Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/11/13/star-trek-keycaps-for-your-mec.html
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Key caps are an amazing business. Extruded plastic parts are cheap (like pennies per cheap) but you can sell a set of 101 of them for over $1 per key.
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And for extra entrepreneur points, this one is even a pre-sale: “Minimum Order Quantity is 150. If 150 pre-orders aren’t received by the close of the pre-order period, no keysets will be produced and all orders will be refunded.”
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Pair this with hackertyper.com for instant win!
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I remember thinking this and looking into setting up a company making sets aimed at the group-buy economy. The surprising hidden cost is in the hardware. High-quality molds required for decent keys. Ones printed using dye sublimation or lasers (ie print on demand) have the same uncanny quality as the stuff on the “self published novels by locals” rack at a bookstore.
That’s not to say you’re wrong, just that the margins are hairier than it looks and the existing suppliers aren’t quite as slack at meeting demand as it sometimes looks from the mech forums.
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It’s tempting (and high on the list of geekiest things I’ve ever seen), but my fingers wear the screenprinting off keyboard keys. 
I’d be curious to know what the printing costs look like. They specify that the symbols are dye sublimation printed, which, if done properly, is probably the second nicest option(laser etched can give it a run for it’s money if the fill is nicely done; double-shot injection molding is clearly superior; but requires tooling up appropriate molds for every symbol, which would probably be ruinous in these quantities).
You can get prices for dye sub photo printers pretty easily, I’m having slightly less luck with the cost for printing on less well behaved plastic objects.
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There was one of those alternate timeline episodes of Star Trek: Voyager in which Tuvok was blinded and thus used the voice command “activate tactile interface” when he showed up for duty. All I could think of was “you guys had that option this whole time and instead opted to do everything via flat touchscreen??”
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Don’t make me come back there and repolarize the expository emitters.
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