Ideas/Methods to Manufacture a Complete Keyset

[KHAANNN]

I spend a lot of time seeking keycaps and keysets, I'm a bit obsessed when it comes to keycaps, I don't enjoy mixing keycaps/blanks and no existing keyset seem to support my weird layout: http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/layouts/db0e32459b60d7b95661538f56279faf
I seemed to have a bit of luck ordering custom keycaps from SP, however, I guess recently they bumped up their pricing to extremes, I'm not willing to spend hundreds/thousands on several keycaps (they say a keyset can be manufactured for $750 on their FAQ, to indicate costs are high, however it's probably more like 10k$s now)

Here are my ideas:
1) Dual Extruder 3D Printing
Buy a dual extruder 3d printer for $400, experiment with dual-color ABS keycaps: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Free-Shipping-Reprap-3D-Printer-Pursa-I3-Double-Heads-Dual-Extruder-Two-color-Printing-High-Resolution/32310783539.html?spm=2114.32010308.4.2.kebMy2
Issues: I don't think the resulting keycap would be pleasing, it would likely have a flat surface to be easily printable and would likely require a lot of after-processing, but the bottleneck would probably be the precision of the printer, the legends and texts need to be pleasing

2) 3D Printing + Filling
Print keycaps with a single color, leave the legends empty, fill the legends with a material(?) + post-process (sanding)
Issues: Finding a material to fill the keycap is the obvious challenge, other than that, printing a keycap or getting it printed seems trivial

3) Custom Dye-Subs
3a) Hope someone else does this: https://www.etsy.com/shop/DecentKeyboards - I already messaged him, he seems to be the only person that does custom dye-subs (imsto also has a service, but for R4 keycaps)
3b) Buy/Build a machine for the task: Hmm ... even if the machine is found/built, finding a keycap manufacturer that manufactures diverse PBT keys is challenging

4) Multi-color/1+Material 3D Printing Services
Like: http://www.shapeways.com/materials/full-color-Plastic - however, in the case of shapeways, the photos/results doesn't seem much promising

At this point, I'm hoping 3a produces some results, I would appreciate any advice, especially along the lines of 3a (The guy even does color on black dye-subs, I think he is an undiscovered gem, he might become the GON of keycaps one day)

This quest also got me pretty close to get back to WASD keycaps, but when I weight in things, it makes more sense to use DSA/SA's with blanks for edge keycaps - I really don't enjoy the glare of the WASD keycaps, other than that, I might just give it a shot at one point

[jbondeson]

I would say mini-cnc and resin casting would be more likely to produce the results you want. You can get really exotic with the resins and produce something with the exact feel and material characteristics you're looking for. Additionally the resins don't require metal molds or high pressure injection tech.

Frankly the hard part would simply be designing double shot molds for resin as it's different than abs or pbt.

[KHAANNN]

I would say mini-cnc and resin casting would be more likely to produce the results you want. You can get really exotic with the resins and produce something with the exact feel and material characteristics you're looking for. Additionally the resins don't require metal molds or high pressure injection tech.

Frankly the hard part would simply be designing double shot molds for resin as it's different than abs or pbt.

I guess this is a nice reference for resin casting: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=62696.0 - seems extremely challenging :)

I guess I should give (2) a try, print a sample keycap with empty legends and fill it with something, going through the KatzenKinder's resin journey encouraged me to try something easier

[jbondeson]

I would say a very big different between what you're suggesting and what KatzenKinder did would be that you'll could work off a 3D model and let the cnc do the hard work.

If you look at the link he provides the process is actually not super complex. Mill a positive mold in modeling board, make the negative mold from it, then use that to get your resin parts.

It would definitely be fiddley, but without a $10k+ 3D printer you would probably hate your results. I built one this spring and if you want to talk about fiddling! Whew!

[jbondeson]

Oh and as an aside some of the fill issues he encountered with stems would be solvable with a vacuum pump to remove the bubbles.

Naturally the "do it right" and the "do it inexpensive" are forever at odds.

[KHAANNN]

Well, the first trial of (2) wasn't so bad :)



Should've settled with this ^


Interestingly, even if I remove my spatula very lightly, the Q appears on the clay

The clay was a cheap/fun impulse buy, after it air dries for 24 hours, it's supposed to become bouncy, never used it before, going to sand the keycap after it dries

[KHAANNN]

By the way, OpenSCAD seems like a great tool

Normally designing each single keycap manually would be an extreme burden, with OpenSCAD, each keycap can theoretically be generated after the design is done programatically

For example, I use swillkb's plate output as a base and modify it, but sometimes simple modifications require me to start over again, I would probably try to build a custom routine to do those things if I was going to generate many plates, but I'm guessing it's not worth it for 3-4 plates

It can also easily convert fonts/text to artifacts - which is extremely helpful for keycaps

[KHAANNN]

Here is the result: (the Q is actually inverted, it was a quick design)


Currently stemless, going to add a rectangular stem, with only one layer of top but a larger than usual sides (the top/bottom is the challenging part, it needs to be slim)
In person, the keycap has a post-apocalyptic vibe thanks to the sanding and the over extruded first layer, I'm going forward with the idea

The next version will be blank and hopefully from OpenSCAD with a stem and a parametric sculpture/height/width (so different rows and keycaps will simply be determined by parameters)

Going to engrave it manually with a Dremel Cord/Extender / small drill tip to add the legends, otherwise I don't think 3d printer precision would be enough for the task
The blank+engraving simplifies many things, the only challenge is obviously the engraving part :)

I would really appreciate some easily findable air dried/casted material advice, that can withstand incursions from a thumb nail (I can only think of construction materials that dry and harden like silicone, like Ceresit 111)
This material is nice for a proof of concept, but with actual usage, it would get chirped if the button is pressed with the thumb

[Findecanor]

When you wrote "custom layout", I thought it was going to be something unusual. No, that is basically Qwerty with a 1.75 right shift, which is quite common.

WASD Keyboards used to put blank keys into a CNC laser machine (supported engraving and etching on the same keys) but they seem to actually print them these days.
Another option would be to use lightly coloured keys with water-slide or rub-on decals on the front side. You could laquer over the decals for better durability.

[KHAANNN]

When you wrote "custom layout", I thought it was going to be something unusual. No, that is basically Qwerty with a 1.75 right shift, which is quite common.

WASD Keyboards used to put blank keys into a CNC laser machine (supported engraving and etching on the same keys) but they seem to actually print them these days.
Another option would be to use lightly coloured keys with water-slide or rub-on decals on the front side. You could laquer over the decals for better durability.

Whether it's common or not is up to debate, however it's nearly impossible to get printed keycaps that match the layout, even blanks are almost impossible to find
Take GMK keycaps for example, you can't buy them yet, even if you could, one would have to use replacement keys for non-standard layouts and that's just something that I don't want to do, I really hate it (the actual right shift is 1u, putting a replacement 1.75u shift to the arrow_up position is just disturbing for me, might as well use blanks myself)

Anyway, on a personal level, I'm going to return from D/SA's to printed OEM's of WASD's, I will ask them whether they still have their old engraving options
The main issue of WASD's is the texture and the longevity, the UV coating is too slippery, causes sweating, and as I researched, the UV coating starts coming of in 3-4 months

In the meantime, I'm definitely going to pursue this endeavour, my layout is currently bound by the 60% PCB's I have, however, the generated keycaps have the potential to be anything, whether it's a 2.5u shift or a 6.5u spacebar
This also opens up possibilities for different switch types for future keyboards that I might have, at least there are acceptable keysets for cherry mx, yet for alps for example, that's not the case

[KHAANNN]

By the way, I tested engraving
PLA: melts on the drill, not likely to be engraved as PLA builds up instead of being dusted out
ABS: engravable/drillable - the heat from the drill isn't enough to melt the ABS

I tested writing "SHIFT" onto some previous ABS prints, if I had to name the resulting font, it would probably be Spooky Comic Sans - so that wasn't very encouraging :)
On the other hand, the 0,8mm drill bit of dremel provides a satisfactory level of precision, the main challenge of drilling is the dust build up around the area

I might try printing a "2@" keycap with the highest precision and more appropriate configurations first, theoretically 0.1mm precision and 0.4mm nozzle of a printer should do a better job, yet since the text is on the first layer that precision is a bit clouded

[vvp]

You can FFF 3D print keycaps upside up.
These were printed with the bottom part of the keycap on the heat bed. The top part of the caps is DSA like.
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=43362.msg1507680#msg1507680
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=43362.msg1506154#msg1506154

I did the examples only as a test if I can 3D print stem well enough.
For legends, I considered laser etching. Just mounting a laser at the 3d printer head and writing custom gcode.

I did not play much with keycaps. I do not care about legends, ABS/PBT and stuff like that. Simple mass produced blanks are good enough for me. I care mostly only abut keyboard ergonomic shape and the firmware:
http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/katy-keyboard-or-k80cs-key80-contoured-split-t8524-30.html#p222016

Anyways if you would want the 3d model I used then I hope I can dig it out somewhere from my archives.

[KHAANNN]

You can FFF 3D print keycaps upside up.
These were printed with the bottom part of the keycap on the heat bed. The top part of the caps is DSA like.
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=43362.msg1507680#msg1507680
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=43362.msg1506154#msg1506154

I did the examples only as a test if I can 3D print stem well enough.
For legends, I considered laser etching. Just mounting a laser at the 3d printer head and writing custom gcode.

I did not play much with keycaps. I do not care about legends, ABS/PBT and stuff like that. Simple mass produced blanks are good enough for me. I care mostly only abut keyboard ergonomic shape and the firmware:
http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/katy-keyboard-or-k80cs-key80-contoured-split-t8524-30.html#p222016

Anyways if you would want the 3d model I used then I hope I can dig it out somewhere from my archives.

Thanks that would be great, I don't think I will use them, yet it would be great to print/test them

I had some further thinking about what I need,
My only problem with WASD keycaps is their glare/texture and longevity, the texture can be described as wet-ish, which also causes the glare issues, the coating also causes the longevity issues, as it wears off with heavy usage

I think the solution to all these problems could be matte coating, I have various matte coat sprays as I like to paint and coat stuff, I started testing some sprays on wasd-keycaps (by masking their sides)
If the result is pleasing, at least it could solve the glare/texture issues and hold me off until someone starts producing custom double shot cherry/oem keys or until I manage to craft a keyset myself :)

[vvp]

Here you go. The file is in public domain. There is no warranty. I do not claim the file is good for anything.
It is a FreeCAD source file. The best thing you can get if you want to modify it. Load it to FreeCAD and export as STL if you want the STL file for a slicer.
http://www.hck.sk/users/peter/pub/keycap.fcstd