I'm not sue if the wrapped wires will be enough to hold if the board takes any abuse...
I have a bunch of links saved related to printing circuit boards at home... If you are interested, shoot me a pm.
Have you seen the membrane sheets? I think, the wires aren't so bad compared to those. a drop of coffee and the membrane sheets would be stuck. Having been obsessed with keyboards since early 90s, I've seen many dead keyboards, and the majority of them died of some liquid/sticky stuff getting on the membrane. But agreed, I'd rather not solder so much. this is by no means a finished prototype. I'm working on a wireless one now.
the idea is not to come up with a perfect keyboard, but find a process that everybody can easily duplicate and make their own keyboard precisely the way they like it.
say, all you need is to know the layout you want, the switch you want, scan code mapping, and that would be enough to make one offs less than a thousand dollars. The way I see it, it's perfectly doable with prototyping technologies like laser cutting, CNC routing, 3d printing.
Many people don't get what I'm trying to do: so let me explain: I'm doing this because I'm pissed that I can't buy a Filco tenless Cherry blue for months. Last time I bought it, it took over 3 weeks to arrive and then I can't buy another. I've had enough of "there's no demand for your keyboard" BS. I want a keyboard I like and I am not sitting helplessly for months on up to hoping to get one. For over 16 years, I had to pay top money, dig through junk yards, wait in pre-order for keyboards that click. I want to be free from that. Today, I know I got there.
so there. no more waiting for months to hope that the new Filco would ship. No more hoping for wireless and bluetooth. No more swapping to split keyboards when I have wrist pains. No more trying to get imports from Japan and Taiwan. No more hoping for backlit clickers. Now we can make it.
I'm sure many of you share the same frustration. No more keyboard wish lists, guys. We should not accept being held hostage by manufacturing. We deserve better. To mod a quote from Linus,
"Do you pine for the day when geeks are geeks and make their own keyboards?"
* I guess I should quote Tim Tyler but I haven't found one suitable.
So, yeah, I have a keyboard prototype with wires coming out. But I'm happy to be free. I am going to make improvements, more polished and feature rich versions. Meanwhile, if the wires fall off, I'll solder it back.
i'm working on PCBs, I got a deck here ready for etching/routing. I am trying to learn EAGLE and CAM stuff. I would be happy to see some links, too.
i think routing the PCBs with a CNC makes a lot more sense for one offs like this. It needs very precise drilling/routing to hold the bottom stem in place. but one needs to know the precise firmware scan code for each point on the matrix before making the PCB. as for wires, you can just, well, cut them and re-wire. like I did with the blue wires there, for two keys.
Also working on the casing in the bottom so the wires would not be exposed. so far they have been holding up. I'm taking it to work for several hours of heavy typing tomorrow.