geekhack, let's talk about cases

[bearcat]

Dear Geekhack,

The ergodox got me into keyboards, and got me on this board.  That first epic thread was my introduction to quite a cast of characters, and since watching that early thread with such eager interest, I was also introduced to not only dox & litster, but also some incredibly creative types on this board doing their own thing.  Suka, obra, matt3o, the list is too long; so many people are taking keyboards in some incredibly creative directions...

So, in the face of all this crazy innovation, i'd like to humbly suggest that we revisit the idea of stacked acrylic layers as a housing in all cases.  (Cases.  heh.)

Litster's original case design is really awesome, and I love it.  It also was totally clutch and made the group buy a success. 

Surprisingly, I haven't seen nearly as many of the original case builds, even though the .stl files are available on the website...

While litster's case saved the day & never fail to produce a smilin', i'd love to see what else people can come up with besides stacked acrylic.

Here's four and a half reasons why stacked acrylic might not be the best solution:

1. Stacked acrylic cases use a ton of excess material, as you use the whole area of the keyboard * number_of_layers.  The only way you'd use as much material is if you milled it out of a single piece.  (it's a little painful to see the aluminium layered cases from the first massdrop buy -- if you're going to use all that acrylic, why not find a shop that can do the machining all in one piece?
2. Most acrylic sheets, both cast and extruded, can have crazy high variable thicknesses.  I've heard as much as +/- 15% of nominal width.  For your 3mm layers, that means you get anything from 2.55 to 3.45, which means the more layers you have, the less repeatable you get unless you're actually sourcing the acrylic yourself, which means you're back to working locally.
3. The acrylic variance makes it hard to make other reliable connections
4. The acrylic layers are usually attached by M3 flathead screws; i can only think of a handful of people who took the time to countersink the holes and make the connections at least kind of difficult to see.
4 1/2  I personally don't care for how stacked layers look from the side.  That's just me though   Most joinery aims to try to hide the joints or the "end grain."  Stacked layers are basically all in.


So what do i propose?  Well, making cases looks a lot like box-making, if you squint.  The_Beast could probably talk about how making small boxes is a fun way for carpenters to showcase their skills.  So check out the various methods of Joinery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joinery_(woodworking). 

A quick search from google images shows some examples..


And me personally?  I think those nice half-joints would look pretty and lend themselves well to lazz0r fabrication.  I'm also currently looking at making my next v2 out of some tabs & slots meeting at mitered corners, with a clean top layer.  Here's an example.  Please don't laugh at my bad PCB



Thanks for reading my little rant!  I look forward to seeing more new designs from the great community

[MOZ]

Have you seen my open source TKL thread?

1. I addressed this issue using the "budget case, where the middle layers where divided into 4-5 parts to save space.
2. Generally if teh case is cut from one color, it would all be the same, since our cases are so small, they can be cut in one run on a single large acrylic sheet, even two or three in most cases on a 4'x3' lazer cutter.
3. This is true and addressed using brass standoffs and flat head screws as you see in my TKL case thread.
4. Most people use socket-head cap screws, not flatheads, as flatheads would require countersinking, which is a pain with acrylic, and looks bad if engraved. However slightly larger hole cutouts works great and again can be seen in the TKL thread or the GHPad thread.

[bearcat]

1. Your budget case is totally awesome!  It's super creative, and an awesome solution to the problem!  It's really impressive & I love it, especially how it efficiently uses all the internal space.  Should've called this one out as awesome
2. a 4'x3' laser cutter is pretty big...
3. Yup, totally.  Those look pretty cool, too!
4. Yeah, some folks have pointed out that countersinking acrylic is kind of tough.  The larger hole cutouts definitely address the issue... i'm at a loss to think of another piece of electronics or tooling that uses larger hole cutouts, though.