Custom 75% long

[Leslieann]

Why 75% long?
Well, it's  the same keys as a 75% keyboard, but laid out lengthwise (see below for a pic). Why? Well it's smaller than a TKL and allows the use of normal keycaps.

While I know there was at least one company making something similar (I haven't seen one in a long time), this is something I thought of a while back. I even bought the Teensy for it, and was one reason I built my big printer (I'll be doing a GH60 case too), it just took until now to get it going. As for why now, well, my "almost a Filco" is having a problem and I needed a side project to break the monotony of work. Initially this will be printed and hand wired. Eventually I'll have access to laser cutter and I'll probably redo at least some of it with that, but for now, this will work for experimentation. Eventually I may get access to a CNC and possibly water jet, if that happens it will go metal and at some point maybe I'll get a pcb made for it. For now it's just experimental, I may hate it and scrap the whole thing, but at least it will be fun.

So here's the idea. It's like I said, a 75% laid out horizontal.  I also brought the F keys down from a TKL, but unlike a 75, there is a bit of a gap. I tend to hit them with my nails on my Race so I wanted at least a small gap there. Same with the side keys, I wanted it broken up a bit but still smaller than a TKL. In the end it's about an inch smaller than a TKL (which I find to be a bit too big) and an inch wider than a 75% (which I find to a bit be too cramped).



Heres an initial case render. The lower section rises up to support the underside of the plate. I redid some things on the plate, so I have to alter this to match, but it works to give an idea of the plan. I should have used a different color.


Here's how the plate is done, it's printed upside down. My printer was built large enough to do it as one piece. In fact this was the initial reason I made it so big. 


Here's a shot of it being printed.
Unfortunately, I opened a window and the glue has softened. I'm not sure how good it will be. It's hard enough to do a 13in long print (330mm) under perfect conditions. At this size, even PLA has a lot of shrinkage. It looks good so far though, in fact it's probably beyond the danger point (too thick to warp).

[sethk_]

So you mean a TKL? 75% has all the same keys a TKL does. It's a good idea, but functionality wise, why not just go 2 centimeters more and have a full TKL?

[Leslieann]

Not quite.
75% keyboards lack 6 keys from a TKL and add an FN key.  I'm still short 5 keys compared to a TKL, all keys I don't use. If I don't use them, why have them?

Why not just go TKL?  Are you sure you're on the right website?

Other good answers to the question:
Because this is the right size
Why not
If you have to ask...
Because I can
Because it's different from the other keyboards I have
Do you tell 40% users to just get a 60%, it's only 1/2in for more functionality
Do you tell 60% users to just get a 75%, it's only 1/2in for more functionality
Because custom
Profit???



Update:
The humidity did effect the print. It may be usable, but I had plans to redo it anyhow, it's only like $1.50 in plastic. The corners were fine, it's around the spacebar that warped the most. I also think I may have used the wrong template, easy fix. If you look, the key cap rendering shows 3 keys to the right of the spacebar, but the cad rendering shows only two. A quick check shows the spacebar to be oversize. If this only needs two prints to get right, I'll be more than happy.

The print wasn't intended to be show quality and is straight off the printer (no post processing to clean it up).  You can see the size difference, it's more dramatic than you would think. I'll get another later with it compared to the KBT Race.

[KHAANNN]

Wow you have a printer with an extremely large build area

I've recently completed my 3 piece plate build, but didn't have a chance to update things yet, you might like vvp's suggestion on that thread, the cutouts he suggested proved to be excellent

The questions you posed are pretty logical, because indeed the layout seems pretty pointless :)
(If I had the means to print a 1-piece plate, I would probably go with an 60% + arrows layout, since it's programmable, the F-keys seem pointless)

Apart from that, you might also enjoy printing into the build-plate with a negative Z-axis displacement (0.05 to 0.1), it will make the print stick 100% and improve the texture significantly (especially if you also use 3M blue printer's tape, the top surface adopts the texture, it's lovely)
Normally, PLA shouldn't warp, so if your print plate is heated, bumping the heat to 75C helps, just make sure the part cools before you remove it (otherwise, at 75C, the part is soft)

As a general suggestion, it might pay off in the long run to try some test prints, your print quality seems low from the photos, once you start adjusting/understanding some print parameters, the prints become near-perfect - you both have stringing and a displeasing last layer, so retraction + higher heat might help

[Leslieann]

I use the fkeys for macros and shortcuts.

Yes, the printer's big. I designed it to do a complete TKL horizontal and vertically with room to spare.
Big printers have their own set of unique problems, it's a very different beast from your typical printer. This one is borderline "large format" and pushes the limit in terms of common parts. It doesn't have a heated bed because it would need A LOT or power to heat it (somewhere in the neighborhood of 800watts). On a long print (which happens more than I would like), it would cost me about $25 a day in electricity between the printer and the air conditioner to keep the house cool. You still couldn't realistically do an ABS object more than few inches anyhow which is why I have a small printer as well. Heated beds also bring other problems with them, such as hourglass shaped prints, broken glass, warped beds... For every problem they solve, they create another and on a huge printer, they are just a nuisance. On a big printer, simple is good.

With high humidity, the glue I use softens up, pushing the head lower just scrapes off the glue, especially at the heights I often print at. As for painters tape, with a bed this size, painters tape gets expensive pretty quick. I was going through a roll of 3in every week or so. I get about 2 months out of a $2 glue stick and I don't get weird patters or blue tape stuck in the plastic. If you have a heated bed, try Aquanet hairspray.

The pictures actually look much worse than it is (I did some tweaks that helped later on), but the print mostly looks bad because I just swapped the cooling fan (and my slicer) recently and it was causing the head to cycle up and down too far in temp. It was cold printing on the infill, and stringing on the slower external perimeters. I need to recalibrate the PID and maybe lower the fan speed. It wasn't going fast, only about 120mm/s, but with the fan blowing more than normal, and the flowrate needed for the layer height (.17),  when it hit high speed sections, the PLA was just sucking the heat right out of the hot end. Normally, I probably could have run this at about .1mm layer height @200mm/s and gotten better results. I just didn't want to wait 18 hours for the print.

By the way, the surface you see is what rested against the glass, it prints upside down then gets flipped over. If you think the surface finish was bad on that, you should see how warped and twisted it is in person. I'll have to design in some things to keep it from distorting so bad and check the printer's calibration (it looks high in the center, gotta love deltas).

[nmur]

I know this is around 1 column shorter than a TKL, but it still looks like you still have room for dedicated keys for pgup/pgdn, and even a print screen button.

Do you just not use those keys too much, or do you want a bit of empty space?

[Leslieann]

There is lots of room for more keys. Yes, I could put the Pg keys elsewhere, but keys have a profile for the row they are on. Move them, and they are now out of place. This is one problem 75% boards have, the right side always has mismatched profiles (which is more annoying than you think).

As for those specific keys, the ones I removed are all keys I don't need or use. I thought about removing the insert key as well, but it looked odd. I intend to put something up there for decoration, I just haven't decided what yet.

Besides, it will be interesting to see how it works with all 3d printed parts.

[KHAANNN]

I use the fkeys for macros and shortcuts.

Yes, the printer's big. I designed it to do a complete TKL horizontal and vertically with room to spare.
Big printers have their own set of unique problems, it's a very different beast from your typical printer. This one is borderline "large format" and pushes the limit in terms of common parts. It doesn't have a heated bed because it would need A LOT or power to heat it (somewhere in the neighborhood of 800watts). On a long print (which happens more than I would like), it would cost me about $25 a day in electricity between the printer and the air conditioner to keep the house cool. You still couldn't realistically do an ABS object more than few inches anyhow which is why I have a small printer as well. Heated beds also bring other problems with them, such as hourglass shaped prints, broken glass, warped beds... For every problem they solve, they create another and on a huge printer, they are just a nuisance. On a big printer, simple is good.

With high humidity, the glue I use softens up, pushing the head lower just scrapes off the glue, especially at the heights I often print at. As for painters tape, with a bed this size, painters tape gets expensive pretty quick. I was going through a roll of 3in every week or so. I get about 2 months out of a $2 glue stick and I don't get weird patters or blue tape stuck in the plastic. If you have a heated bed, try Aquanet hairspray.

The pictures actually look much worse than it is (I did some tweaks that helped later on), but the print mostly looks bad because I just swapped the cooling fan (and my slicer) recently and it was causing the head to cycle up and down too far in temp. It was cold printing on the infill, and stringing on the slower external perimeters. I need to recalibrate the PID and maybe lower the fan speed. It wasn't going fast, only about 120mm/s, but with the fan blowing more than normal, and the flowrate needed for the layer height (.17),  when it hit high speed sections, the PLA was just sucking the heat right out of the hot end. Normally, I probably could have run this at about .1mm layer height @200mm/s and gotten better results. I just didn't want to wait 18 hours for the print.

By the way, the surface you see is what rested against the glass, it prints upside down then gets flipped over. If you think the surface finish was bad on that, you should see how warped and twisted it is in person. I'll have to design in some things to keep it from distorting so bad and check the printer's calibration (it looks high in the center, gotta love deltas).

Very interesting, in that case, some of my suggestions might have sounded a bit stupid, but I didn't know how deep into the things you were :)

Interestingly, I also had issues with my cooler fan while I was printing my plates, the fan I had was about to die, swapped it with something else, started experiencing similar heat issues and jams with PLA

The -Z method indeed causes scraping on the first layer, but that is expected, unless the head touches the print plate

Normally I manage to use a layer of printer plate with 20-30 prints, but with this -Z method, it definitely gets off with the object, so I also share your concerns about tape usage, to make things worse, the tape is no longer directly available in my country

[Leslieann]

No worries about the suggestions, I haven't exactly been around much. 
I've been doing this for a bout 2 years.

On bluetape, you can scrape the nozzle a lot and not worry, glue you need to be pretty precise. It's a bummer about the good tape being harder to get but there are other types of bluetape that work, it doesn't have to be Scotch or 3M, try various types and also try rubbing it down with rubbing alcohol. Also alter how much you rub it, some tape needs more, some needs less. Same with nozzle height and heat. The lower the head and the hotter it is, the more you will tend to stick, to the point of embedding blue tape permanently into your print. At least it keeps the nozzle clean. 

[CPTBadAss]

LeslieAnn, are you still using a Delta 3D printer? That build area is insane.

Really interested in knowing how the plate feels when you have it assembled.

[Leslieann]

Yes, I'm still using a delta, I've never owned a cartesian.
If you want a printer this big... I would recommend thinking twice, it has a lot of challenges.  Particularly as a delta.


As for the plate, the test piece feels more stiff than a bare pcb but far weaker than a steel plate, which is what I expected. While that may sound weak, I planned from the start to make the stiffness a combination of the plate and the case, most keyboards rely on only one or the other for stiffness. Combined together and filled with switches, it should in theory (guesstimate) come close to an of the shelf Rosewill or something and weigh almost nothing (1/3rd pound?). And while this means it won't match an aluminum case, and nowhere near my zombie head crushing Filco/Vortex/stainless steel plate combo, it still costs less than lunch.

[whentheclouds]

what an amazing concept, i love nearly everything about it. albeit there's one (personal) downside and a severe one at that: i need quick access to the Enter key sometimes (via my right thumb without moving it off the mouse), something this particular layout is unable to provide

[Glissant]

I like the idea. I would change the f-row to the same as on the mx-mini layout though. But that's just because I like the compactness of it.
(example of the mx-mini layout http://i630.photobucket.com/albums/uu23/calaveratf/keyboards/DSCF2321_zps15589527.jpg~original )

[Leslieann]

I like the idea. I would change the f-row to the same as on the mx-mini layout though. But that's just because I like the compactness of it.
(example of the mx-mini layout http://i630.photobucket.com/albums/uu23/calaveratf/keyboards/DSCF2321_zps15589527.jpg~original )

Thanks!

I have that layout on my KBT Race, and while I do like the compactness, my finger nails often bump the fkeys when hitting backspace. In the case of the Race, it hits the FN key, which opens the calculator stealing focus. It drives me MAD!.

However, I don't like the gap most keyboards have, so on this one, I reduced it. There's about a 1/8in gap between the Fkeys and number row, just enough to give definition, but not significantly increase the overall size.

I wanted a shortened TKL, but not quite a 75, so this whole thing fits square in the middle.

what an amazing concept, i love nearly everything about it. albeit there's one (personal) downside and a severe one at that: i need quick access to the Enter key sometimes (via my right thumb without moving it off the mouse), something this particular layout is unable to provide

Thanks!

The enter key is something I greatly miss from my full size, while not perfect, this does reduce the distance, I can almost reach it. There's really nothing stopping me from adding a second enter, but the whole idea was to use standard keys and none of the keysets I bought have the ten keys. I could also just use another key or a specialty key, but I'm not sure how useful it would really be. I miss that function, but not THAT much.

I have access to a laser cutter and it;s something i could offer later, and changes like that are dead simple to make if someone wanted it. I just need to get to that point.

[whentheclouds]

one more thing: how do you envision a winkeyless bottom row? 1.5 - 1.5 - 7 - 1.5 - 1.5 or standard 1.25/6.25 with blockers? i'm leaning towards the latter because easier to find cap size + better aesthetics, but the blockers need to look good for that to work

[Leslieann]

one more thing: how do you envision a winkeyless bottom row? 1.5 - 1.5 - 7 - 1.5 - 1.5 or standard 1.25/6.25 with blockers? i'm leaning towards the latter because easier to find cap size + better aesthetics, but the blockers need to look good for that to work

I can 3d print or laser cut anything I want to fit in there, but this will still be 1.25/6.25 all the way across. I just need to figure out the layout with the new changes. This is mostly because this is what keycap sets I have and one of the main points was to get away from specialty keys.

Keep in mind, this isn't for sale, it's just me playing around for personal use. Until I have some time and experience on our laser cutter (I'm still learning ho to use it), this is just play for me.

[whentheclouds]

Keep in mind, this isn't for sale, it's just me playing around for personal use

i know, just brainstorming. i used to think the winkey was indispensable, until i realized i can just map it to caps lock (and use shift with an AHK script to emulate caps lock's function) to increase ergonomics as well as the board's aesthetics. something for you to consider?

[Leslieann]

Oh look, someone let me near a laser cutter.

Unfortunately it was dialed back on power and I didn't realize it hadn't punched through completely on the plate, but I can redo it later this week if I can't knock out the plugs. I may redo the whole thing, who knows, it was all scrap plastic. This was something I decided  to do on the spot when I noticed the laser was available. It was done quickly using the layout editor and Swill's plate builder.

The smoked ring will be the top trim and I will most likely print (or cut) a support for the plate since it's so thin. I can also print plate to fit inside to further experiment. Just need to knock out the cuts, and populate it. Probably Ergo Clears, Green Cheese caps, and I have a Teensy 2.0 waiting.

The good, despite it all, it was much faster than 3d printing.
The bad, it turned out larger than I wanted. I padded it a bit more than I thought, and so it's not as small as I wanted, but it will let me experiment.

Potato-cam

[Glissant]

I like the idea. I would change the f-row to the same as on the mx-mini layout though. But that's just because I like the compactness of it.
(example of the mx-mini layout http://i630.photobucket.com/albums/uu23/calaveratf/keyboards/DSCF2321_zps15589527.jpg~original )

Thanks!

I have that layout on my KBT Race, and while I do like the compactness, my finger nails often bump the fkeys when hitting backspace. In the case of the Race, it hits the FN key, which opens the calculator stealing focus. It drives me MAD!.

However, I don't like the gap most keyboards have, so on this one, I reduced it. There's about a 1/8in gap between the Fkeys and number row, just enough to give definition, but not significantly increase the overall size.

I wanted a shortened TKL, but not quite a 75, so this whole thing fits square in the middle.

I definitely understand, and I hope you get the exact board you want. Maybe we end up with a group buy eventually, and in that case please update the thread so I can join.

[Leslieann]

Well I'm still experimenting, so far it wasn't quite what I wanted. 
So I made a few more changes, and hopefully I can mess with the laser some more and and try this again.

New changes...
No top trim ring. This is due to the fact that I want this as compact as I can make it while maintaining key spacing, and therefore will be rimless. I don't know if that will remain, but just something to try. It cuts off a lot of extra mass that's really not doing anything. I hate how some cases have big bolt heads sticking up along the bottom, looks neat and industrial, but it's not so great for your hands. I also made some key layout changes across the bottom, mostly pertaining to the Winkey.

I knew this wouldn't be a one shot deal.

[whentheclouds]

forgot about this neat project. how are things coming along?

[Leslieann]

Unfortunately, I have been too busy with work to mess with it.
I'm hoping by next month to finally be caught up at work.

Who am I kidding.

[whentheclouds]

over a month's worth of work behind? i see someone's been sleeping on the job

good luck

[Leslieann]

Actually, roughly a year behind and we already have the next 2 years planned out as being busy as well.