Currently there are 2 main options to make Cherry MX keycaps compatible with the topre switch.
The first option is to harvest the stems from a CM Novatouch TKL keyboard which will set you back ~$170 and the second option is to get them 3D printed off of shapeways using the sliders designed by matt3o. Both of these options are incredibly expensive if you want to fill a small board, such as the HHKB, with cherry mx keycaps. For the first option it will be a flat rate of the price of the Novatouch and the second option will cost you depending on how many you want to get with the cheapest option being $2.46/stem.
Just a disclaimer I don't know the pricing systems shapeway uses for their 3d printing services so I'm just assuming it's the time taken to print + material.
I propose that instead of replacing the sliders within the traditional topre boards, we could make inserts (similar to co star stabilizer insters) that on one end there's the cherry mx cross and on the other end would be the topre insert that goes into the housing of the slider. Now I don't have the technical ability to be able to make a 3d model of this idea so that it can be 3D printed (if anyone is able to do this that would be awesome) but I have done some rough measurements that will allow us to have a quick and dirty prototype to see how it would work. From what I can tell the diameter of the base of the stab insert is roughly the same as the diameter of the topre insert aswell(see:
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). So if anyone is interested in trying this and has a spare topre key** that they don't care about, I'll be willing to order some of the stab inserts from wasd to you to be able to test this out. All you would have to do is to take off top part of the stab insert like this:
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and then carefully extract the stem of the topre keycap (so that is looks like the stab insert except with the topre stem instead of the cherry mx cross) and glue them both together.
**I suggest either a key from the top 2 rows as the lower you go the more slanted the keys become and the stems for those keys would be more inconvenient to extract.
Hopefully, this design will take less time to print (which would make it cheaper based off my assumption on shapeway's pricing) than matt3o's MX slider as it is smaller. Other advantages this design brings is that it allows you to easily mix and match cherry mx keys and topre keys since you're not required to open up your board and replace the stems whenever you wish to do so.
So what do you guys think about this? Do you think it would be cheaper than the current cheapest option which is finding a novatouch for $150 allows you to get each stem for a price of $1.72/piece? The goal for now is to be able to produce these at $1/piece as the current cheapest option
