Thinking about building an ergodox

[czarek]

I have never built a keyboard but from looking at ergodox website it seems relatively simple compared to what I did before (building octocopters).
I just don't know what materials to use. For the first try I'm not going to invest in aluminium since it's quite expensive (I would require good 3 kilograms of aluminium to mill the cases from, this would cost me about 50 Euro) and I don't have means to anodize it. I've got the CNC milling machine though and I can easily cut any material. I was considering wood (where I live, there is a lot of cheap spruce, beech, maple) or some plastic. I could get some hard PCV or Corian and use aluminium blueprints. The other option is the acrylic plates but I don't really know what kind of acrylic plastic is used for building keyboards, what is the thickness and composition of it. Is it the same as the plexiglass used for making PC cases or something different?
Could you please advice what would be the best for that job?
As for switches, do you know what is the best place in Europe to get Cherry MX? Or is it better to just scavenge some poor QFRs?

[oTurtlez]

I have never built a keyboard but from looking at ergodox website it seems relatively simple compared to what I did before (building octocopters).
I just don't know what materials to use. For the first try I'm not going to invest in aluminium since it's quite expensive (I would require good 3 kilograms of aluminium to mill the cases from, this would cost me about 50 Euro) and I don't have means to anodize it. I've got the CNC milling machine though and I can easily cut any material. I was considering wood (where I live, there is a lot of cheap spruce, beech, maple) or some plastic. I could get some hard PCV or Corian and use aluminium blueprints. The other option is the acrylic plates but I don't really know what kind of acrylic plastic is used for building keyboards, what is the thickness and composition of it. Is it the same as the plexiglass used for making PC cases or something different?
Could you please advice what would be the best for that job?
As for switches, do you know what is the best place in Europe to get Cherry MX? Or is it better to just scavenge some poor QFRs?

Why not get in R4 at Massdrop? It comes with everything you need to build the board, including your choice of case and switches, and then all you've gotta do it put it together and get some caps!

[czarek]

What do you mean? It says it's closed on Massdrop? Also, the only thing available in the old run was a kit with acrylic case.
On the other hand it could be a nice project if I could craft everything myself. I mean I can do the plates, case and PCB without any problem using the tools I have, only I don't know if wood or PVC would be a good material for this, and if acrylic, where to get it and what thickness?

[Thimplum]

You should talk to moharitgarg. He built his own.

[SpAmRaY]

What do you mean? It says it's closed on Massdrop? Also, the only thing available in the old run was a kit with acrylic case.
On the other hand it could be a nice project if I could craft everything myself. I mean I can do the plates, case and PCB without any problem using the tools I have, only I don't know if wood or PVC would be a good material for this, and if acrylic, where to get it and what thickness?

R4 is going to be up this afternoon.

[MOZ]

You should talk to moharitgarg. He built his own.

It is mohitgarg.

For the thickness of the case, here it is, top to bottom:
1/8"
3/16"
3/16" <--- mounting plate
3/16"
1/8"

You can find the PCB and case designs on ergodox.org. For the case they have both the 3D model as well ast the acrylic plates design.

If you go for plated, design, you can use any material as long as you feel it is strong enough. For the mounting plate, just make sure that it is solid as there would be many cutouts for the switches and it will take the most beating when you use the keyboard.

Apart from that, switches I have no idea for your location. In India, there are no switches sold, and getting them from abroad didn't make sense, so I harvested a Cherry MX Blue (My Fav) from a TVS Gold (Cheapest MX Blue board in India the world).

Electronics, order what you can from stores in your region. I got most of the standard stuff, some I ordered through Farnell (They have a Indian subsite, take around 3 weeks to ship but you can get pretty much anything).

PCB I got from the Massdrop groupbuy, because of the overlapping holes, my dealers here were charging me to high a price, otherwise they were cheaper than the MassDrop buy even for a single order.

[Findecanor]

I had ordered PCBs from Massdrop a few months ago. I don't know if there will be another run of PCBs only. It might be possible for someone else who buys the whole kit to buy a few extra PCBs and sell them to you.

A mounting plate is not really necessary. The switches can be PCB-mounted. You can use switches with diodes for the best durability. I think that the diodes need to be facing the other way on one of the keyboard halves, though.

I had intended to build a plateless keyboard, but then I made a few mods to my PCB so I need to get a custom acrylic mounting plate made anyway (at Ponoko or my local makerspace). Then I plan to build my keyboard case out of layers of thin wood scavenged from wooden window blinds (a rather underestimated material )
I have not found any electronic component retailer in Europe that has all the exact components that are needed. I have ordered another TRRS socket (FC68129) that is not exactly the same, but which I think should work if I snip off the two pins that don't fit on the PCB.
You can get sleeved cables from Pexon PCs.

[czarek]

Thanks for the advices guys. I can make PCB myself, just without laminating it. This means it would be better protected with the plate. On the other hand I really like the "unibody" case design on the ergodox site Where the case and the plate is milled from the same chunk of material. I was thinking about using wood but it may not be strong enough so I'll probably use aluminium, only I can't anodize it myself and I will have to paint it so the overall effect won't be as cool as it could be... But then I still have to order switches and teensy so I think getting the kit from Massdrop may be a good idea to start with and then just experiment with machining the case out of different materials. I'd really love it to be either wood or aluminium

[MOZ]

Remember the PCB is double sided.

AS for the case, you can make it out of wood and have a aluminum mounting plate, I think the wood would be strong enough.

[yasuo]

make keyboard with plate and wiring ala lopoly/matteo )

[tp4tissue]

HAiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

//hyperventilate

[czarek]

Ok so I applied for the massdrop group buy. This way I get high quality PCB and I don't have to worry about teensy and switches + I get acrylic case as a reference. I also opted for the anodized aluminium top case - can be useful since I can't anodize myself. Let's see what will come out of it. Hopefully some aluminium / acrylic / wooden hybrid which totally kicks ass