"Charcoal" PBT Keycaps

The MarvoDIY Undefined 61 keyboard kit was the reason this article happened at all, as I like to familiarize myself with new brands, and help get them some views, too. The company offered to send a set of keycaps, which certainly does help since I would rather show off new components than re-use older ones. There was a choice of keycap sets, all of which I had seen before elsewhere. I chose the so-called Charcoal set, and it shipped in a similar bare cardboard box as with the kit, but with a cutout window for a teaser of the keycaps inside. Once again, only side flaps keep the box closed, opening which we see the keycaps inside two plastic blister trays with a lid over the top compartment. This top compartment then becomes the de-facto top for the bottom compartment itself.


A single accessory is included here, which is fair considering the entire product is an accessory in and of itself. A metal wire keycap puller, it works out well to where I simply did not bother using the plastic ring keycap puller that shipped with the kit.


The MarvoDIY Charcoal keycap set has 143 keycaps in two trays, and a quick look would tell the experienced keyboard enthusiast that these are sold under a few other names by other companies. The original colorway was dubbed "Carbon," which in itself inspired the Akko Carbon Retro keycaps we saw before, but this is even closer to the original to where I asked MarvoDIY about it. The company was clear about this not being their design and them working on original designs as we speak. Whether or not selling this set is ethical is a whole other question, one every individual interested in such custom keycaps will have to answer for themselves.

That said, this Charcoal set does get described well enough on the product page, often to the point of flowery while taking liberties in justifying where the theme comes from with these tri-tone keycaps. I am a sucker for such marketing, however, and do give leeway here in how the orange, black, and white colors are based on charcoal pieces, flames, embers, and smoke—so much so that the white keycaps with the light orange hue are supposed to be smoke coming off charcoal fire. Functionally, we have enough keycaps for the vast majority of keyboard form factors, including some non-standard keycaps that work with 70–80% keyboards, too. There are also quite a few novelty keycaps, which is where I did chuckle, seeing a random r/mk keycap that clearly isn't an original design at all. I am also not quite sure how the various radioactive-themed keycaps fit in, but no one claimed this set makes much logical sense as a whole. It looks quite nice, which is really what gets sales.


Design aside, we see the use of thick PBT plastic (1.4 mm wall thickness) with injection molding for the orange and white colors and a 5-sided thermal sublimation process for black. The legends and designs are all dye-sublimed onto the base plastic, which does make it easier compared to having a custom mold for doubleshot injection. The sublimation quality is quite good, and the finish is more than decent. The PBT plastic is also smoother than your typical aftermarket PBT set, but nowhere near as smooth and vibrant as what we saw with the recently covered ABS keycap set made by GMK for Drop. I suppose I should confirm that these are indeed compatible with the Cherry MX stem design for switches, and this particular set employs the rarely seen XDA profile.