[IC]Titanium alloy 3D printed keys

[damorgue]

Cherry's engineers are deliberately trying to screw with me. I made the square stem design I made the same size as the cylinder that is normally used. That is, the diameter of the cylinder was used as the width of the square stem. One should expect it to fit into the hole then, yes?

No!


See that little notch in the housing above the stem in this picture. It allows for a cylindrical fitting of a cap to pass into the hole even though the fitting is larger than the stem. If you ask me, it looks like the entire key was designed and ready when they realized, oh crap, there is too little space for the stem attachment of the cap and then they added that small feature afterwards.

Ni biggie, but it means I have to decrease the size of the stem fitting a bit.

[mkawa]

well, one nice thing about using a much stronger material is that the whole stem business can be significantly thinner than an ABS cap and still end up being a heck of a lot stronger. i suspect what happened is actually that they increased the thickness of the stem rather late in the design game when they weren't getting the durability they wanted out of the original stem thickness.

girldc has a rather clever solution to this by the way. if you want pics, pm me. i suspect you'll end up figuring it out yourself though (or already have!)

[damorgue]

I have decreased the size so that it is no longer square. It is now the same rectangular shape as the hole, although a bit smaller on each side ofc. I may make it square again by decreasing the width since the material on the sides is unnecessary, as you stated, there is no way in hell that these break.

To ensure countability with switches that are mounted upside down (I have seen it done to move the led to the top), or sideways (for whatever reason), I am going to make it so small that it fits in all directions. I see no reason why not. I originally made them as copies of Cherry's design but I don't need to make the fittings that large because of the strength of these.

[mkawa]

I have decreased the size so that it is no longer square. It is now the same rectangular shape as the hole, although a bit smaller on each side ofc. I may make it square again by decreasing the width since the material on the sides is unnecessary, as you stated, there is no way in hell that these break.

To ensure countability with switches that are mounted upside down (I have seen it done to move the led to the top), or sideways (for whatever reason), I am going to make it so small that it fits in all directions. I see no reason why not. I originally made them as copies of Cherry's design but I don't need to make the fittings that large because of the strength of these.

yep! that's what girldc does as well. perfect!

[__red__]

I decided to make a model m key cap cover.

Show Image

Would you be willing to share the .stl for that IBM Model M cap?  I have a reprap that I'd love to try printing it on.

Thanks,


__red__

[damorgue]

Sure, but I didn't spend as much time on that one yet, as I have been focusing on the MX caps. As a matter in fact, I have pretty much only done the outside of that one and I will need to model the inside from the outside of the cap underneath, to make it fit better. If it is for testing purposes to see if your reprap would be capable of doing it, I can send you the one I have now.

[Tristor]

I've just got a Ducky Shine II, and the one thing I really don't like about it is the keycaps... they seem significantly flimsier than the keycaps that are on my Deck Legend or the two-piece caps on my Unicomps and Model Ms.  The problem with almost all the other keycap replacements available is that they're not designed with backlights in mind.  If you were to make a set that optionally is laser cut with clear plastic of some kind inserted so that the backlight would shine through, I'd be interested in purchasing a full set.  After you have samples, I'd be interested to see what the weight difference between a titanium key vs an ABS or PBT standard key is, and also what the impact resistance changes to (I believe a good mechanical keyboard should be able to double as a weapon in a pinch and still be functional afterwards without repair).

Thanks!

[razorsharpgears]

What's the progress on this project?

[The_Ed]

Titanium spacebars were already done by Feng/Hammer. I don't know if these 3D printed keys will ever go anywhere though.

[razorsharpgears]

I see, well thanks ^_^