A New Year's Message

What a journey the past nine years has been, from starting RAMA WORKS as nothing more than a hobby during my final year of university in 2015, with my first product sold purely through GEEKHACK: a painted CNC machined keycap of maybe 30 units! I made so many friends through that, cultivating relationships and meeting many in real life. I then went on to design my first macro pad, the M10, then subsequently the M4, EXENT, M65-A, KOYU, M60, U80, M65-B and so on, with many other designs in between.

After the first successful release of the M65 and M60, I invested in an office/warehouse in 2020 and started hiring. A year in and we had 13 employees.

In 2021, I was backstabbed by those closest to me, people within the industry whom I had done so much for, whilst they actively undermined my reputation, business operations and supply chain in the background. Vicious rumours and lies about me and my business were spread through an orchestrated campaign which people blindly believed and propagated around the globe.

It sent me to the shadows, how could I defend myself against these globally distributed lies? I was so constantly vilified and bullied by people who did not know me that I became reclusive, sticking to myself whilst holding onto the truth. I decided to fight in a court of law where justice, fairness and due diligence prevail and not in the court of public opinion. Unfortunately, my respectful silence allowed these lies to spread and poison the well. I have enough self-respect and belief in karma to not do the same, seeking out to destroy someone’s reputation and spread lies.

Last year I hit my absolute lowest and darkest time with the relentless harassment, bullying and understanding of how the discourse of lies had spread. Individuals who participate in or condone bullying should engage in deep self-reflection and consider the true impact of their actions.

At the outset, the timeline and prospect of achieving justice seemed clear and manageable. We were greatly mistaken. Given the nature of the Justice system, complicated by the pandemic, what we anticipated to conclude in a matter of months turned into two exhausting years. It was an incredibly tedious process which involved reviewing and compiling mounds of damning evidence.

We were anticipating for judgment to come out in December 2023 as the final hearing took place in September 2023. Lack of judgment to date has held up the release of a public statement, which is not only very frustrating for RAMA WORKS, but for our customers, friends and those closest to me who deserve to know the truth.

We look forward to the release of the case judgment that we so vigilantly and privately fought for. Hopefully, it will put an end to this haunting chapter.

What I would do to turn back the clock to when it was just myself and nothing else but me and my designs; no distractions, when things were simple. Design is my solace, and unfortunately, as a business owner, so many things overtake my time and desire to be in my happy place of creating - so many distractions and problems that need to be dealt with. However, I’m very fortunate to have created these jobs and run this business.

The decision to pursue legal action was not taken lightly, especially knowing the impact it would have. As a designer and business owner, our rights are something I strongly believe in and will stick up and fight for. All we have as designers is what we put out in the world, we should not have it stolen and our trust abused without consequences.

As hard as these past two years have been for me, it has fostered a significant amount of personal growth and resilience, something I could only learn through grim experience.

Every company, regardless of its nature or industry, inevitably faces challenges and hardships. This is a universal truth in the world of business. 'Gold is tested in fire, and human character is tested in adversity’. Running this business and expanding in Australia has been very tough. I wanted to foster and grow in my home base, but this has made things much harder for our globally serving business as Australia is so geographically isolated. This distance compounds the headache of receiving faulty goods which have to be returned, remade and resent - adding to the import/export fees, time and other costs.

Did RAMA WORKS “fall off”? Absolutely. Are we where we were two years ago? Absolutely not. Are we where we want to be? Not even close. We are diligently working through each product, and I am personally committed to tackling these challenges directly. There is a lot of work to be done, and I am not going anywhere. RAMA WORKS continues to employ nine fantastic and loyal staff here in Melbourne, Australia and operate in the same warehouse I chose to start this venture with.

I am proud of all my past achievements and designs I’ve released, and what I’ve done for the keyboard community with this once small hobby. I truly look forward to moving past these adversities and bringing back RAMA WORKS to where we once were and beyond. Not for a second have I been idle, there is so much I have worked on in the background and collaborations that are upcoming. RAMA WORKS is excited to bring these to fruition in the near future.

Thanks to all that have believed in me and what I’ve created as a dream nine years ago. Thanks to the ones that did not blindly judge. Thanks to those who consoled and supported me in my darkest times. Thank you to my friends and family who stood by my side and supported me. Thank you to our loyal customers.

In the heart of the night, a new day is born, and with its light, shadows of the past are gone.

Rama 💛


THERMAL & THERMAL+ Photos

Now that the THERMAL units are in, we’ve taken some detail shots of how they look! See below for some pictures 📸

THERMAL - MILK

THERMAL - SOYA

THERMAL - MOON

THERMAL - KURO

THERMAL - ROSE

THERMAL+ - MILK

THERMAL+ - SOYA

THERMAL+ - MOON

THERMAL+ - KURO

THERMAL+ - ROSE

RAMA WORKS® Public Announcement

In recent months RAMA WORKS has become aware of public commentary regarding the departure of a RAMA WORKS employee and the impact that has had on our business.

As you might know, RAMA WORKS has filed proceedings in the Federal Circuit Court of Australia against a former employee. As those proceedings are ongoing, RAMA WORKS does not consider it appropriate to publicly comment on the matters out of respect to the judicial system, other than what is outlined at a high level in this announcement.

RAMA WORKS is also aware of public commentary about order delays and future product lines. Many recent events have inevitably caused disruptions to supply chains worldwide, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

On top of this, over the last 12 months, the RAMA WORKS team has had to work hard to mitigate issues that it alleges were caused by a certain ex-employee. Amongst many other things, this has involved the time-consuming process of cross-checking every single product down to the smallest details.

In several instances, the internal auditing resulted in production orders having to be corrected and remade. These issues are primarily rectified, with orders back on track and to be delivered as soon as practicable.

We want to take this opportunity to assure our customers that RAMA WORKS sold the products in good faith, intended to, and will fulfil the products within industry standard timeframes.

With respect to the ongoing litigation, at a high level, the proceedings concern the following allegations: A former employee of RAMA WORKS:

  • acted improperly whilst under employment

  • took and retained information from RAMA WORKS’ business (including intellectual property and confidential information) towards the end of their employment

  • has used that information to develop and sell products in a competing business 

The decision to file the legal proceedings was made only after a thorough investigation into the conduct of the ex-employee and was by no means taken lightly.

We apologise for the delays, which were absolutely beyond our anticipation and control. We understand the impact this has had on our customers, clients, vendors and other key stakeholders, and we genuinely appreciate your patience.

For further information on the status of orders, please refer to our updates page:
https://ramaworks.store/pages/updates

Wilba Tech x RAMA WORKS® Statement

 
 
 

RAMA WORKS and Wilba Tech have reached a positive agreement regarding the fulfilment of THERMAL and THERMAL+ keyboards.

Both parties wish to assure our customers that we are working together to have these keyboards in our customer’s hands by Q4/2022.

The encasements are completed and will be sea freighted to our Melbourne warehouse. Concurrently, the PCBs are now in production with an estimated lead time of six weeks.We appreciate your patience and understanding and look forward to everyone enjoying their Thermals!

CAPS CASE

RW TUBS & CASE Samples Arrived!


We have just received our latest CASE and TUBS samples and have completed QC.

Here are the latest changes that were made from the previous prototype:

  • Reinforced hinge

  • Remoulded feet and lid grooves to allow for better stacking

  • Improved case buckle with tighter tolerance

  • Real-life colour samples to match the original product renders

As we are now happy with the current quality of the latest sample, we will be proceeding to full production where we expect it to be complete in the same timeframe as the CAPS SEQ1 orders it will accompany.

Check out the photographs we have taken of this latest production sample below!

JARS, CARDS and things to come!

Welcome to the RAMA WORKS® BLOG! Here we’ll post some pics of what’s been going on at our HQ. We post updates as they happen on our new Updates page.

Below is our new encapsulated collectors cards - we have a few variants/designs of the cards which will be associated to our limited releases. They come with stands and are stackable. We look forward to sharing our new limited edition products as they are ready! The back of the cards feature holographic graphics, spot silver and gold foil 🥳 The top of the slabs are complete holograms, front and back.

JARS are in and will start shipping!! Extra’s will be online shortly after 💛

NFC 02 orders have all gone out and are available in-stock until sold out 🗝

RAMA WORKS® Playing Cards! We’re super excited for these - fully holographed front and back with fun art-card inclusions. The tuck-box is printed inside and out, embossed and holographed too.

Doubleshot Keycaps - Colour samples

As we continue to finalise the moulding - in the past month, we've completely re-tooled the legend moulding using EDM to yield better results. This week, we have just received the first colour samples of the HEAVY INDUSTRY DARK colourway. We're really excited to see it come together in the anticipated colours. Once this is finalised with the legends (finally at the minor tweaks stage) - we can further mould out the colour samples of each set to confirm.

Project Updates - June 2022

As we wait for products to arrive at our warehouse, we have been working on some items which will be included with our upcoming releases:

Microfiber Gloves:

Cleaning Cloths:

And some new products:
Playing Cards

WORK IN PROGRESS. Featuring holographic, foil and other premium features.

NFC Access Control Cards: 

We needed some elite access control cards for our office, so we decided to make our own! They’re stainless steel, weighing in at 25g and 0.8mm thick. There’s a deep-etched circular center on one side where the RFID chip sits, allowing us to not use the typical plastic lamination for one side of the card and have it remain full metal. They are laser etched, painted and have a lot of detail. These will first be available in stock alongside some of the other items arriving next month: The XO Team cap, XO Pens.

Collaboration Artisan Keycaps: 

We’ve received another batch of our collaboration caps which are currently being QC'd and packed by our warehousing team as quickly as possible to our distributors. For those who have purchased directly from us, please contact us through support@rama.works if you have moved/changed addresses and our team will be happy to assist as best we can.

XO Pens 

After initial QC we have opted to refinish the brass units of the XO PENS. We are expecting them to arrive by the end of this month leading up to the start of next month.
UPDATE: The first batch is inbound to our warehouse (the brass ones are being re-finished as we wernt’t satisfied with the finish of the brass units)

Chess Set: 

The first revision of the packaging came in which we are really happy with. It feels like a solid showcase piece you would want to keep on a coffee table. There have been some minor adjustments made and the second set of samples are en route.

JARS: 

We were expecting to receive the JARS last week, but the manufacturer has informed us of an issue with the rubber seals. The new gasket tooling will be finished by next week and the JARS will ship out that same week. We will post updates when this has been shipped through our socials e.g. Instagram, so please be sure to follow us if you haven’t already.
UPDATE: These are inbound to our warehouse.

60%/65% PCB's: 

The latest round of PCBs have arrived and we are currently performing further evaluation and testing. We are also remolding the PE Foam to adjust the sound signature and adding additional cutouts for the stabilisers.

THERMAL 

The SEQ 2 THERMAL units are in the final stages of assembly and packaging at the factory and will soon move to complete the assembly/packing of the THERMAL+ units. We will create another update when these are done and ready for sea-freight.

M60-B, M65-C, U80-B:

At this stage we’re looking at next year for fulfillment, we will keep updated if this is pushed forward.

KARA:

Pending the completion of the updated PCB’s we expect we can have the units completed soon after.

MATS: (IN PRODUCTION)

Packaging production is underway and when complete, will be assembled and shipped to our warehouse for fulfillment. We are expecting these to arrive in 2 months.

LOVE MATS DONATION:

Proceeds of our LOVE Mat edition MATS will be donated to Beyond Blue. Every month, thousands of people reach out to Beyond Blue for advice, support and information. Your donations go directly towards funding Beyond Blue’s Support Service so these calls don’t go unanswered. By supporting Beyond Blue, we are joining a community that is working to reduce the stigma, prejudice and discrimination that act as barriers to people reaching out for support. 

Doubleshot Keycaps  (KATE/CAPS):

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.

INSTAGRAM 80K GIVEAWAY
We’ll be soon announcing a giveaway for reaching 80K followers, with a few exciting prizes!

🎁

U80

🎁

NEMO

🎁

MORE

🎁 U80 🎁 NEMO 🎁 MORE

Project Updates - April 2022

RAMA WORKS has invested our time and resources to continuously improve and bring the best quality products to our customers. Although we have constantly been trying our best to push all the products out on our end, we are unfortunately stuck with limitations. The Global Covid Pandemic has caused more delays this year, with businesses and logistics being completely shut, then reopening with reduced capacity causing a backlog. Understandably we know this is frustrating. However, we will continue to do our best and keep everything moving and work out ways to avoid this in the future.

Our team has been working on new and exciting ideas, which we want to source and produce locally to avoid any further halts to production due to the pandemic while supporting local businesses. So stay tuned to the magic our team has been working on!

Doubleshot Keycaps:
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.

Jar: Production nearly completed
After adjusting the top lid mould to increase the draft angle by 2 degrees to apply a heavier texture finish to improve the grip, we have also opted for a translucent finish for better wear, which would hide any visible scratches over time. Hopefully, if there are no further logistical delays due to covid restrictions with the supply chain, we should be on track to get these out in the next month as they are currently being all moulded.

For any further clarifications on your JARS order, please do not hesitate to get in contact with us at support@rama.work

Here’s how the finish is changing:

M6-C:

The M6-C PCB’s have finally arrived at our warehouse and are going through a rigourous quality check. We have the M6-C Dandy enclosures and GRID caps in our Melbourne Warehouse and will be ready to ship these shortly. We expect the remainder of the M6-C enclosures to be completed in 1-3 months. We’ll also make available in stock the new GRID colours we made for these.

RW KEYBOARD BUILD - SNAP AND WIN A U80 ⌨️ 😍 📸

Have you built your own RAMA WORKS Keyboard and want to add a U80 to your collection?!  💛 ⌨️ 🎁  

All you need to do is take a creative photo of your own RAMA WORKS Keyboard Build and share it on either Instagram, Facebook or Twitter & tag @ramaworks  including the hashtag #RWxMyKeyboardBuild. 

 The winning photo will be re-shared on all our social platforms 🥳

Our support team will get in contact with the winners via the information provided to organise your prize - we will do our best to provide the preferred colour keyboard to the winners - subject to availability ⌨️💛

👇Enter👇
Photo Competition Entry

Things to come:

👀


Global Updates:

Our manufacturing partners in Shenzhen / Shanghai have been placed under strict lockdown to curb the current COVID outbreak. This means that the global supply chain across all sectors will be disrupted for the foreseeable future. We are closely monitoring the situation and will continue to do our best under circumstances out of control. Thank you to all our loyal ongoing clients for their patients during these difficult times. We understand the delays can be frustrating, and in the ideal setting with no supply chain issues, we would be able to get the products to you in a timely manner. The past year has shown us how quickly things can change, so we are also adapting our Business by looking at new products we can source locally to avoid these issues and continue providing high-quality products.


Other Updates:

Timelines from the previous March update on our other products are still valid.