UPDATE: now live on Drop!
When we designed the MT3 keycap profile we had very specific vintage keyboards in mind. One of them was the IBM 3277 (and the whole 32xx series). So before venturing any further in colorful and extravagant color schemes I had to honor the 3277 by dedicating an MT3 set to it.
Hence I’m proud to introduce to you simply “3277”, the next MT3 double-shot to be produced in the coming months.
I understand that the base kit could be a little boring for some of you, so I added some very exuberant accent colors you can play with: magenta, turquoise, tangerine, salmon, acid green and red.
I’m waiting for the final renders, in the meantime here you’ll find some 2d examples of what you can do with it. The colored keys will be sold in one “Accent” kit so you can mix and match your harlequin keyboard.
The following are all the kits (except the two already shown above). They are still not final so if you have requests now is the right time!
The set will go live in the coming days on Drop, I’ll post the link as soon as it will be available.
What next?
Well, nothing as standard as what I’ve done so far, quite the opposite. I’m working with Drop to finally bring some Tolkien stuff back, expect Dwarvish, Elvish and Black Speech. What’s new about it? Well, it will be MT3 of course and hopefully it will be a fully licensed product! Still working on it so please cross your fingers!
Apart from that I’m officially working on some new official products that will use the imagery of very famous and very much loved characters. I can’t say much more right now but I’m super psyched about it! So stay tuned! I’m not on any social, you can find me a little on reddit, Deskthority and Discord but your best bet is by following this website.
Comments
Good stuff, I like how toned down it is. And in double-shot no less!
Having said that—R5 bottom row option would be awesome to have.
Redox kit would be nice, even with just blank caps! Thank you!
what keys are we missing? Isn’t the ergodox kit enough?
Hi,
The ergodox kit does not cover the redox due to the redox using 1.25u side modifiers in place of 1.5u.
Here is what I would recommend for the redox modifiers:
2x 1u R1
4x 1u R2
8x 1u R5
2x 1.25u R1
2x 1.25u R2
2x 1.25u R3
2x 1.25u R4
2x 1.25u R5
6x 1.5u R5
It is the same profile wise, just fewer keys and side modifiers using 1.25 instead of 1.5. Below is a reddit post discussing the SA layout for the redox:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/frch4w/redox_w_sa_keycaps_125u_modifier_keys_in_uniform/
Needless to say I would very much like this added as a option. You would doing a solid for the redox folk who are very limited with regards to sculpted sets.
I am more than happy to help getting additional info if you need it.
thanks for the heads up, that’s a lot of keys, let’s see what I can do
I don’t see a redox option – any chance you’re still seeing what you can do? :-) I’d love to get a set when my new redox arrives.
the kits are finalized
Top sculpted row 1.25u isn’t available anywhere I can find as a single keycap, not listed as available by SA… breaks my heart. I don’t know who to be mad at. The redox has so many things going for it but clothes don’t fit.
Awesome! Insta-buy for me for the Base kit. Considering the Extra kit as well. Hopefully more designers and more designs can come alive with MT3 doubleshot :)
woah!!! love it!
Really looking forward to this great keyset. Personally, I always miss a R1 plus minus/section sign key and a R4 tilde/backtick key in order to rebuild the “International English” keyboard I use on my MacBook.
not the first time I’m asked for the R4 tilde/backlash… let’s see if I can squeeze it somewhere
No R5?ðŸ˜
Yep, that’s gonna another vote for R5
Love it. I’m a huge fan of the susuwatari set and mt3 and this is more of the same matt3o goodness. =D
Looks really nice! Any chance of getting some ISO keys in the ortho set? Maybe like the two/double quotes (2 “), three/British pound key (3 £), and R3 apostrophe/at sign (‘ @) keys. I assume it’s too late now
maybe a separate international kit would work better actually! It was frustrating not having any ISO keys from the ortho set for Susuwatari which means that I would have had to buy the base set to get the keys I wanted :(
unfortunately we don’t have the tooling for international keys at the moment, it may change in the future.
not even the ones that are already in the base kit? that’s a shame :(
still, lovely kit, hopefully I can buy some of the keys I need from the base set separately from /r/mechmarket or something, I made a post there for the ones I was missing from Susuwatari but got no response
This really is my ideal set. And I love the accent color choices.
Now, is there any chance we can get an R5? Even in the future?
I regret to say it is a hard sell for me without.
we’ll add more keys in the future, but right now this is what we’ve got :)
Awesome.
Just gonna say, as a designer, I’d kill for some convex alt key
I agree that would be lovely indeed :)
Will this be shiny as the 3277 keyset on the picture?
texture finish is the same as susuwatari
Very nice, I was close to ordering susuwatari, but I think I’ll hold out for this as my first MT3 keyset.
Any chance we can get the CLEAR key from extras in R1 as well as R0? I’d love to use that key in place of numlock.
Please use a gloss finish
It’s really nice what you’re doing with ortho kits. Thanks to this approach I was able to get a Ortho + Colemak Susuwatari without spend an indecent amount of money on extra kits and3277 ortho kit looks even more incredible!
Thank you so much for this attention to such small part of this community :)
Can we get some direct comparison of the colors to, specifically, Susuwatari? I assume it’s not literally the same gray but from these I’m guessing it’s not *wildly* different.
Thanks!
they are different grays, susuwatari is warm, 3277 is cold. I’ll post more pictures when I get samples.
Interested to see the difference too.
R5. That is all.
Thank you for including 1.5U ESC and Delete.
Also, deep blue accents? Pretty please?
I agree. The red accents are great, but I’d prefer a different blue to any of the other accents.
I write this as I look at the LMI Lambda keyboard resting in a display case in my office.
aaah that would have been a really good idea! I wished I thought about it, damn
I’d love a future set with a dark blue and black color way!
Don’t mind the deep blue at all, but just don’t remove orange and teal :)
would love to see an f13 key and second B key for alice style boards
This colourway looks very nice.
Only thing I’d like to see is a pair 1.5u text modifers instead of (or in addition to) the diamond icons, ie SUPER or SYSTEM or CODE or META etc. It’s the only thing stopping this from being a must buy for me as think the lone diamond icons might look strange when all the other mods are text.
Agree another pair of 1.5u text mods would be great. Maybe RESET fits the 3277 theme better, there’s already a 1.25u in extras.
The accent kits are a really nice idea. What about an R2 up arrow in them?
Also maybe not viable, but split spacebar accents would also be nice.
I agree with you about R2 up arrow key should be included each accent kits.
Definitely picking up the ortho kit w/ red accents. Would love to see the “ANY KEY” in those kits!
I am looking for an achievable MT3 kit for my long planned handwired keyboard and this will definitely be the ultimate kit to get. Will there be a Nordic set to cover my (I know, stupid) ISO/DK need?
no international kits yet, sorry
When might you make a version that comes with a bunch of the special keys? We people in strange places are growing impatient! ;)
I am one of those people… :(
Ergodox kit looks great but are those 2u convex or concave? Also, need some 1u dark mods for the center keys in case users don’t use the vertical 1.5u keys.
thanks for the heads up! The set will go live next week but I’ll try to make some updates along the lines
Any chance you can include an R1 DEL key in the ortho kits?
I thought it was already there… let’s see what we can do
Any possibility of including an extra 2.25U Shift in the base kit so I don’t have to order two base kits?
Matt, is it a design choice or cost concern not to have R5 for ortho?
I want to know so I can either be prepared to buy the ergodox set just for the R5 or train myself to use the R5.
unfortunately it’s cost. I wish I could offer all the options on the bottom row but at the moment we can’t
I’ve been using R3 extras as modifiers on my ortho, maybe that’s a better compromise if you aren’t able to do R5 with legends.
I have the keyboard at 6 degree and the bottom row is a finger cutter if used as designed.
This is a super addictive profile – thank you for that – I own multiple dev/tty and susuwatari sets just in case they go out of stock.
Overall it looks great. As someone who already owns Susuatari I’m curious to see them side by side color wise but I like that you’ve got some colorful accent sets. I could see myself picking up a couple of those (maybe more) to change up the board without having to get multiple full new sets.
the grays are pretty different, but I’ll post pictures as soon as I get prototypes!
I’m loving my Susuwatari! I saw this set appear on Drop so it’s probably too late to change things, but maybe something to consider for next time. I see the R1 DEL came into the base (for the 65%, nice) but was surprised the R0 one wasn’t included too, which is popular on 75% boards (and is in the num pad, not extras). Man, it’s gotta be so tough to divide up these kits, though. Great job and keep these MT3 color ways coming!
thanks for the heads-up! I’ll see what I can do, I think we can still fix a couple of keys here and there
Just curious, what are the odds of seeing something like MiTo’s Laser set coming to the MT3 profile? I just think that it would be epic to have a Laser styled set in MT3, like a sort of Retro-Cyberpunk combination.
Wow, what a killer set! I’m a proud owner of two Susuwatari base kits plus one of everything else. I wasn’t expecting another home run so soon. And with more licensed sets on the horizon? I have to ask, did my bank account offend you in some way? :)
Keep up the good work!
lel! all I can say is that pre-order price will be much cheaper than the final cost when the kits will be regularly available… sooo
SA Nightcap is doing something brilliant I’d love to see here and everywhere: In the ortho set, two extra columns of blank 1u keys. To me it makes sense – many (most?) of the 40% crowd has a custom layout. Columns of blanks make the set accessible, everybody happy.
Alternatively, offer a single or pair of 1u columns with the default accent color, if it will not be included in the ortho. I’m tempted to put that in all caps because I’m sort of enthralled with the idea. This seems necessary to me for every sculpted set… just 10 little keys. Lack of blanks or at least novelty keys to accommodate weird outer columns is such a common deal breaker.
Thanks for reading, cheers.
Just had a thought concerning blank 1u columns as an addon. With a set like this that offers so many colors, having some coordination and variation of rows (multicolor blank column) would be pretty sweet. I don’t know how to gauge people’s preferences but there’s some design opportunity in there somewhere. This and/or default accent color, or both…
I like the idea, but accent kits are already insanely expensive, I don’t think they will let me add more keys.
I have bought 2 of your keycap sets and I love them. I love the shape and feel of the keys. I use them on both my daily drivers. But unfortunately they are both Corsair keyboards and the stupid bottom row doesn’t work… so I have a random mishmash of keys on the bottom row. Anyway you can make a corsair bottom row for one of your keycap sets? 1.5-1-1.25-6.5-1.25-1-1-1.5
I think we miss only the 6.5 spacebar, right? Does it have standardized stem position (ie: 1u from the sides)?
I used calipers and measured my corsair spacebar and the spacebar that came with your TTY kit and they are both about the same from the outside edge of the spacebar to the inside edge of the stem. I am getting just under 12 mm and both are identical in this measurement. Center stem is centered exactly. The TTY kit currently on drop doesn’t have 1.5u ctrl keys. Also 1u win keys/super/whatever, but I guess something could easily be substituted. Space bar is definitely the biggest problem.
It would be great if you could include a 6.5U Spacebar in one of the kits!
My keyboard feels a bit sad at the moment with the spacebar being non-MT3!
Another nice to have would be one of those caps lock keys with half of the key lowered which has the stem centred, as a replacement for a regular caps lock.
Glossy key tops are what I love the most about the original vintage keyboards. It’s clear in your picture of the IBM 3277! You can tell the difference in texture immediately and modern keycaps are all textured or matte. Is there any possibility that modern manufacturing can reproduce the glory of old? I’m a huge fan of the original PBT textured MT3 dev/tty set and would love a glossy dark key alternative.
it would be feasible but requires a full set of new tooling… it’s just not economically viable
AAAHHHHHH THANK YOU.
After years of trying to get comfy with the off-white legends of the Dolch and the warmness of the grey this is exactly what I’ve been looking for.
preordered and stoked to see it show up.
I used calipers and measured my corsair spacebar and the spacebar that came with your TTY kit and they are both about the same from the outside edge of the spacebar to the inside edge of the stem. I am getting just under 12 mm and both are identical in this measurement. Center stem is centered exactly. The TTY kit currently on drop doesn’t have 1.5u ctrl keys. Also 1u win keys/super/whatever, but I guess something could easily be substituted. Space bar is definitely the biggest problem.
Corsair uses 6.5u spacebar which doesnt exist in nice custom kits.
I know that. That is why I was requesting a 6.5. I am sure there are a ton of people who would.
I know Drop is being very hesitant about saying whether there will be any more MT3 sets released this year, specifically with regards to Susuwatari buyers and the coupons for a free MT3 set which is only valid this year. Would you recommend we use our coupon for the 3277 set, or do you think there is a chance for another MT3 drop this year?
I can’t be 100% sure, but I doubt we have time for another set this year.
Hello Matteo,
Wonderful set! Is this the same font/type face used on susuwatari?
YES!
Just a quick thank you for including the 1.5u keys. Makes ortho a perfect fit for the corne.
I missed the custom dev/tty but have eatery other mt3 set that includes them. Absolutely loving the profile.
Love this. Just purchased the MT3 BOWs on Drop as well. Stunningly crisp and the dual shot ABS… perfection!
I love that there are accents here i’m just personally not a fan of the neon-ish colors. What I wouldn’t give for the green that Fujifilm ISO 100 film rolls use or the yellow from Catepillar machinery etc.
next time we’ll add more accents :) Personally I’d love a deep blue.
This was s must buy for me, especially considering the base kit has that control key to replace Caps lock. I plan to use these to replace the caps from when I do my Tokyo60 build. Truly will be an endgame masterpiece thanks to these caps. Already love my /dev/tty set (unfortunately no custom keys for it yet) and the MT3 profile, just impatiently waiting for the months to tick by so I can have this set under my fingers!
Hei matt3o, I’ve been recently trying to figure out what my dream key set would be, and I think your design is by far the one that I like most both visually and functionally. However… I like dark keys, and I don’t like ABS keys that get smooth. I really like textured key caps. I understand your PBT key caps are like this. Is there any chance you’ll be doing dark, double-shot PBT keys, textured? Say dark gray or navy. I saw a bunch of double shot PBT keycaps from other families out there, but your MT3 design is the one I really like the most, by far.
BTW, I do know that PBT might mean the legends might have to be a little different (split). IMO that’s worth it… but even if there are weld marks on the legends, that’s still perfectly fine, I think! Non-split legends with weld marks would be my preferred choice.
Have you also at some point considered mill-and-fill legends? You basically mill out the legend, and a fill gate, to fill from behind… I wonder what your thoughts are. Thanks!
quality control is terrible for inverted dye-sub. It would be a nightmare of returned orders unfortunately
Hi matt3o, thanks for your reply! I think we misunderstood each other. I wasn’t asking about inverted dyesub, I was talking about double shot or mill and fill. So the first question is: Are you working towards double shot PBT? Second question: Would you consider mill and fill at some point? I think with a high quality cnc router, mill and fill can work really, really well. Personally I like to be able to feel legends under my fingers, it adds a lot to the tactile experience for me. And being able to use paint or a polymer filler creates colors that are way more vibrant than you can get with dye sublimation. Dyes only filter the light already being reflected by the PBT under them, which limits their color spectrum; whatever filler you use for mill and fill can be a polymer paint of some sort and this can get even more vibrant than PBT, because it doesn’t need to withstand the same injection process. I was really taken by surprise the first time I saw mill-and-fill!
Not sure where you got the impression I was talking about inverted dye sublimation? 🙂 Thanks
oh okay sorry. I probably read your message a little too quickly :) Well, doubleshot PBT is certainly something we are exploring. mill-n-fill is a little too much work and not really feasible for huge batches.
Haha, no problem :-) I’d love to see the 3277 in rough-surfaced PBT. What are your challenges with PBT as it stands? Have you tried doing any test runs? I know PBT is a bit less flexible when being molded, did you experience any problems with this? I wonder what other challenges there might be!
I’ve had another question if I may – what makes mill n fill challenging? Is it the milling time, the set up time for cnc, or the filling? One thing I’ve seen people do is they’ll set up a production line where the company does the milling with CNC, but then it’s up to the buyer to fill the milled out bits. Which is really cool, because it becomes another thing you can customize about your keyboard. It’s a bit like painting models, or miniatures. You can be creative. I’ve seen this done in production runs for board game dice. Maybe this could be a thing you would like to do? Or possibly even, do a run of dark blanks, and leave it up to people to do the CNC themselves?
doubleshot PBT is not easy because of shrinking and warping. It’s feasible but more complicated (so, again, more expensive). You can though use a different material for the legend, which makes things a little easier.
regarding the milling of legends it’s something you can certainly do, but it’s a lot of work when you have to produce 2000+ sets. It would take really forever.
yeah, for engraving 2000 sets you’d need at least 100 days to do that if you had just one CNC mill. So the question is how you can speed this up. Multiple CNC mills? Depends on what you have in your machine shop, really.
Are you saying double shot all-PBT caps warp more than single shot ones? Or are you saying that all PBT caps warp, and therefore double shot legends are a bit of a problem because it’s difficult to get a uniform result? If the warping is uniform (e.g. the outside part of the legend contracts more than the inside part, or the other way around) then that’s mostly acceptable for many people, and honestly it could be an interesting quirk of an early run that people would be happy to have in their collection.
So let’s say some of the letters come out warped because that’s how they contract during cooling. So what happens then? Am I correct to say you’ll re-do the tool (the injection mold), and then use that during the next production run? Maybe it would be a good thing if people could buy the set, and if some of the keys are slightly lower quality, they’ll be given the ability to buy a fill set really inexpensively on the next production run? This would let you release early (with possibly some small production issues) and meanwhile people will be able to use it, and they know they’ll still be able to get the ultimate quality eventually, without an endless wait time for a perfect key set. Of course if a key really warps badly and needs to be redone then you redo it, but if it’s only marginal, then you could make this sort of fill offer available. What do you think of this? I get it this would be something you’d need to discuss with drop, but is it something you would be happy with, yourself?
This is a difficult (and interesting) topic… Ultimately the dynamics of large scale production are very complicated. I’d really like to keep talking about it but maybe this is not the right place.
What do you think about laser-and-fill legends? If you search for “SA midnight PBT keycap for MX switches mechanical keyboard key cap radium carving”, that is done this way. The legend edges are a bit rough, but that’s probably fixed with a better laser engraver. However, the colors of the legends are absolutely amazing. Much more vivid than you can get with any injection molded plastics I’ve seen used on key caps. And laser is fast.
Would that be something that’s manufactured quickly enough for your needs?
Any chance of adding a 1.25u blank to the spacebar-kit? A very common way to do split space is to split a 6.25u space into 2.25u – 1.25u – 2.75u. Pretty sure that’s the most common way to do split space, would be great to have support for it.
not this time, but I’ll consider that for the next sets
Matteo,
I love your keycaps designs and would love to buy one (or more) for a GMMK Pro keyboard that I’m planning to buy. Could you tell me if your sets work with that keyboard? The modifiers to the right of the space bar seem like 1u to me but I’m not sure, also the right shift is smaller than the left.
yes, we have options to cover a GMMK!
So I saw the set on Drop and noticed that there’s a few missing keys in the base kit for 75% boards. Is the base kit going to include any of the R0 keys in the numpad kit like insert, delete, or anykey?
Hello Matteo, purchased the Susuwatari base and extras kit, and I’m loving it-
keycap endgame declared!
I was wondering if the red accent kit color, texture, and material are same with the reds on the Soots base and extras kit.
Love this set..!!!! I started programming on a DEC PDP-11 with a VT100 terminal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT100#/media/File:DEC_VT100_terminal.jpg
I don’t think is the same profile keycap, but it does bring old memories programming late at night on the University lab. Thanks. I’m still programming today, in my WASD keyboard, with cherry caps.. looking forward to try a MT3 set.
I got the basic kit, but since I love color as well, got the tangerine accent, and the extras.
Planning to get a mojo60 case for it.
You have ruined me for all other profiles it seems. MT3 ABS doubleshot sets look and feel so incredibly good, not even /dev/tty can compare.
As for this set: will these be permanently available like Susuwatari, or is it limited in some way?
ahah mission accomplished! :D
I don’t know yet about 3277 yet, sorry. Drop usually produce more and keep selling later, but depends on the success of the set.
Got it. Thanks for being upfront about it, too! It’s really appreciated.
Question,… Not sure if you are done with changes, but I was wondering how about having a Unix or Linux super key? :-) I dont use windows…
now it’s really too late :D
Wondering if the keycaps are still on time for Aug 2021 delivery as I’m tempted to order from drop!
According to Drop time line is October 2021
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