Issue With Keyz.io Discipline 65 DIY Kit POM Plate

[h40]

I was super excited to have received my Discipline65 kit from Keyz.io a few days ago and quickly got to assembling the PCB then the case, only to run into an extremely frustrating issue installing switches into the provided POM plate.

It seems as if the POM plate switch holes are for the most part slightly too small, and in some cases perhaps as much as 1mm too small in at least one dimension as the result of missed passes on milling/cnc. Only the switches for larger keys like backspace, shift, etc are able to be installed into the plate without the use of a sturdy table and pressing the plate with screwdriver or some other implement. At least one switch I was able to install was so tight that the switch would no longer operate correctly.

Keep in mind this is without the PCB, which would be impossible to work with without breaking...even with something like floss to assist.

Attaching an image of how I managed to get most of the switches in, and an example of 1U ports which are so small not even a screwdriver and decent elbow grease could install.





Short video of super tight switch: https://imgur.com/CnBdWYK

Anyone else running into this issue? I heard POM plates might be tight but this is just ridiculous. Also if anyone else got in on this group buy I would highly suggest you try installing switches into plate before proceeding with any of the other build steps as getting to this point after soldering and testing was super frustrating.

[h40]

Kevin at Keyz.io has offered to replace my plate. As a sanity check, here's some measurements I took. Specs for plate are 1.5mm thick, and standard 1U is supposed to be 14mm x 14mm

Thickness



1Us I'm able to force switches in



1U I can't even force

[keebpleeb]

I've got a kit coming in from keyz.io as well (When USPS decides to deliver it...) so this is super good to know!

[NuNuDuck]

Ran into this problem too, used a dremel tool to fix it. Kinda janky though

Sent from my LG-US998 using Tapatalk

[h40]

I was considering using a file or dremel as well but I realized I would end up having to do so with pretty much every hole, it would take me forever, and even worse it might end up out of spec and crooked.

[suicidal_orange]

Thanks for the warning, i's only plastic so couple of hours with a flat file would sort the holes out (and make a lot of mess) but not if you've already soldered switches through it.

[blak000]

Just got my Discipline65 from Keyz.io today and having the same problem. My plate seems to be switch dependent. I tried to install Kailh Pro Purple and Speed Copper and they wouldn't fit; simply too big. I could squeeze in Cherry MX browns and Gateron Yellows, though. I'm a bit bummed, since I wanted to use the Kailh switches on this keyboard. Hope someone else could provide more insight into this.

[h40]

Bummer. I've heard other folks have received ones which are not problematic though so they aren't all bad.

I tested mine with both Zealios, and FFF switches.

Still waiting on my replacement, and in the meantime I millmaxed the board and I'm running plateless.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[blak000]

I contacted the Keyz.io site and was told to dremel or blow dry my plate to get the switches to fit.  )

[h40]

They are currently running another GB for this and I really hope this issue is fixed or at least fair warning disclaimer provided.

If I were to dremel, it'd be for nearly every switch port!

I understand POM plates can be a bit tough but .5mm is way off right?

[NuNuDuck]

They are currently running another GB for this and I really hope this issue is fixed or at least fair warning disclaimer provided.

If I were to dremel, it'd be for nearly every switch port!

I understand POM plates can be a bit tough but .5mm is way off right?

Yea, I ended up botching the dremel job but not before they offered to replace the plate. All good.

Sent from my LG-US998 using Tapatalk

[h40]

Yea, I ended up botching the dremel job but not before they offered to replace the plate. All good.

Sent from my LG-US998 using Tapatalk

Sorry to hear that, I was half tempted to try after you mentioned assuming it worked out okay.

[keebpleeb]

Mine came in yesterday and same problem as all of you here. Attempted to put in some filmed gat silent blacks, but the top housing of the keyswitch can't fully clip in because of the films, which I'm unwilling to take out. Popped in some blueberries and had a little more success, but my fingers hurt today from how hard I had to press to get them in.

Even worse - I was so excited to put together the kit that I entirely forgot to lube the blueberries, but fortunately haven't soldered them in. Gotta pop 'em back out and risk RSI on my precious fingeys once again...

Another question - is anyone else having issued with the plate bowing as you input switches? I realize I should probably be popping switches in from the inside > out, but that seemed too logical so instead I just started from left to right. Will attempt to put them in from the center out this evening after lubage has occurred and report back!

[h40]

Mine came in yesterday and same problem as all of you here. Attempted to put in some filmed gat silent blacks, but the top housing of the keyswitch can't fully clip in because of the films, which I'm unwilling to take out. Popped in some blueberries and had a little more success, but my fingers hurt today from how hard I had to press to get them in.

Even worse - I was so excited to put together the kit that I entirely forgot to lube the blueberries, but fortunately haven't soldered them in. Gotta pop 'em back out and risk RSI on my precious fingeys once again...

Another question - is anyone else having issued with the plate bowing as you input switches? I realize I should probably be popping switches in from the inside > out, but that seemed too logical so instead I just started from left to right. Will attempt to put them in from the center out this evening after lubage has occurred and report back!

Yes, the more switches I got in the more the plate bowed. I worked my way across the top rows left to right, and gave up after about an hour of mashing with a screwdriver and getting stuck at the unfinished del/pgup/pgdown areas pictured which were too small to force with anything.

By the time I got there I'd say there was about an inch of bowing, but I figured since I could straighten it out by hand it'd probably screw in and flatten out?

[keebpleeb]

Mine came in yesterday and same problem as all of you here. Attempted to put in some filmed gat silent blacks, but the top housing of the keyswitch can't fully clip in because of the films, which I'm unwilling to take out. Popped in some blueberries and had a little more success, but my fingers hurt today from how hard I had to press to get them in.

Even worse - I was so excited to put together the kit that I entirely forgot to lube the blueberries, but fortunately haven't soldered them in. Gotta pop 'em back out and risk RSI on my precious fingeys once again...

Another question - is anyone else having issued with the plate bowing as you input switches? I realize I should probably be popping switches in from the inside > out, but that seemed too logical so instead I just started from left to right. Will attempt to put them in from the center out this evening after lubage has occurred and report back!

Yes, the more switches I got in the more the plate bowed. I worked my way across the top rows left to right, and gave up after about an hour of mashing with a screwdriver and getting stuck at the unfinished del/pgup/pgdown areas pictured which were too small to force with anything.

By the time I got there I'd say there was about an inch of bowing, but I figured since I could straighten it out by hand it'd probably screw in and flatten out?

I'm typing this on the finished kit and... yeah the plate is bowed beyond belief. Like you h40, i'm near one inch of bow. thats with it aggressively pressed against the PCB as I soldered. I hoped, like you, that once I had everything assembled that it might straighten out but of course it didn't. If you haven't built it yet, DON'T!!!!!!! Absolutely none of my stabilized keys return properly. At this point it's nigh unusable, which blows because it sounds absolutely incredible. I emailed Kevin from keyz.io and I'm hoping to hear back asap. I want to get this thing in good working order because once it's done, it'll be daily driver for me for the foreseeable future.

[h40]

Mine came in yesterday and same problem as all of you here. Attempted to put in some filmed gat silent blacks, but the top housing of the keyswitch can't fully clip in because of the films, which I'm unwilling to take out. Popped in some blueberries and had a little more success, but my fingers hurt today from how hard I had to press to get them in.

Even worse - I was so excited to put together the kit that I entirely forgot to lube the blueberries, but fortunately haven't soldered them in. Gotta pop 'em back out and risk RSI on my precious fingeys once again...

Another question - is anyone else having issued with the plate bowing as you input switches? I realize I should probably be popping switches in from the inside > out, but that seemed too logical so instead I just started from left to right. Will attempt to put them in from the center out this evening after lubage has occurred and report back!

Yes, the more switches I got in the more the plate bowed. I worked my way across the top rows left to right, and gave up after about an hour of mashing with a screwdriver and getting stuck at the unfinished del/pgup/pgdown areas pictured which were too small to force with anything.

By the time I got there I'd say there was about an inch of bowing, but I figured since I could straighten it out by hand it'd probably screw in and flatten out?

I'm typing this on the finished kit and... yeah the plate is bowed beyond belief. Like you h40, i'm near one inch of bow. thats with it aggressively pressed against the PCB as I soldered. I hoped, like you, that once I had everything assembled that it might straighten out but of course it didn't. If you haven't built it yet, DON'T!!!!!!! Absolutely none of my stabilized keys return properly. At this point it's nigh unusable, which blows because it sounds absolutely incredible. I emailed Kevin from keyz.io and I'm hoping to hear back asap. I want to get this thing in good working order because once it's done, it'll be daily driver for me for the foreseeable future.

I agree about sound. I millmaxed mine and just have it plateless right now with the PCB just sitting in the case hoping I can just easily remove switches and reinstall when my replacement plate comes in. Though, if the plate bows too much I bet the switches will end up just popping out.

From the limited amount of folks I've spoken to who received this kit a majority of them have run into this problem. I'm waiting until my replacement plate comes in today, and if it's still way out of spec I may advocate for Kevin to provide some more assurance that it will be fixed or at least provide fair warning on the current group buy.

[suicidal_orange]

I understand POM plates can be a bit tough but .5mm is way off right?

When it comes to machining POM is the easiest material I've used by far - we ran a machine making ventilator parts 24/7 for 10 days and never changed an insert (think stanley knife blade - you use it, it gets blunt and you replace it)

Also 0.5mm is a ridiculously huge amount to be off by, nevermind precision measuring equipment you find in a workshop you can see that by eye!

[NuNuDuck]

I've just received my replacement plate and it is still quite tight, my Tealios V2's would not return properly. I guess I'll have to file it down a little. My tealios have become zealios.

[keebpleeb]

For what it's worth I've emailed Kevin at keyz.io and haven't heard back in a few days. Will update here when he responds!

Edit: I linked him to this thread, you can see his reply below!

[C1intMason]

Hey guys,

Its Kevin here from Keyz.io. I have gone through the thread here and would like to address the issue that everyone is having with their plates. However, firstly, I would like to express my gratitude to everyone here who has participated in sharing their issues with their builds. I am sorry for the inconvenience and the general annoyance that this may have caused.

We have been working hard in the past few days trying to figure out exactly what the problem is and we believe that we have somewhat of an idea of what is going on.
Fortunately, as far as we know, not everyone has been having this issue. But, for those who have had trouble, I would like to address the issue a bit here and share what we believe the problem to be.

To our understanding, the problem seems to be a combination of, issues with the stock material that we are receiving from our supplier, the properties of the material and its relation to how we are manufacturing the plates, and also a problem with our laser cutting machine.

When the stock POM sheets are manufactured, there are a lot of internal stresses that act upon the material. This means that when it is cut, this stress is relieved and causes the dimensions to be slightly incorrect when finished.

Unfortunately, the QC from our supplier on their end has not been strict enough to minimize this problem and we have decided to mitigate this problem by performing our own and more rigorous QC even if it means that our yield from our purchased material will be reduced drastically.

Furthermore, this issue was further amplified by incorrect adjustments with our machine. At some point during our production, the settings of our laser cutter were adjusted, causing the settings to compensate for the kerf of the laser to be incorrect.

We are working heavily internally to ensure that these issues are resolved or at least mitigated to the point at which they can meet the correct tolerances, for our current run of cases and would like to help resolve and offer replacements for anyone who has this issue from the last run of orders.

Please, if you have not yet contacted me directly about your faulty plate, shoot me an email and I will get a replacement plate to you as soon as I can.

[h40]

Huge bummer. My replacement plate came in this morning and though over-all it's better, it is still way out of spec. Most of the 1U holes are measuring around 13.65mm on both ends.

Out of the first 30 switches I've managed to install, 8 of them are so tight they're stuck.

[C1intMason]

Hey guys,

I just wanted to give an update on replacement plates. If you had a replacement shipped out to you before today, and it still does not work properly. You must have received a plate from the old batch of replacements. We have started producing plates with adjustments and have started shipping them out as of yesterday.

Please contact me directly through email and we will get it sorted.

[keebpleeb]

Hey guys,

I just wanted to give an update on replacement plates. If you had a replacement shipped out to you before today, and it still does not work properly. You must have received a plate from the old batch of replacements. We have started producing plates with adjustments and have started shipping them out as of yesterday.

Please contact me directly through email and we will get it sorted.

Thanks for the updated, Kevin! I think I speak for most when saying that we're just looking for transparency when issues arise, which you've given us here. Looking forward to receiving my new plate!

[h40]

2nd replacement plate came in, and it measured perfectly. The 1U holes measure almost exactly 14x14mm, and line up just great with the rest of the original case components. Assembly only took a few moments. I'm very happy with the build now, and I believe it was well worth the wait.

Thanks to Kevin & Keyz.io for working to resolve this! Here's a pic.

[keebpleeb]

2nd replacement plate came in, and it measured perfectly. The 1U holes measure almost exactly 14x14mm, and line up just great with the rest of the original case components. Assembly only took a few moments. I'm very happy with the build now, and I believe it was well worth the wait.

Thanks to Kevin & Keyz.io for working to resolve this! Here's a pic.

Nice!!! My replacement plate just came in a few days ago, need to get down to ripping the keeb back apart and put back together! That GMK WoB looks awesome with that case color. You've inspired me...

[KiLLrFOX916]

I've been a long time lurker wanted to join in on this thread. I had the same issue during one of my build streams today it was definitely frustrating until I found this thread. The package was shipped out on July 18th so it may have been one of the original pom plates with the fitment issue. Ended up removing the POM plate, and soldering the switches directly to the board, but now with the case together the USB-C plug won't fit without the extra thickness of the pom plate in between . It was honestly a nightmare to build when I got to soldering switches and I should have picked up the Discipline 65 on its own without the case and pom plate.

[tsolin01]

Nice!!! My replacement plate just came in a few days ago, need to get down to ripping the keeb back apart and put back together! That GMK WoB looks awesome with that case color. You've inspired me...

Hey did the new plate work out for you? I just found this thread and I had ordered a high profile case from Keyz.io beginning of August so around the time these issues should have been fixed.

My plate was somewhat tight but I was able to get the switches installed and didn't really think anything of it. However, once I got all the switches in with the plate and PCB, the whole thing bowed like you described earlier in your post. I brought this up to keyz.io but they didn't mention anything about having a plate issue. I thought it was probably just something I did so I desoldered everything started over but it kept bowing/twisting a little bit and actually it looked like the PCB was now that way and not totally level anymore. Also taking out the switches was a real pain and they were definitely tight to the plate.

I ended up just not pushing all the switches down all the way and tried to keep the plate level as much as I could once installed in the case. Seems to be ok so far but wondering if all the issues I was having is just due to the plate?

[Patrickwu]

Zealios have sharper corners. Plate holes with more aggressive round corns will have clearance issues. If the plate is milled with 1.5mm or bigger bits, extra corner clearance would be necessary.
Good job sorting out anyways..