DK1 Build Thread: Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000 with Cherry MX Switches

[VoteForDavid]

I realized today that I am obsessed with this project, and that I am okay with that fact, if I can finish it soon. )

I also realized that I don't need to figure out anything on the controller board.  I just need to jumper around the two sections where the Forward and Back switches are.  That didn't stop me from sorting out the traces on the controller and adding it to the .psd file with the rest of the keyboard.  It's now pushing 380MB and takes a long time to load from and save to an SD card (! )

I was happy to find that there is metal under the black (carbon) contacts on the controller.  I was able to gently scrape the black coating off the traces of the controller, and tin the traces.  This is kind-of a huge deal for making this controller easier to use.

I also tried to make a list of exactly what switches go where (like in reply #80 of this thread) but as I was double-checking the list I realized I had skipped/missed a bunch of switches.  I'll have another go at that and then I'll be

finally

ready to lay down wires on the key switches!

...85...

[VoteForDavid]

Ready for wires!  I double-checked and I'm 99.863% sure the switches need to be wired up as follows:

edit: er, well, maybe not so much. As I found out later, this is reversed!    The numbering is backward because I didn't flip something in photoshop.  So. 01 is on the right and 35 is on the left in this picture. That only cost me an hour or so


The red bars are for layer alignment in Photoshop.  The black contacts are nice and shiny now 

01 W
02 Win, V, F3, 1,
03 Q
04 Left Ctrl, Escape, 4, F6, Flock
05 Left Alt, 2, F4, Mute
06 TOP Left Alt, Right Alt, TK+, TK9, TK8, TK7, End, Home, Play, Backslash \, ], [, P
07 TOP B, Caps, N, M, <, Leftarrow, Downarrow, Rightarrow, TK0, TK. Flock
08 TOP V, C, X, Z, Escape, F7, F8, F9, F10, F11, F12 Return, RightMenu
09 TOP Win, Y, U, I, O, PrtScrn, ScrLok, NumLock, TK/, TK*, TK-
10 TOP LeftShift, 7, 8, 9, zero, RightShift, Delete, TK4, TK5, TK6, PgUp
11 TOP Space, A, S, D, F, T, R, E, W, Q, Tab, F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, Pause
12 TOP Left Backspace, Tilde, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, J, K, L, ;, >, ?, Insert, Backspace, +, -_(by+)
13 TOP Left Ctrl, G, H, Right Ctrl, MidEnter, Uparrow, TK1, TK2, TK3, TKEnter, Calculator, PgDn, V+, V-, Mute, " ' (by Return)
14 TOP NC
15 TOP NC
16 TOP NC
17 E
18 R
19 T
20 B, G, Y, 7, P, F7, Tilde, A
21 N, H, U, [, -_ (by+), F8, 8, S
22 D, M, I, 9, " '(by Return), ], +, F9
23 Space, RightAlt, >, V+, Z
24 C, F2, Right Ctrl
25 <, O, backslash \, F10, zero, 5, F
26 Return, Calc, F5, 3, Left Shift
27 ?, RightShift, Play, V-, F1, X
28 Left Arrow, Up Arrow, Delete, Home, PrntScrn, F11, 6, Tab
29 J, Down Arrow, End, PgDn, PgUp, ScrLok, F12
30 MidEnter TKEnter, TK+, TK-, Backspace, Caps, Leftbackspace
31 Pause, Insert
32 ;, TK*, TK9, TK6, TK3, TK.
33 didn't pay rent, got kicked out of the list
34 RightArrow, TK1, TK4, TK7, NumLock, RightMenu, K
35 L, TK/, TK8, TK5, TK2, TK0

MidEnter is the Enter key from the tenkey area, duplicated on the right plate by the Control and Left Arrow keys
Leftbackspace is the left space bar converted into a backspace switch
TK designates keys on the TenKey area
TOP lines are from the top sheet of the matrix

...86...

[VoteForDavid]

I wanted to mark the back of the board with key names, but I don't have a tiny white paint pen.  Oh well.  What I did have is some unicorn-vomit ribbon cable.  This is what it looked like after I pulled off the extra wires and separated the conductors.  This is the starting point for my wiring harness.



The voices reminded me to check for clearance.  I have no clearance on the scroll wheel PCB.  It fits exactly against the edge of the keyboard PCB with a little compression in there for good measure.  When I say it barely fits I mean "thank you Jesus it almost doesn't fit at all" and it fits - but barely!



Instead of marking the switches to know which is which, I pulled up a picture of the top of the original keyboard and proceeded to trim the cables approximately to length.  A couple of the wires look like they will be *barely* long enough.  They are pushing a meter long.  This matrix is crazy.

I was -->.<-- this close to wiring up the board when I realized I still hadn't worked around the two buttons for the mouse keys.  It was tricky work, but I got jumpers around the switch locations on the PCB, and wires soldered on for the trackpoint switches.  I don't know how I'm going to do the permanent mounting of the PCB.  It was screwed to the bottom plate.  I don't want to leave it flopping loose enough on the wires to be able to screw to the bottom again - and my wires aren't long enough even if i wanted to.  It's going to be fast to the top plate.  I'll figure that out later.

..88..

[VoteForDavid]

The unicorn-vomit cable harness was soldered onto the contacts of the PCB.



The process of wiring the switches has begun, at long last.  The potential for disaster here is very high.  I decided the only way I could reasonably expect the board to be neat enough to work with toward the end of the wiring job, was to be (relatively) extremely tidy.  Lots of little baby tack-welds with hot glue are involved.  The Holy Spirit prodded my tired brains to not solder these joints and it's a good thing - I routed one of them to a wrong switch!  All I had to do was pull on the wire and it popped loose.  If it was soldered already, it would have been much worse to deal with.

These wires are pretty easy to work with.  They are stranded, and the insulation is fairly soft but resists heat quite well.  Some wire jacket materials will shrivel away from a soldering iron, but these just sat there and didn't squish or shrink away - even whilst being pinched with tweezers and soldered.  The hot glue didn't melt the insulation either, but I did glue myself to the board a couple of times.  Using a pair of scissor-style wire strippers, I cut the insulation and tugged a bit.  The insulation can be pushed about a centimeter, which is about enough bare wire to wrap around the leg of a switch.



It's nice that the next takes-a-long-time part of this project can be done in the A/C.  DW can't be in my shop because sawdust residues give her an allergic reaction.  I can do this bit on the bed while she looks at cat videos or whatever online.

...90...

[Stargorn]

This is an incredibly inspirational thread. I can't wait to see more!

[VoteForDavid]

Thanks! . . . but . . . you have to wait.  Unless you have a time machine faster than mine.  Mine only goes 1 second per second, and only forward in time.  At least it does work very well.

This is slow going.  Even slower when a wire breaks instead of stripping properly, like the green one did.  I had to patch on a bit of orange at the end.  Electrons are largely colorblind though so it should be okay.  The difference from the last picture to this one is an hour of work, with interruptions from a toddler who didn't want to go to sleep at bedtime.  Two *long* wires with lots of connections, taking minutes at each connection.



The blue and yellow wires flying loose toward the top of the board are for the FLock switch I'm going to put somewhere other than next to the F12 key.  I'm thinking of mounting it recessed in the back edge of the top plate so a pin has to be pushed into a hole to actuate the FLock key.

If this controller gets killed by ESD, I'm going to be unhappy.  I've got a few of these kicking around at work, though.  I can grab another one and change out the controller.  If THAT doesn't work, I'll be tempted to rip all this insanity out and get a Teensy.  I'm praying it works though, because I'm getting so close to done.

[VoteForDavid]

Remember all that talk about mirror images?  Yeah . . . so I had the image of the controller PCB backwards in the file in photoshop.  All the wires were in reverse order.  Fortunately, they were backwards in a way that made them longer than necessary, so the mistake was simple enough to repair.  I just remembered I didn't clean the flux off the board so I'll get that later. 

Switching the wires around and stringing one more conductor: 1 hour.  Happily, the result looks even better than what I had last night.



...92...

[heedpantsnow]

Dude.  Amazing.  You have so much patience and determination.  So many of us would have just given up...a long time ago.  Keep going brother!

[VoteForDavid]

Thanks a lot!  I have abandoned my share of projects in years past, but this one is different.  I sit there every. day. typing on the motivation to get this finished.

But not tonight.  Tonight will be the first time in nearly a week I will try to go to bed before 01:00. 

... and earlier today, I had the idea to try my hand at a custom keyboard for gaming on my laptop.  So that's three keyboard projects.  One at a time though!  This is by far the more complicated endeavour.

[VoteForDavid]

another hour-and-change, another three wires routed.



...93...

[VoteForDavid]

Another hour and a half, another two wires 



I hope this starts to go much faster.  All the remaining cables go to fewer switches than these two do.  These were about the longest two wires on the board.  And one was short  I had to tack on another extension.

LESSON: don't cut your wires until you've finished running them out on their switches!

I also had to re-do a connection from a previous day that I noticed was not in the right place.  I'd put a little wire from the middle of a long run to the backspace key instead of the space bar.  I removed the little wire and put a longer one to the proper switch.  My fingers are starting to suffer from this work.  If I were still playing guitar, those calluses would come in handy.  I set my guitar down a long time ago, and my fingertips are getting sore from pulling at the insulation on these wires.  I'm using a scissors style stripper here because the space is just too small to use an Ideal Stripmaster.  If you have never had the pleasure of using a Stripmaster, you have been working too hard on your wiring.

...94...

[tufty]

I've missed a few updates here.

Rather than pissing about with stripping and hot-gluing, why aren't you just wire-wrapping this?  Should take around 3 seconds per switch.

[VoteForDavid]

I am wire wrapping it.  Kinda.  Every switch contact has one or two turns around the lead.  The leads of these switches aren't tall enough for a nice four or six turns per lead with a proper wire wrapping tool.  The wire is like 22 or 24AWG - too thick for many turns.  Plus, these are PCB-mount switches and the little stabilizer pegs would interfere with a wrapping tool.  With "normal" wrapping, I'd still have to strip the wires.  Plus, I like the idea of making each conductive trace in the Microsoft matrix be one continuous wire in my keyboard.  The hot glue is to prevent the thing ending up like a bowl of spaghetti before I'm done.  It also holds the wires in place until they are soldered down.  I'm not soldering the wires to the switches yet, because this part of the project is about as straightforward as installing crown molding.  Hot glue is very easy to undo and redo, which is good because I'm undoing and redoing a bunch of times here.

... which is a nice segue to mentioning that I found two more mistakes in my routing from a previous day.  Minor, easily correctable, but mistakes nonetheless.  If this had been all soldered up as I went, these would have been harder to deal with.

Another hour-and-change, but more wires tonight, because these had fewer connections each - as few as one, for a couple of them!



...95...

[tufty]

Well, it's your time, an' all that.  If I was spending 45 minutes per row without even getting the benefits of solder fumes, the whole ****in' lot would have gone out the window long before posting the first photo.  And I'm notoriously patient

What I've not said is that you're doing something lovely, so keep at it.  No matter how you do it

[VoteForDavid]

Well that may be a left-handed compliment, but thanks!

Time flies when you're having fun and are distracted, so I'll just call this two hours over the course of three and a half hours watching movies with DW.  Today I noticed that a lot of the switches are surrounded by switches already wired on both sides.  It feels like the end is near (because it is).  One or two more nights and the wiring will be done.  Then another work session of only checking wires.  Then another night to sleep on it and I'll risk a power and function test. 



...97...

[alienman82]

removed.

[VoteForDavid]

 ) This board is never coming apart to pull a mold off the parts!  If I can help it, it's never even going to be disassembled once it's completed.  The spacing on the keys is pretty funky, so copying it as is wouldn't work so well for most people anyway.  AND that would be a pretty huge project for a first-thing-I-ever-cast.  After I have picked up my side job again and replenished my walking-around money, completed DW's keyboard, completed a custom game controller I'm thinking about, THEN I might take the lessons I've learned and shave eighty hours off the process of making another of these for sale   It would have to be either really fast/easy to make, or be really REALLY expensive for whoever buys it, for me to make these for sale.

However, the MS4K is fairly common.  I think it makes more sense to either figure a way to retrofit a mechanical board into the (relatively attractive) Microsoft frame, or else find a honkin' big 3D printer to make the whole thing in one piece.  Or, you know what would be sweet - have Kurplop machine it out of a 15lbs. billet of aluminum!  Good God, what a beautiful thing that would be.

But for now, I'll have to settle for having completed the wiring to all the switches (save the to-be-mounted FLock switch). 



Check wiring
Test keyboard
Figure how/where to mount the brains of the mouse, and do that
Figure how/where to mount the PS/2 to USB converter, and do that
Figure how to get the bottom plate back on, and do that

...so, I'm practically finished now.  From a certain perspective.  If you tilt your head and squint really hard, it's practically finished!

...99...

[alienman82]

removed.

[CPTBadAss]

Or, you know what would be sweet - have Kurplop machine it out of a 15lbs. billet of aluminum!  Good God, what a beautiful thing that would be.

That would be incredible.


Still loving this build log. Thanks for continually posting .

[heedpantsnow]

Me too. Thanks for the dedication.

[nova779]

I really like this project, I wish I had the patience to do something like this but handwiring that large of a matrix and all of the other work to make it look as great as it does good job. I can't wait to see the finished product.

[VoteForDavid]

Thanks everyone for your kind words.  I have two words of my own:



I checked every node in the matrix against my plan and it all read good continuity, so I plugged it in and Windows found the driver and tried to install the Microsoft keyboard software.  I used an online keyboard tester and all but two of the keys registered properly.  It doesn't read the Backslash or left Alt keys.  Two of the keys near custom-cut edges hang up mechanically.  Otherwise perfect function first try!  Thanks God!

I was ready to spend another hour or two poring over the matrix, until I thought to check the switches.  All the switches worked before.  I tested them.  The two keys that don't register, don't switch.  The switches failed for reasons unknown but I have spares.  I suspect the leads flexed too much during this whole process.  A few switches' leads bent over and had to be un-bent.  These may have broken internally.  Yet another reason to be glad I caught a hint to NOT solder the wires down just yet, thanks God!

Edit to add the best milestone post hours counter update ever: 100 hours of work and successful initial function check!

[alienman82]

removed.

[VoteForDavid]

*snort* not hardly, but thanks!

I have an 11 year-old son learning to type.  He was practicing the other day at 17WPM.  Pretty good, I told him.  I explained to him that 40 is considered proficient, 70-80 is decently fast, and 110+ is insanely-ridiculously fast, like it seems as if one must be pretending to type, hitting the keys that fast.  I've measured myself at 70ish on the Microsoft board at work.  I don't anticipate it getting much faster, but it should be more pleasant by a pretty wide margin.

[VoteForDavid]

I am typing this on the DK1.  It is strange.  The layout is different.  The small Shift keys will take some getting used to.

The backslash was not working right because I had put the wires to one switch contact and one diode lead.  That's not gonna cut it!  The other key that was not working was the left Alt key.  IDK what happened but it works now.  That's all the keys working except the FLock which I haven't yet installed.

...101...

[kurplop]

Congratulations. It's been fun watching this progress. 

What's still left to do?

[alienman82]

removed.

[kurplop]

I am typing this on the DK1.  It is strange.  The layout is different.  The small Shift keys will take some getting used to.

Don't be too concerned if the layout seems strange. It doesn't necessarily mean it's not right, it will just take a little getting use to.

No matter how well we plan things there is still a learning curve.

[tufty]

That's excellent news.  Well done!

Photos are required.

[VoteForDavid]

Check wiring
Test keyboard
Figure how/where to mount the brains of the mouse, and do that
Figure how/where to mount the PS/2 to USB converter, and do that
Figure how to get the bottom plate back on, and do that

...so, I'm practically finished now.

...

I have a teeeeeeny USB hub for the mouse and trackpoint so there will be "just" two cables.  That has to be mounted.  Also I think I'll try to fill in the expanses of open space around the keys with ... something?

[VoteForDavid]

I tried to wire in a baby USB hub to eliminate one USB wire.  I got it all wired in and ... it didn't work.  I was going to have a pair of USB ports open on the back of the keyboard which would have been cool.  Oh well.



So that was an hour down the drain.  I undid all that wiring and got the mouse motherboard wired to its daughter, tested, and a USB cable wired to the motherboard.  It's all super-professionally hot glued in place and tested.  Scrolling like a boss.



I trimmed the board a bit more and it has a liiiitle tiny pocket over in the top/right corner between screw holes.  I was worried the cables to the daughter board would be too long, but it works so . . . it works.  And it "fits" so I'm calling this problem solved.



I got the trackpoint wired in to its own USB cable.  The wires on the PS2/USB converter were thrashed.  Broken inside the insulation, close to the potted-in circuit board.  I figured I'd either have to get another converter or cut off the encapsulation and replace the wires.



The trackpoint PS2 converter was successfully de-encapsulated, wired-to, and glued in place.  The trackpoint tracks.  This step took over an hour!  I slipped the wrist rests in place and figured out they will be tricky to mount if I can't re-use the Microsoft bottom case.



The 7 key kept sticking.  It was binding.  The top and bottom (black and silver) parts of the top plate just wouldn't stay put together.  Hot glue wouldn't do it.  Not enough room for acetone to make it stick hard enough.  Microsoft must have found the same issue because they put screws to hold just this section together.  I put a couple of washers in there to hold my plates and this seems to be the fix.  I put a few more little screws in a few holes which seem to be there just to hold the top plates together.




A few more dabs of hot glue here and there, plus a big pile of glue where the cables exit the housing.  I think the electrics may be done enough to test this keyboard in actual use.  It looks like a complete prototype, anyway.



The strain reliefs on the Microsoft cable are very nice parts.  A steel clip on the cable with overmolded plastic.  There is almost no way this is going to pull out of your MS4K keyboard!



I tried to install the bottom plate, and it will take a LOT of cutting to get it back on the top plate.  Permanently installing the wrist rests without it will be tricky.

The right and left click button panel from the top of Logitech mouse was welded together in the middle and trimmed big-time.  This part has a pleasing contour and a thumb will glide over it well when using the scroll wheel.  I hope.  The mouse's freewheel/detent rotation selector button was removed, cut, customized, and very-tediously shaped to fit the two notches behind the scroll wheel. 





The wheel's click selector button used to mount on a long lever arm, and it used to press right in the middle of these two notches.  The two notches are now seats for the new points on the bottom of the button.  The button is held in place by the top (left/right mouse button) plate.  The top plate is held in place by a few tack welds now, but will be solidly in place later.  The little selector button is currently free floating but held fast, and click-selects the scroll action like it should. 



These two little bits of plastic took an hour.  All told, another sixish hours of work.

...107...

[VoteForDavid]

Tonight was for plastic work.  The inside of the bottom plate got some major surgery, but the outside is what's a) visible and b) more dramatically-obvious:



The things that poke out farthest are the lens for the laser mouse, and the cable for the keyboard controller.  The far edges of the keyboard also have switch contacts and posts poking down into where the bottom plate used to be.  The ribbon cables for the laser mouse squish down easy, so they really don't protrude as much as it looks like here:

orange line shows the plane of the bottom of the frame


The wires on the extreme outsides of the mounting plates also interfered with the bottom case.  I wish now I'd run ALL the wires inboard of the outermost switches.  Oh well, lesson learned.


the smiley face is spent 7.62x39mm casings on red fiberglass, happy at my entire shop all the time

I noticed that the shape of the top frame makes a BIG difference in how this cover fit, and that affects how the button works.  I had to get the bottom plate and palmrests screwed on in order to get the fitment right, so I could weld this together.  That's going to take some work, but it's at least firmly together now.



I was showing the progress on this project to DW and pointed out to her the drastic irregularity of the key caps I've got on here, so I'll show y'all too:

Arrow keys


Plus and Enter keys


also note how the side case doesn't close right.  This sucks.  I think it may stay that way, or I may see if I can put some torsion on it somehow.  It's the thinness of the bottom case in this area, less than an inch wide, that makes it flex when it's all screwed together.

Additional Enter and Backspace keys


and the far left row is just crazy but I think I may like it.  The left shift is SO tiny I think I'll need it to be this tall, at least for the initial adjustment period.


I'm thinking about skinning this with a thin sheet of plain fiberglass I've got laying around so the bottom will be closed.  We'll see.

...109...

[VoteForDavid]

I started to look into what I have to do to close the bottom of the case, had an idea for bending up some ABS and . . . punted.

Fiddled with keycaps some more.  I think this is the sort of thing that is never 100.00% final.  I spent some quality time with the hot knife and got the scroll wheel pretty well final-welded.  A little sanding and it will be done.  I touched a couple of rough edges elsewhere on the frame with the heat also.

...110...

I told my dad during his visit over the holiday this weekend, I'm not sure I'd do this all again if I knew from the start how long it would take.  Maybe it would be 40 hours of straight work on the next one, without all the false starts.  :shrug:

[radish]

I started to look into what I have to do to close the bottom of the case, had an idea for bending up some ABS and . . . punted.

Fiddled with keycaps some more.  I think this is the sort of thing that is never 100.00% final.  I spent some quality time with the hot knife and got the scroll wheel pretty well final-welded.  A little sanding and it will be done.  I touched a couple of rough edges elsewhere on the frame with the heat also.

...110...

I told my dad during his visit over the holiday this weekend, I'm not sure I'd do this all again if I knew from the start how long it would take.  Maybe it would be 40 hours of straight work on the next one, without all the false starts.  :shrug:

nothing good ever came easy! I'll be glued to my seat spamming f5.

[VoteForDavid]

I dunno, winning the lottery sounds pretty easy 

The assembled keyboard was too flexible with the huge hole on one side of the bottom.  The side with the small hole was pretty solid, but it didn't have a flat corner so it rocked a little.  I put the feet back on the bottom just to check, and when the middle of the board was elevated unsupported, it was VERY flexy.  Having learned a lot from the first bottom case, I am scrapping it and going much more conservative on another one.  Smaller holes, and melting instead of cutting where possible.

I found some very thin ESD mat at work with a tacky underside texture.  If I glue that to the bottom of the "finished" DK1 it should stay firmly in place on my desk.

Some sanding on the welding by the scroll wheel, and it feels good.  That's almost done.

...111...

[VoteForDavid]

The second bottom frame is coming along.  With the first as a guide, I was able to make the cuts much smaller on the sides.  I kinda guessed on the area near the mouse motherboard, and that is proving troublesome.  I'm trying to keep the original feet, and it would be a lot easier to not.  The geometry on the bottom of this plate is such that losing the feet makes a pretty dramatic difference and the board will rock a little without adding something to the bottom again.



On the left side, I routed all the wires away from the outer edge of the board.   Hot glue helped out again, being easy to undo a small dab here and there.

The sides close with light pressure.  This is kindof a big deal for me, and I would like for them to close even better.



The front would close if I had the palmrests on there.  In theory, I could call this "done enough to use" right now.  I want the back to close up tighter, though. 



This is challenging because I can't SEE what's touching in there.  I may try squeezing the frames onto some foam like it was plastigauge.  I don't know how else I'll see where it's rubbing.

...112...

[VoteForDavid]

Okay I think it's as tight-closed as I can make it, and still stick with the original objective of using MS4K frames.  That is to say, the gaps are not perfect but everything is 5mm or less (ish) in the rear and the front and sides are decent.  I trimmed and melt/smooshed a few more things inside the bottom case and did a LOT of looking into inscrutable places with a torch, vainly hoping to see what else was hitting.  I think I'm done with that.  I rerouted the USB cables, but they are still a limiting factor that keeps the back from closing tight.  The USB cables are just too thick, and they can't be routed anywhere else but along the back edge of the board.  I have seen thinner USB cables, but they all had this superthin coiled magnet wire cables vs. insulated-and-stranded, and that stuff SUCKS to work with so I don't want to try it on this project.

I very plainly see now the merit of screw holes on the switch mounting area.  This material is too flexible to hold perfectly tightly together with such a large span of un-screwed-down parts.  The entire board does flex, but only if you are trying to see if it will flex by twisting it in both hands.  It seems steady and firm enough to type on, but that remains to be seen during actual testing/use.

I cleaned up the side and rear cut-outs on the bottom plate and they are ready for closure.  I think I'm going to try to fit a section of ABS over the mouse motherboard, to protect that. 

I thought about it, and realized the *only* time I ever hit the FLock key on purpose was because I needed to un-F-Lock the board after accidentally hitting the FLock key.  I am going to leave the wires in the board in case I need to touch them together, but I think 8 years using this model of keyboard without needing that key are enough time to say I don't need it.  But JIC, the wires will be there still when the bottom is unscrewed.

Either way, I'm almost ready to take the DK1 to work and see if there is anything I can't live with, using it as a daily driver.  This project is rapidly approaching . . . dare I say it?  Dare I hope it? 

...completion?

...113...

[VoteForDavid]

I ran a little flame over the edges where the scroll wheel was welded in place.  That's done, but it looks pretty much the same as it did last time you saw it.

A few small pieces of ABS were cut and welded into place to cover the major gaps on the bottom frame.  The holes being covered obviates the installation of a neoprene bottom skin.  The bottom frame so reinforced is not only closed, but also somewhat more rigid than it would otherwise have been.  I call this part of the project a total victory!





I think it looks pretty good actually, all things considered:



The side and rear gaps are not perfectly tight.  As I said before, I am okay with that.



For a DIY project reusing someone else's injection molded parts, and fitting a few of my own manufacture to the constraints of the existing parts, I think this is actually not terrible-looking.



And on that note, with the "new" key caps I've picked out of the pile as shown below, with not even 115 hours on the work totalizer hours meter, I'm going to go ahead and call this project

finished!



********
I'm not really happy with how the DK1 looks.  I would like tighter gaps around the edges between the upper and lower frames.  I would like MUCH smaller gaps between the upper frame and the keys, especially the bottom row of keys.  I would like a set of BLACK keys to match the color of the frame.  I would like to have only one USB cable.   I would like Kurplop to machine a well-fitted set of frames for this of aluminum and then black-anodize it to match the key caps.  I would like a winning lottery ticket.  Barring all of that, I'm set to take this battleship to work on Monday, install some black foam by the trackpoint, and run it through its paces.  Pray to God it works or I might pull out the rest of my hair.

[kurplop]

This has been a fun thread to follow. It looks great, especially considering the limited resources you were working with. I will miss the regular updates. Make sure you give us further updates on how well it is working out for you, the things you got right, and the things you will change on your next one. Yes the next one. You didn't think one keyboard mod would satisfy you did you?

By the way, I'd love to case that for you. Unfortunately I already have too many other irons on the fire.

[yehoshuaf]

What. Have. You. Created?

[VoteForDavid]

It would be pretty involved and *very* tedious to try to design a case long-distance but I appreciate the sentiment Kurplop!  I have access to a CNC mill locally and if I really wanted to, I could turn a big fat slab of aluminum into case parts.  Well, it would probably be several big fat slabs of aluminum because this is complicated enough I can see having to make a few mistakes and starting over repeatedly.  You wouldn't know anything about that though eh?  The nice thing about 3D CAD/CAM is the models give you a lot of chances to eliminate errors before ever making the first build.  I think most of the time on the next unconventional board I make, is going to be time staring at a computer screen instead of piles of someone else's parts.

@yehoshuaf I hope I have created the best keyboard I've used to date bar none. 

I know for a fact that I have made a very, very big mistake.  I found a board in the recycle bin with vintage blue Alps switches.  I'll have to use the DK1 for a while just to get used to it, but there is a possibility that I may have to make a future version with Matias Quiet switches.  I'm guessing that the switches, plus key caps, plus controller, along with the huge 3D printer for making case parts, adds up to an expensive board.  )

Looking back through this thread, I notice I've left out any provisions for liquid spill tolerance.  Here's hoping I don't spill anything on this!  Somebody remind me if/when I start another build thread, to build in drainage channels.

[VoteForDavid]

I like it.  I like it a LOT on the right hand.  The left hand will take some learning but it's not that unhappy.

Long-winded post about using this for a day:

More

I'm already thinking of making another board.  Of course there will be minor changes to the layout if there is a second version.  I’ll have to type on this for a couple of months to get used to it before deciding what exactly wants changing.  No more of this BS Microsoft insanity matrix, that's for sure.  Maybe a swiveling space key...?  The whole thing have to be 3D printed or milled.  Making these parts by hand was some serious hassle.  I would probably try to keep play/volume/mute and calculator keys.  I would NOT have an FLOCK function!  If I made one more board, I'd be close to making another one, and that would have a good probability of being a TKL board.  And for sale.
 
The Good:

• The scroll wheel is absolutely brilliant.  I cannot see building myself another keyboard for daily use without this feature.
• The middle enter key I added is surprisingly helpful when using the trackpoint as a mouse
• The tenkey-zero space key was the wrong angle.  The backspace I had on the tenkey works okay instead, and the zero is okay as . . . zero on the tenkey
• The trackpoint adds a lot of functionality.  It's nice to not have to go all the way over past the tenkey. 
• Typing numbers is easier with the numbers spaced for my hands, as expected.  The tenkey didn't get as much use today as usual.
• The tiny 1.25 backspace key on the top-right is less difficult to use than I expected.  I barely notice it's not a 2U key during use so win.

The neutral:

• The scroll wheel is surprisingly more useful with the click detents disengaged.  With the ability to stop it and go back so easily, the lack of a clicking scroll that stops itself doesn't bother me at all.
• The initial impression is that this keyboard makes me sit more squarely-aligned to the board with less leeway for "hand slouching" as I type.
• The enter key by the right control key means I have to pay more attention when reaching for the control key
• I put a taller key on the left Alt and it works better in practice.
• Left Shift works okay with a slanted 1u key, but I wouldn't mind if it were a 1.25 or 1.5 wide key.  I may have gone too far in the "shrink" direction here.  No way to learn that but by trying it.  I've never tried a tiny shift before so :shrug:
• One of the times I plugged the keyboard in (one, not seven) the computer tried to install Microsoft's Keyboard and Mouse Center software.
  
• The trackpoint is not as nice as I thought it might be.  It's not as smooth as I expected when it moves the mouse, and the acceleration could use some tweaking.
• The spacing on the bottom alpha row, and the positioning of the command keys on the very bottom row, will take some getting used to.  This is a pretty radical layout.

The Bad:

• The left-click button gives a hollow plastic sound I don't much care for.  "Next time" I'll use a nicer switch.  The right click is quieter.
• The angle of the scroll wheel would be better if it were rotated just a few degrees.  The geometry of the parts I was using dictated the angle.  The nice shape of the Logitech mouse parts I used to cover the scroll wheel mostly makes up for this.  "Next time" the angle will be closer to the angle of the space key than straight-across like it is now.
• The trackpoint falls asleep every couple of hours and has to be unplugged and replugged-in to wake it up again.  It doesn't wake up gracefully either, and takes a minute to regain function.
• Wouldn't you know it, FLOCK actuated.  Probably the teeny tiny bare end of the wire made contact with another line in the matrix.  I had this board apart 5 times today because of this.  The current result is short wires poking up between the F8 and F9 keys.  Actuate with stainless steel tweezers as needed.
• The left Control key is too far inboard.  Next time I spend eleventy hours making a keyboard, I'll probably put it closer to the outside edge of the frame and maybe a 1.25 or 1.5 size.
• My left thumb is lazier than (insert horrible racist stereotype here) and weak for pressing the backSpace key.  It's going to have to man up and muscle up.
• Left Space - as - Backspace will take some getting used to.
• a few times, resting my hand on the board pressed the F key.  This is a training issue, which may also be solvable by installing the original (stiffer) Clear spring again.  I couldn't deal with a board of MX Reds for typing!
• I'll have to relearn how to press left Shift and left Control.  I used to smoosh the Microsoft keys with the side of my pinky.  With the smaller keys with edges poking up, I have to use the tip of a finger.  I turned the caps sideways and that helped some.

The ugly:

• Space stopped working after the first re-assembly of the day.  And all the keys on one of its matrix legs.  This ended up being the fault of Microsoft. The bracing to hold the matrix connectors to the black contact on the PCB very firmly . . . pushed on the wires I soldered to the controller PCB.  One of the jumper wires I placed to bypass the forward/back switches and turn them into mouse left/right click, the end of the jumper was pushed by the brace and the trace came off the circuit board.  This was two of the five times I had the board open today, and the fix was to solder the jumper directly to the pad where the matrix wire comes in, and to almost-completely remove the bracing from the lower frame so nothing is pressing on the wires anymore.
• When FLOCK is activated, F1 through F12 don't work and neither does the trackpoint.  I HATE the concept of that FLOCK switch

[VoteForDavid]

Here it is a month later (MAN time flies!) and I've been using this board full-time at work.  I still like it, and there are some minor issues.

The layout has improved with familiarity.  Discussing the high points of the things I made non-standard with this board:
*I could have put the left Control key farther to the left, but I've relearned that key and I hardly notice it.  I strike it with my fingertip now, vs. the side of my pinky.  That's how I designed the board, so it's according to plan.
*The additional Enter key has proved its worth.  When using the trackpoint as an input device, it falls neatly under my pinky, compared to the stretch to get all the way to the Return key.
*The left space-as-backspace has not proved its worth.  Not only do I still sometimes find myself reaching for the space bar there, but when using other computers I find myself reaching for the backspace there.  This is too non-standard to not have it everywhere.  I choose nowhere.  If I ever go back into this board I'll rewire this to be a left spacebar again.
*The scroll wheel remains useful, but after initial excitement I have gone back to using the scroll wheel on the Expertmouse for most scrolling.  This may not have been worth all the effort required to implement on this build.
*The trackpoint is increasingly useful.  The more I use it and get used to its quirks, the better I like it.  This was worth the effort.
*1.25 backspace is not a problem.  It's a reversed cap with a huge slope to it, so it is easy to find.  Maybe a cap the same as the rest of that row would need to be a 2U key but this works fine for me.
*I'm not in love with a 1u left shift.  It could go to 1.5u and have tighter spacing on the bottom row of alpha keys and that would be fine.  It's totally usable as it is.


Possible improvements that wouldn't appeal to everyone
*I could use Delete and Backspace keys in the middle, between the split sections - maybe between the G and H keys.
*The Microsoft matrix can go straight to you-know-where for wiring it up, but it works, and the controller includes a Calculator key which I use sometimes.  I would like to stick with using matrices from keyboards that have dedicated Calculator keys . . . but it would be fine if they weren't this same controller.
*A new frame/case.  I like the wrist rests on the Microsoft board, but the rest is not 10/10 would reuse level of goodness.  I'd ditch the favorites and web keys altogether, and move the media keys over.  The LEDs don't just HAVE to be in the middle IMO.
*Better switches for the mouse buttons.  These don't sound the same as each other, and they don't sound like a high quality part. 

I am okay with the Ergo Clear switches, but I have a couple of clicky alps boards here and I understand what Matias means when they say all the Cherry switches are inherently linear.  I don't necessarily want a CLICK when I hit a key, but I do want serious tactile feedback. 
 
I covered the tenkey area and moved the Expertomouse out of the way as an experiment.  With the layout made to suit me like this, I could use a TKL board.  Also, this board is totally usable as the only input device, as long as the trackpoint doesn't do something weird with the system focus.
 
I found a black keyboard with MY switches and ripped off the caps.  I ran them through the ultrasonic cleaner and glad I did!



I didn't mind the beige and the font was nice, but black looks a lot better to me.



Looking at this, a couple of things bear explanation.  First, yes this is how it looks IRL.  I work in a dark cave because i prefer it that way. Also, the yellow.  The F keys on the left side I use all the time but the ones on the right I use less often.  My keyboards get this yellow paint-with-legends action to remind me what these keys do.  The windows and menu keys, I matched to the F1 and Insert keys: I pulled their caps off.  I rarely use them, and they got in the way of my new black 1.5U caps.  All the capless keys have been blackened on the horizontal parts, so they are still visible by the white on the stems but they blend in WAY better now. I took a soldering iron to the F and J keys.  They are dished deeper on the top but it's not enough for me to feel.  I can feel this.

This is probably the last update for this thread.  10/10 glad to have done this build.
[/img]

[user 18]

I think this looks a lot nicer with the black keys. Really glad to have been following this thread and to see the build evolve. Glad everything's worked out for you, and I look forward to seeing what projects you'll tackle next!

[VoteForDavid]

It was a surprising amount of work to maintain a build thread in progress.  The next project is in-work, but y'all will get a retrospective build log type post for that

And no more counting the hours. 

[heedpantsnow]

Man thanks so much for keeping us informed and entertained with this. I learned so much by watching what you were doing!

[harlw]

Good heavens - bravo OP, certifiably insane but highly entertaining

[blueangel2323]

Hey David, I have a strange request for you... any chance you could send me your pictures of the different layers of the membrane? I want to verify that your Natural Ergo 4000 has the matrix set up identically to my wireless version 7000. Thanks...

[VoteForDavid]

Shoot me a private message with your email and I'll see if I can dig them out of the memory hole.  If I can get something like a reasonable file size I might post them here. But I'll have to remember, because that sort of file size in Photoshop is strictly for my workstation at work! Sorry to get back to you so late, I kinda lost all my custom keyboard momentum for a while and fell off this site too.

I just realized I've been daily driving this thing for a few months now! The odd layout suits me fine.  It's shocking how little I use the tenkey now that the numbers fit my hands. The scroll wheel died, which sucks when using the trackpoint.  The tiny left shift and offset left control are still very slightly problematic. Pretty much everything else is brilliant.

Except that it's picking up crumbs and beard hairs and dust and good LORD no wonder nobody builds keyboards with wide open spaces like this one has!

[blueangel2323]

Shoot me a private message with your email and I'll see if I can dig them out of the memory hole.  If I can get something like a reasonable file size I might post them here. But I'll have to remember, because that sort of file size in Photoshop is strictly for my workstation at work! Sorry to get back to you so late, I kinda lost all my custom keyboard momentum for a while and fell off this site too.

I just realized I've been daily driving this thing for a few months now! The odd layout suits me fine.  It's shocking how little I use the tenkey now that the numbers fit my hands. The scroll wheel died, which sucks when using the trackpoint.  The tiny left shift and offset left control are still very slightly problematic. Pretty much everything else is brilliant.

Except that it's picking up crumbs and beard hairs and dust and good LORD no wonder nobody builds keyboards with wide open spaces like this one has!

PM sent.

Also, I can't believe you got rid of the extra row of keys above the number pad. They are probably my favourite thing about the 4000 compared to previous Natural keyboard. Very convenient for entering formulas in Excel.