About the platesYou know from the pictures in the start post that the plates have relief cuts around the mounting points. I tried different sizes, they all had much less of an impact that I was expecting. Since the case has big bezels, I thought why not use the room you have, so I tried the maximum amount of relief cuts. It's basically a thin strip that winds as much as possible in the available space. Want to show you what I got (obviously hasn't been surface treated jet):
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link to the videoHere you can also see one of the grommets getting seated:
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link to the videoNow before you all scream "I-WANT-THAT", please read my thoughts about this:
I have put the plate into a case and put switched and caps on. It's not a complete build but I can tell that when typing you won't be able to tell this plate with super long and winding relief cuts apart from one without them. If you press down on all keys with both hands then you do feel is, the plate can be pressed down. But in terms of typing - there is no effect for me noticeable.
Isolating the plate from the case via the grommet is much more noticeable compared to going metal on metal with the mounting. Maybe using grommets has a lesser effect in CNC milled cases but for my type of case, the isolation mounting has a big and satisfactory impact.
Not only is the impact of the winding relief cut hardly noticeable, it also brings problems in terms of manufacturing, transportation and handling. The thin strips are quite fragile and I fear if I would have a lot produced like that, quite a few might end up broken.
So even if this looks like something you might want to have in your plate, I have to say that this kind of cut is in my opinion neither a noticeable nor a feasible solution.
I will do relief cuts but not like this.