Open Source 60% Alps Plates

[toniwonkanobi]

Someone in the Alps Appreciation Thread was nice enough to thicken up those bottom spacebar stabilizer clip cutouts in AT101.dxf file in this thread's first post (the same file which Hasu was also kind enough to say he'd edit eventually). I assume Hasu is waiting on my report regarding the RShift stabilizers (which I can do once I get those dang keycaps in hand).

Everything looks good to me, though:

[toniwonkanobi]

Okay hasu et al:

I can confirm that the AT101 plate file handles the SGI "Granite" RShift without issue:









The only other issue (besides the aforementioned thinness of the plate near spacebar stabilizer clip cutouts) is that the switches are quite loose in the plate. Anyone else encounter this issue?

[hasu]

Thanks for the confrimation on Right shift stab.
So Right Shift stab cutouts on "Dell AT101" plate work with stab wire from Dell and SGI 101. Good to know.

Please post your result when you get new plate from next iteration!

[toniwonkanobi]

Thanks for the confrimation on Right shift stab.
So Right Shift stab cutouts on "Dell AT101" plate work with stab wire from Dell and SGI 101. Good to know.

Please post your result when you get new plate from next iteration!

Thanks for the well-wishes man

What do you think about switch looseness? Any ideas on how to rectify? The most play seems to be in a vertical dimension (left/ride side-to-side play is almost non-existent). Could the vertical dimension be reduced by ~0.1mm without messing up the entire layout? (Or should I just be happy enough and rely on the switches being soldered to the PCB underneath for stability?)

[hasu]

I guess manufacturing of you plate just went wrong or with bad tolerance for some reason.
I think people tend to go with stainless steel for plate, while your plate matrial is aluminum. This may cause torelance, perhaps?

What did LaserBoost say for explanation when you get refund from them?

[toniwonkanobi]

I guess manufacturing of you plate just went wrong or with bad tolerance for some reason.
I think people tend to go with stainless steel for plate, while your plate matrial is aluminum. This may cause torelance, perhaps?

What did LaserBoost say for explanation when you get refund from them?

Could be. They said it was a one-off mistake, more or less. They also said that their tolerances are ~0.11mm, which, in regards to their inability to produce that thin strip of aluminum along the bottom of the plate on the spacebar stabilizer clip cutouts, could speak to your suggestion that the manufacturing was just bad in this case. I was wearing of going with stainless steel, as I am planning a brown Alps tray-mount build, and I thought the stainless plate would wreak havoc on my fingers for extended typing sessions. Thoughts?

[toniwonkanobi]

Has anyone made a plate file for the Focus FK-2001 (oddly-stabilized BAE and split right shift)?

[envyy24]

Someone in the Alps Appreciation Thread was nice enough to thicken up those bottom spacebar stabilizer clip cutouts in AT101.dxf file in this thread's first post (the same file which Hasu was also kind enough to say he'd edit eventually). I assume Hasu is waiting on my report regarding the RShift stabilizers (which I can do once I get those dang keycaps in hand).

Everything looks good to me, though:

Hi there, i am looking to make a plate based on the AT 101 file shared in there. I see that you have a newer and perhaps more accurate version. my plan is to make it by jr4 with jlc, just wonder if that would make any different and how are the stabs for the space bar on your plate? Are they fit nicely? A friend voiced a concern that the cut is too close to the edge. Many thanks

[toniwonkanobi]

Someone in the Alps Appreciation Thread was nice enough to thicken up those bottom spacebar stabilizer clip cutouts in AT101.dxf file in this thread's first post (the same file which Hasu was also kind enough to say he'd edit eventually). I assume Hasu is waiting on my report regarding the RShift stabilizers (which I can do once I get those dang keycaps in hand).

Everything looks good to me, though:

Hi there, i am looking to make a plate based on the AT 101 file shared in there. I see that you have a newer and perhaps more accurate version. my plan is to make it by jr4 with jlc, just wonder if that would make any different and how are the stabs for the space bar on your plate? Are they fit nicely? A friend voiced a concern that the cut is too close to the edge. Many thanks

I'm not sure what jr4 and ilc are :/

But in regards to the spacebar stabilizer clip cutouts. Yes: they are super close to the bottom edge of the plate. The version I had someone alter for me moved those spacebar stabilizer clip cutout locations like 0.3mm toward the top of the board, to create sufficient thickness of aluminum along the bottom edge. The stabilizer clip cutouts aren't super ultra tight, but they're tight enough around the stabilizer clips.

[envyy24]

I'm not sure what jr4 and ilc are :/

But in regards to the spacebar stabilizer clip cutouts. Yes: they are super close to the bottom edge of the plate. The version I had someone alter for me moved those spacebar stabilizer clip cutout locations like 0.3mm toward the top of the board, to create sufficient thickness of aluminum along the bottom edge. The stabilizer clip cutouts aren't super ultra tight, but they're tight enough around the stabilizer clips.

Typo, FR4 is what i meant, basically the material for pcb. and jlcpcb is a go to company for making your pcb and fr4 plate. do you have the file for the altered version to share?

[toniwonkanobi]

I'm not sure what jr4 and ilc are :/

But in regards to the spacebar stabilizer clip cutouts. Yes: they are super close to the bottom edge of the plate. The version I had someone alter for me moved those spacebar stabilizer clip cutout locations like 0.3mm toward the top of the board, to create sufficient thickness of aluminum along the bottom edge. The stabilizer clip cutouts aren't super ultra tight, but they're tight enough around the stabilizer clips.

Typo, FR4 is what i meant, basically the material for pcb. and jlcpcb is a go to company for making your pcb and fr4 plate. do you have the file for the altered version to share?

The file is attached in that post I hyperlinked previously: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=45456.msg2926121#msg2926121

[envyy24]

Ah yes!. Excellent, thank you very much, i will give it a shot, i hope different in material wont make a huge difference.

[Applet]

Anyone want to sanity check my ISO AEK Alps plate?  Planning to do a tiny run to verify function. Due to the shifted row in AEK ISO, only three of the mounting posts in tray mount cases is usable, still works ok tho, and it's not a problem in fancy rubber band/worm cases.

Is and will be available in my AEKISO60 repo: https://github.com/4pplet/AEKISO60

[RobinsonW]

Hi, sorry if it's not okay to bring up souch an old thread, but I just wanted to chip in to say this thread was a great help in making a custom acrylic plate for my new Alps build after finding it through Google, and I thought I would share my modified Tai Hao design from emdude's original, since I couldn't see that anyone actually uploaded one with the right shift fixed. I've finished the build and it works great.

 TAIHAO v4 wider space stabs.dxf (85.45 kB - downloaded 81 times.)

I also modified the spacebar stab holes to be compatible with screw-in MX stabs as well as the clip-in ones, since this is much preferable to me and I would have thought most people, being that Tai Hao spacebars have MX mounts. I've widened them very slightly in this design from the one I got cut, as they were a pretty tight fit on acrylic and may be too tight with metal (the service I used had a 0.2mm mm cutting kerf, if that helps anyone). I didn't actually test the big clip-in ones but they should still fit.

I got this cut on 1.5mm engraving laminate by the way, which is a softened acrylic, as that was the only acrylic material I could find on a UK online service in the thickness range I was looking for, which was 1.2mm - 1.6.mm. I know this thread has mentioned 1.0-1.2mm as ideal, but I felt 1mm might be a bit loose for the switches to clip in and a bit flimsy in acrylic. When I measured the gap between the wing clips on the switches, 1.6m seemed about the max, and 1.5mm did work really nicely in terms of the switches clipping in snugly. I also didn't have any of the brittleness issues that I've read others have had with thin acrylic plates. The service was laserlab.co.uk.

The only problem I had was that the small clip-in stabiliser holders didn't fit in properly at first because the plate was too thick and they wouldn't slot in the right place, resulting in the stabs not working properly at first. I just had to shave a little bit out of the acrylic with a Stanley knife and it was fine, as you can hopefully see in the pictures.


As another side note I originally ordered this steel plate from KPRepublic, but I didn't look closely enough before ordering, hence doing a custom plate in the end. I'm a bit mystified as to what kind of stab solution this is designed for with the Enter key with the L-shaped hole - the slots seem to be for the bigger clip-in types you can get from Matias, but how are you supposed to keep the right-hand one in place? All I can think of is taping/gluing it to the PCB somehow but that doesn't seem ideal. Or are there other common Alps keycaps with MX mount stabs so you can use screw-in ones? I'm working with ANSI here but it looks like you'd have the same problems with an ISO enter too.

Attached an image of the finished project too since I think it looks quite nice... YMDK walnut case, Salmon Alps, Tai Hao Tomcat caps and XD60 PCB.