geekhack Projects > Making Stuff Together!
[BUILD] Magic Keyboard 2 but mechanical
WizMeister:
--- Quote from: ankit on Sat, 04 November 2023, 11:58:10 ---insanely cool, can't wait to see the finished result
--- End quote ---
Awesome!!! Please keep posting updates :cool: :thumb: :cool: :thumb:
Applet:
Fun project! Thanks for sharing the process with us ;D
Limentic:
Hi guys,
A quick update for you all, I've been very busy this month and haven't had much time to work on the project, but I've still got some news for you.
As you've seen in the previous post, I've got a 3D printer now, thanks to a friend of mine that has gone into the navy and left me his printer.
He's said:
"I'm not going to have much use of it where I am going, so you can have it for a while xD"
That's great because I can now print everything by myself and don't have to go to the local hackerspace anymore or rely on a 3D printing service to iterate on designs.
The most complicated part of this keycap creation was getting the tolerances right for the touch ID sensor. As you can imagine, no one has the dimensions for it, and my digital calipers are from the dollar store, so they are not very accurate.
Here's a picture of all the attempts I've made to get the tolerances right, and even now it's not 100% perfect; it's 99% there.
I'm happy with it because I'm not sure if Ender 3 is even precise enough to get those tolerances tight enough.
I was trying to replicate the same principle as the original keycap, where the touch ID sensor is mounted to the bottom part of the keycap and a cover is placed on top of it with a little bit of double-sided tape to hold it in place.
It's the same thing that Apple does on the magic keyboard anyway, so I thought it would be a good idea to do the same.
Here are some pictures of the whole process of sanding the keycap, priming it, painting it, and finally putting the touch ID sensor in place.
But as you can see, the small gap is quite noticeable, and after discussing with a friend of mine, he suggested a different approach.
Instead of having only a cover on top of the sensor, why not make the cover the whole keycap but gutted. The sensor would be mounted to a bottom part where the keycap stem is, and the cover would be mounted on top of it.
I had already thought about this, but I didn't think it would be possible because nothing would really hold the cover / keycap body in place, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it could work.
Because in reality you will never push on the cover, you will only push on the sensor, so the cover doesn't need much strength, a bit of double-sided tape and a tight fit should be enough to hold it in place.
And of course, it worked!
Here's pictures of the final keycap:
The 3D model of the keycap needs to be redone, but I'm happy with the result for now.
I'm going to start to open source the project soon, I'm just waiting for the case to be done and the PCB to be finalized, and I'll put everything on GitHub.
That's it for today, I'll keep you updated on the progress of the project!
See you next time!
WizMeister:
Awesome news!!! This will be my first attempt at a custom made keyboard, once it’s open sourced 😂
Nlight:
I don't know if the printer you're using is a classic fmt of not. But if it is, keep in mind that using it with ABS has a huge advantage : acetone. Indeed acetone can be used instead of any glue, it will fuse ABS together.
That way you could pressure fit your key together and use a little bit of acetone to seal in place. That could cause some problems if you ever need to disassemble it though.
I made a plate in several parts fused together with acetone, it's super strong.
Anyway, great job man, even though you're just a Mac bourgeois (révolution ! A mooooort ! 😋)
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