I can't see any signs of that on my 6-week-old Gemini…I had wear on mine. I've reported it to Planet and they will investigate with the factory.
Quote from: giddsI can't see any signs of that on my 6-week-old Gemini…I had wear on mine. I've reported it to Planet and they will investigate with the factory.
I've had my UK Gemini for 3 weeks and now that you mention it it does look like it is starting to wear, I had put it down to the keys getting a little grubby so I looked a little closer and to me it does look like dirt rather than the white print wearing off,
see attached image
+1 here... I've had my gemini for about a month, and it has had little use while I wait to see if my mobile carrier will allow it on their network. The Esc/on/off key label is almost completely gone. There is no way these labels are laser-engraved. They're painted on with poor quality paint.
No matter how much I try to clean it my Fn key still looks like this. As it is most used it looks the worst. This is after 6 days of use. If anyone knows what kind of protective paint I can use, I will try it. Logically all other keys will look like it sooner or later if I do not take any action. I will also write to Planet.
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I just got reply from Planet:
...The keys on the Gemini are lasered, so they will never completely wear off. While it might discolour, they will eventually stop fading.
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I've had my UK Gemini for 3 weeks and now that you mention it it does look like it is starting to wear, I had put it down to the keys getting a little grubby so I looked a little closer and to me it does look like dirt rather than the white print wearing off,
see attached image
(...)I would now like to second that. I detached the ESC-Keycap from my Psion 5 mx and first cleaned it with detergent, dried it and then used isopropanol. Looks much better now, though not as good as new. Maybe a round in the dishwasher (of the separated key caps, of course, not the entire psion) might do the trick. In any case this does look as if not the "printing" is worn of, but it is just darkend by absorbing oil from the skin of the fingers. What also speaks against abrasion is that there are no gaps in the printing, just darker parts, or the whole printing has gone dark.
It appears that there might be just dirt in the microscopic holes afte laser etching, not easy to clean.
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(...)Well, being a layperson myself, I don't actually know how it is done, but this is definately not printing. In my pictures you can see the "paths" inside the symbols, where the laserbeam or maybe a plasma beam has worked and inserted the white color. It actually looks like a tiny micro 3D printing.
Hmmm… It's pretty obvious, even without a microscope, that the lettering is in relief — it sticks up from the keys, rather than being sunken into them. So while a laser may be involved somehow, this doesn't seem like ‘etching’ as a layperson would understand it.
(...)
(...) The Esc/on/off key label is almost completely gone.(...)"almost completely gone" should mean the white (or whitish-gray) print is away leaving only the dark gray surface of the key cap. Is that the case?
this does look as if not the "printing" is worn of, but it is just darkend by absorbing oil from the skin of the fingers.
It actually looks like a tiny micro 3D printing.
Quote from: Eldkattenthis does look as if not the "printing" is worn of, but it is just darkend by absorbing oil from the skin of the fingers.
Mmm, that could well explain it.Quote from: EldkattenIt actually looks like a tiny micro 3D printing.
Yes, it does. Of course, actual 3D printing wasn't available 20 years ago when the Psion 5 was made, which is why silk-screen printing (where the ink/whatever is forced through a fine silk mesh) seemed a possibility. Ink-jet-style printing (which is what 3D printing was based on) could also result in something like that.
However, videos (https://youtu.be/HOd2GfQcAhc) such (https://youtu.be/4WDuAI43O98) as (https://youtu.be/LZneieuvmw8) these (https://youtu.be/Si7CHnf3ZVA) definitely show lettering being created (in impressive style!) by laser. And that's apparently (https://www.quora.com/How-are-keyboards-keys-painted) the standard way for keyboards, especially when they're not in long production runs. (Other methods are ‘double-shot’ moulding where the lettering is in a contrasting colour of plastic, and dye-sublimation printing.)
I haven't seen a good explanation of laser engraving, but I suspect that the laser heats the plastic, causing it to expand and discolour (perhaps in the same way that soft plastics can change colour when bent/stretched). This would explain everything: why the lettering is slightly raised, why it's slightly pixelated (as the laser will be directed to individual spots), and why the process is described as ‘laser etching’.
If so, it means there's no danger of the lettering coming away — it's not separate, but part of the same plastic mass as the rest of the key. And there's no dye, ink, or paint to fade or separate. The discolouration isn't from any permanent deterioration, but as you say, can only be from finger grease and/or other dirt. This means it should be removable — though the rough surface of the letters might need chemical rather than physical means to get it all off.
So all we need to do now is to identify the best way of cleaning the keyboard! Since we don't need to worry about dissolving any dye/ink/paint, just the plastic itself, I guess a wide range of cleaning agents might work. Anyone care to try some??
(The main caveat is of course that the keys need to be removed first. The preferred method I used on Psions still works, which uses a big blob of Blu Tak: press it firmly onto a key, then lift it off sharply. If you get it right, the key top comes up with it — with much less risk of damaging anything.)
This has become a very interesting topic
(...)Anyone care to try some?? (...)Interesting indeed :-) And I was curious... So I tried, not on my precious new Gemini, but on my precious old Psion 5 mx. Pryed off some of the worst "worn" keycaps, and washed some with detergent and applied then isopropanol, on others I used only isopropanol. With the same result: once the isopropanol residues (the ones I couldn't get off with kitchen tissue) dried off, the keys look nearly as new. Which is quite a spectacular result considering that the whole procedure took only a few seconds per keycap. If applied more thoroughly, this might be a way to realy refresh the key labels.