I thought about joining r2 but yea its definitely throwing red flags up that as soon as the first round ended r2 started shortly after
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I’m glad to see the price come down, but it does sting a bit after ordering R1.
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If you didn’t see, the latest update has actual photos of the caps. Tooling is still being refined.
https://rama.works/updates/2021/12/10/project-updates-mid-december-2021
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As an aside, I’m already seeing knock-offs of the profile appear on Chinese sites. They use smaller legends and their legend color shot appears as a rim around the bottom, but the shape is pretty unmistakable.
These look to be pack-ins for an otherwise pretty nice kit with standoffs around the edges; I reached out to the seller and recommended using some different caps with it. 
Tooling is still being refined? Haven’t the Kate keycaps been through 2-3 rounds of sales at this point?
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The clones will probably ship first lol
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2 rounds i think, which is kinda shitty since there havent been any protos or hands on reviews since its a new profile.
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And they quoted a 6 month turnaround at the time of the first gb. Pretty ambitious if tooling is just being refined 4 months after closing.
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Maybe they are getting manufactured in Australia so turn around will be fast?
production will be relatively quick when the tooling is complete
But, you know, 
…we live in COVID times.
There’s probably a logistical reason, like the one GMK posted, for continuing to queue orders/rounds.
Could it be that first GB didn’t generate enough sale/funds to offset manufacturing costs? Hence the trailing second round sans ‘case’ to drop the price and push sales?
It’s possible. But IIRC, for GMK it was as much about preventing idle machines. So, from a manufacturing perspective, it’s better to have a queue than to have a hiatus between sales. I don’t know what RW’s situation is, but the same logic would fit here I think.
Yeah, hard to tell. GMK has a steady stream of sets to process, but they are exclusively cherry profile. RAMA is doing a bespoke keycap profile with brand new molds. Couldn’t say exact cost, but I know prepping a new mold is exorbitantly expensive.
I feel like people would be more stoked on r2 if they had managed to offer the RGB shine through version they showed off early on.
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TL;DR; They are working on the molds 
(at least they only offered 2 rounds of GB before everything was ready)
Looking back through my unfulfilled GBs I checked up on these
Rama recently changed the way they do updates on their website. They now only show one update page for all products. So its like a current status but doesn’t show a date of when that status was as of. TBF it is only the first “update” since moving to this format.
The old page is still accessible: https://rama.works/updates/2022/6/20/project-updates-june-2022
Compiled list of updates
July 2021
The first tool releases/samples for the KATE keycaps had some injection marks that we weren’t happy with. We’re currently reworking the tooling to move/reduce them.
We want the standard of quality to be as high as possible, so we’re really taking our time to get it right.
Early August 2021
Preparation for the launch of the KATE keycaps is ongoing, and we’re excited to announce that they’ll be ready for launch this month. More info to come soon!
Late August 2021
KATE Keycaps are now live and available for pre-order on the store!
Steptember 2021
STATUS: PRE-ORDER
Only 2 weeks left to pre-order KATE Keycaps!
October 2021
STATUS: PRE-PRODUCTION
The preorder period for the KATE Keycaps has ended. Pre-production is currently underway.
November 2021
STATUS: PRE-ORDER
The pre-order period for CAPS is open until December 10th AEDT. By popular demand and with a little help from our manufacturing partners, we are proud to offer this product at a lower price point (excluding CASE). Rest assured, the CAPS will still be of the high-quality standard and aesthetic of RAMA WORKS®.
December 2021
STATUS: FINAL DAY TO PREORDER
By popular demand and with a bit of help from our manufacturing partners, we are proud to offer this product at a lower price point (excluding CASE). We have made some adjustments to the tooling (Currently at Off-Tool Samples 3 [T3]) and are now finalising the double-shot legends, but overall are very happy - production will be relatively quick when the tooling is complete. Rest assured, the CAPS will be of the high-quality standard and aesthetic of RAMA WORKS® and we are super excited to hear and see these on whichever board they crown!
See below photos of the latest tooled samples:
January 2022
STATUS: PRE-ORDER CLOSED - PRE-PRODUCTION COMMENCED
We are finalising the legends and working on adjusting the casing tooling. Shipping will begin when manufacturing/assembly is complete.
March 2022
Two weeks ago, we received the latest batch of sample caps from the mould, and we’re still not completely satisfied with the legends on the modifier caps - we’ve outlined the changes we require and expect the next round of samples to arrive in 2-3 weeks or so. Again, Injection Molding is an iterative process - tooling after tooling changes until the end result is what’s expected. Doubleshot tooling is a bit more involved as the material shrinkage, and material flow between the legend and the casing needs to be accounted for. We’re confident that the keycaps will be completed relatively quickly once we receive samples we’re happy with. Of course, this is taking longer than expected, but we want what will be received by our customers to be what we expect.
April 2022
After receiving the last batch of samples a few weeks ago, we were not 100% happy with the quality. We made some adjustments to the doubleshot tooling, which is more involved due to the material shrinkage and material flow between the legends. The samples with the new adjustments will arrive soon, and we are confident they will meet our high-quality standards and proceed with production.
We’re also adjusting the case to have an extended internal hinge - we’ve received the updated sample of this and are happy with it, and it is what will be utilised for the end product.
May 2022
The latest round of fine tuning has taken longer than expected as both our manufacturing partners and ourselves have been unhappy with the legends. These are very minor (and barely noticeable) inconsistencies between different injection molds on the production line. That being said, we wanted these to be exactly what we envisioned before mass production.
June 2022
The latest round of fine tuned samples have arrived and there are still very minor inconsistencies. We were still not 100% happy with the quality and again, Injection Molding is an iterative process - tooling after tooling changes until the end result is what’s expected. We are expecting to receive another batch soon, and will post pictures when they’re in.
July 2022
We have been fine tuning the mold and trialing EDM on the legends to rectify some of the inconsistency issues, the latest batch has arrived. We are now pumping out some of the coloured sets to confirm and will post photos once they’re in!
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There is hope:
(Me not freaking out about the RAMA drama…)
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