I am reading lately that GMK is pushing delivery for sets back. Aparently just happened for Hammerhead.
If you look at the GB pages over at Geekhack I would say 70% are GMK sets. Are they taking on too many things at once?
Any of you have a set pushed back? Will the want for gmk sets make the Germans buckle?
GMK is fulfilling a crazy amount of sets compared to before (even pre-COVID). Germany just locked down again, and that may be part of it, but honestly there are just way too many group buys being queued up.
If you are a big player like Drop, you can pay them extra to reserve large production slots and all the smaller runs of a couple hundred sets have to be shifted around the large ones as needed.
Signature Plastics is in a similar situation. New SA caps GBs run today wonāt be fulfilled for 12 months+ now and even new DSS group buys wonāt be fulfilled until 2022 because there simply isnāt enough production capacity.
DCS is the only thing left with decent production timelines. You can still get a production slot this calendar year, though that may change after DCS Delft runs.
Now that Iāve mentioned it, I am sure that queue will fill up, lol.
Wasnāt there a plastics shortage or something too? I think a lot of industries have been hit all along their supply chains
One note, dss bountyhunter just ended GB, and is estimated to ship in a month. Iām not sure where youāre sourcing your information on SP wait times, but Iād be interested to know.
You are right technically the current quoted turnaround time from SP is 10-12 weeks, but with DSS Drank, DSS Handarbeit, DSS Carpentaria, and DSS WoB ready to queue up they will be booked through the year. DSS Drank is running now.
Figure 10 weeks for them to make Bounty Hunter and 10 weeks to make Drank and you are looking at 20 weeks out already and August/September.
If you get your order in before the above guys, you can still probably run this year.
GMK has been through a lot in the past year, but theyāre setting up new machines to pump out sets and are hoping to cut the lead times in half once they get the proper people trained on them, so hopefully very soon things will be a bit more expedited.
Thank you for bringing this up. I am affected as a preordering customer for GMK BentÅ R2 via Candykeys.
GB running: August 3 - 31, 2021
Initial expected ship date: March 30, 2021
The Candykeys website still shows today which obviously will not happen.
I am sure there is more precise info on the status somewhere on the internet instead like vendors from other regions, this forum, Geekhack, reddit, various Discord servers from the creator, vendors, local communitiesā¦ I lost overview.
Nobody knowing what a group buy is, should be surprised that this happens ā but people are always more patient if they know why they wait and what updated plans are. Right now I have no idea for my set and that worries me nevertheless.
I think what I would appreciate is some more direct communication from GMK to the community. I understand that we are not GMKās direct customers but āB2B2Cā business is very common nowadays so why not have GMKās factory calendar published and the ability subscribe to notifications.
This is what I hate about their website it just says they make caps but none of their projects are listedm why not? It would make live for everyone so much simpler
There is probably little upside to them publishing their production calendar. Their business relationship is with their vendors so the vendors should be communicating delays to their customers based on info they receive from GMK. If GMK doesnāt provide that then vendors should look to other manufacturers if they want timely communication.
Its really getting worse:
I know my gmk awaken will probably not be here as they said q4 of this year but if I think of this thing maybe needing till the end of next yearā¦yikes.
Pretty happy the other sets arent from gmk and hoping origami can stick to their end of 2021 schedule.
KAM Superuser was promised for Q2 2022 but I know they struggle too with timeframes. Since that set was sold super well I dont think they can make it in the proposed timeframe.
Deep Navy was originally quoted march to ship (9 months from gb), it just recently got pushed back again, to late July shipping to vendors.
Itās no dracula or other ultra delayed set, but weāre coming up on 150% of quoted timeline.
gmk typed that they had a bit of bad luck with hires going into maternity leave.
In germany you get up to a year of leave after giving birth and sometimes you cant even stay working before if the workplace is said to be unfit or dangerous for pregnant women so thats a lot of people not being there, they are looking for new people.
Iām not sure if Keyreative is backed up as well but Iām still waiting on Kat LaLa and they havenāt started production on it. Originally it was Q2 of this year for delivery however it was pushed back and theyre supposed to start production in November of this year and then delivery around jan/feb of 2022. What sucks is the Geekhack thread was deleted so the only way I found out was checking the Updates page from the Kono store
The delays are everywhere. From last week, the Omnitype delay email hadā¦
We finally got an update from GMK this morning about the status of the oldest sets in our queue. Unfortunately, it is not good news and all sets are delayed even further than before because of lead times for the resin used in production. We are truly disappointed to have to give this news and apologize for the delay. We will continue to keep you updated with the most up to date information each week.
GMK Dracula:
- Shipping from manufacturer delayed from early-August to the late-September. So this looks more like a October/November delivery to customers.
GMK MoDo Light:
- This set has shipped from Germany and is on its way to us. We hope to be able to stick to the July delivery to customers, but it may spill into August depending on customs clearance and other factors.
GMK Redacted:
- Shipping from manufacturer delayed from this month to mid-November. So this looks more like a December delivery to customers.
GMK MoDo 2:
- Shipping from manufacturer delayed from mid-July to mid-October. Estimated November shipping to customers.
GMK Nuke Data:
- Shipping from manufacturer delayed from mid-July to late-October. Estimated November shipping to customers.
GMK Pono:
- Shipping from manufacturer delayed from August to mid-November. Estimated Decemeber 2021/Jan 2022 shipping to customers.
GMK Minimal 2:
- Shipping from manufacturer delayed from August/September to mid-December. Estimated January 2022 shipping to customers.
Bauer 2:
- A few boxes arrived yesterday and the rest are supposed to arrive on Monday. We will begin inventory and QC as soon as possible.
GMK 80082:
- The Rama caps have color inconsistencies and are being recalled by Rama to be reproduced.
Oof.
I feel like its a running joke that GMK dracula is constantly delayedā¦ or am I just more sleep deprived than I thought today >.>
GMK needs to switch to PBT. Seems like the Aliexpress clone makers have no problem endlessly pumping out keycaps!
(Totally kidding, I actually prefer ABS caps, but at this point you can get clones of the set you ordered a year before your real keycaps will be delivered!)
Thatās exactly what I said when I saw that email.
So Drop just opened Pre-orders for the Kaiju set and the delivery date is December 2021. Four and a half months, super short lead time.
This proves that at least part of the delays are to do the large production slots that Drop buys up. GMK has no problem keeping Laser, Pulse, WoB, etc. in stock for Drop.
I do believe that Europeās endless lockdowns and plastic supply issues are impacting GMK as well, but this probably frustrates some people waiting on severely delayed sets.
I know GMK is the de facto gold standard for capsets - but - are the molds protected on the profile / legends, or have they expired like MX where clones can be built with relative ease? Iāve got to think there are other manufacturers that maybe just areā¦.less aware of the opportunity? Or are we simply overestimating the opportunity compared to other things these manufactures produce?
Sadly JTK are the only double shot ABS shop
that is even close to GMK. And they are a small shop.
ePBT stood up an ABS production line but chose to produce thinner caps and the legends arenāt as good as GMK.
Tai Hao has the capacity, but the molds are not up to GMK quality and all their caps are thin.
Signature Plastics has a Cherry font option for DCS, but they are thinner than Cherry.
I think you get my point. It could be done. GMK could be matched in quality and their font is not proprietary. But no one has yet done so successfully.