overtly checked before.

here more data for you:

set name, month/year of purchase -> time of arrival, remarks

SA Dasher & Dancer, 12/2016 -> 09/2017, round 1
SA Pulse, 04/2018 -> 11/2018, round 2 or 3 ?

SA Max Ashen, 04/2017 -> 06/2017, round 1
SA 2600, 02/2019 -> 03/2019, round 1

It’s possible it has less to do with the pure shape of the molds, more with small differences in plastic ingredients, cooldown times during production, correct setup up of the molds in the injection molding machine, …

Tbh at this point it’s making me think that this imperfection is restricted to specific sets, not to manufacturers, since now we have examples of the folding on Maxkey, Domikey, and SP

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I have pulse SA round 2 and I don’t recall seeing any folds like the one pictured.

They sell the tools to the other company, and sell them again to the third… XD