I see why you have screw holes in the corners (I presume for alignment), but since this is a sandwich style mount, it will contribute towards the pressure put onto the plate. IMO remove them (saves money spent on threading as well and makes 4 less screws that could strip) and also remove the bottom center mounting post. Even with the cut, having a mounting point directly beneath the spacebar switch will probably make the spacebar sound a bit stiffer instead of letting it flex a little bit more for that thock. You could also do a near row wide relief cut in between the numrow and QWERTY row to even out the flex on the alphas (with the current 5 point mount plate design anyway). to make the flex more consistent.
Corner screwsThe corner screws are not actually used to align the top & bottom case, as the top self-aligns during installation;
Those screws are there to ensure that the corners of the case are tightly clamped, so there are no visible gaps. This "Feature" can be seen in most custom keyboards. My first Reflex/Paradox protos omitted the corner screws, which were added in subsequent updated design, for no other reason then to ensure a good tight gap-less fit. I would have loved to simplify the design with less screws, but felt that these are necessary for a premium product finish.
Screw stripping is an issue I have occasionally seen in the community, stemming from the use of tiny fasteners, sub-par drivers, sub-par screw grade, soft materials, shallow thread depth etc.. That's why I chose to use the largest screw size I can fit into the design (M3 / M4), YFS/THE branded fasteners, and Grade 12.9 alloy steel & A4 SS316 Stainless screw material. These fasteners are the most trusted in the industry, with accurate Hex Bit size and material strength, to minimize chances of stripping the screw socket. Both stainless & alloy steel screws will come with the kit.
Rule of thumb for thread depth are that a full 2.5-3 thread engagement will be sufficient for the application, as those first few threads takes most of the load. All my designs are around 10 thread engagement.
Lastly regarding pressure on the plate from the corner screws, the following section analysis and video will hopefully clarify how the mounting system functions:
From the corner screw section analysis, you can see that the plate does not touch the case at all.
Below video shows what happens if you do not install ANY O-Ring, with all screws tightened:
As the video hopefully demonstrates, the plate in my design wholly relies on the O-Rings to function where it is kept "floating" 0.5mm away from any hard case surface, and without them, the plate is free to move about.
Bottom Center Mount PostSince you took the time to offer your suggestion, I will also offer my time to simulate your plate design suggestion.
Let's call it the
Remsky Special:
Hopefully this plate design is what you described.
At first glance, it does seem that the "Row Wide Relief Cut" created a very large displacement area for the alphas. However, it is still inconsistent displacement, where the Alphas near the center of the board have more flex, and gradually become stiffer towards the two sides. Also, as this is not a traditional top mount with rigid mounting points, too much flex may cause the PCB to bottom out within the case.
In reality, using a PCB that have no relief cut which mirrors the plate (specifically a relief cut that separates portions of keys, i.e. a cut NOT on the edges of the plate), the effect of the cut significantly diminishes, as the PCB is now the bridge linking the 2 sides of the cut, preventing most of the flex. The effect of a PCB relief cut with a correspondingly "Reliefed" (half) plate, results in a hilarious amount of flex, as can been seen in Nathan Kim's GSKT.
With my current design, there are no PCB to bridge the cut, and the cut works wonderfully to disconnect the space bar switch from the mounting post, creating that "Thock" without having to sacrifice the alpha zones with inconsistent sounding and feeling keys.
Hopefully with the above explanation, you can follow my thought process for these design choices, and we can at least agree that some thought have been given to create this keyboard.
Please do let me know if you have any questions or suggestions, or would like to offer any counterpoint to what I have written above. I do thoroughly enjoy these technical discussions!