Strange 40% keyboard plate JD40 / fixable?

[snoopy]

Hello,
so I’m going through things from back in the day that I’ve never built. Today I wanted to build the original JD40, but soon run into problems and then realized that something is wrong with the plate. The space between some switches is totally off… see pictures. F and J are touching, also see in the rows above, there’s one space in each row that is smaller than the others. The overall dimension of the plate seems to be ok, cause it fits the bottom part.

How could this happen? The plate is from a groupbuy from around 2014, so I wasn’t the only person who bought one, but I couldn’t find anything that someone else had that problem.

I got a custom wood case that is made for that plate, so if this is not fixable, I kind of need that plate again with those outer holes. Any ideas?

Every help and hint is appreciated.

[Sup]

can you show how the switches are mounted?

[Leslieann]

While it could just be the switches (or caps)sitting odd, I have serious doubts, I suspect heat caused things to shift while the plate was being cut and no one caught it.

You can just reshape the slots a bit with a file, however, before you get started on that, put a straight edge along not just those switch holes but the outside of the plate as as well as all other rows. What concerns me is that while you can just fix the holes you see with a problem it's just going to push any problem down the line to the next hole. Same for the other rows and same with how it all sits in your case. It's possible that the whole thing is skewed and you're just going to chase one thing after another and then come to the end and find everything is tweaked and won't fit your case.

Verify before you start cutting/filing to save yourself a lot of headaches later.

[snoopy]

I’ll try to take better pictures soon. But I’ll think you’re right. So look at the metal above F between the switch holes. It’s way thinner than the others. Also it’s off about half a millimeter to the top, so the switch hole sits a bit higher. So it’s off in two directions and everything to the right is then also affected. I think I could have handled it somehow if it was only off in one direction, but this is too much.

Anybody got the dxf file for that?

[Leslieann]

Go to the KLE
http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/
From the top dropdown at the top select JD40, then at the bottom row select raw. Copy the raw data.

Go to Swill's platebuilder
http://builder.swillkb.com/
Paste the raw data in the correct spot, add in some edge padding (measure yours), maybe some mounting holes...
Send it off for manufacturing.

Profit?