3D print a curved keyboard (like MS sculp) feasible for long-term use?

[mamcx]

I wonder how good is the 3D printing tech now. Just looking at first result at google (http://www.shapeways.com/) I see is possible to have different materials.

I wanna to recreate the shape of the MS ergo keybs for make them mechanical. The curve shape plus the holes for the keys is the hardest part, but wonder if I can "just print them".

Too naive of real?

And if not just for prototype but for actualy use it as the body for long-term use? Or 3d print materials will break apart?

[Zekromtor]

vvp 3d printed a great shell for his custom keyboard. You don't need crazy tolerances for jamming a switch into something.

[xtrafrood]

I guess it would depend on the 3D print materials and the method. PLA or resin printing can yield some extremely detailed prints. But time/cost/durability vs. CNC is lacking. I like 3D printing because you only use what you need but there is a reason why people used it only for prototyping before you could pick up a printer at your local bestbuy. Of course I have no idea what kind of printer you own/have access to or what kind of design you have in mind. Maybe you want your case to be printed in stainless steel? Brass? Totally feasible and holy guacamole there are a lot of material choices

Maybe some CNC'd PVC? From Falbatech.pl

[suicidal_orange]

Not exactly curved but jeffgran's Manuform is 3D printed and he's been using it for six months and seems happy.  Give it a go

[mamcx]

Of course I have no idea what kind of printer you own/have access to or what kind of design you have in mind.

I don't have a printer. Just tougth in use any service that do the print for me (like the link I provide). Equally valid would be the milling, of course I wish to keep the cost under control.

The design is just the MS Sculp or the Elite keyboard. I will not do anything crazy. In fact if MS just release a mech ergo keyboard I will be happy.

[Leslieann]

I wonder how good is the 3D printing tech now. Just looking at first result at google (http://www.shapeways.com/) I see is possible to have different materials.

I wanna to recreate the shape of the MS ergo keybs for make them mechanical. The curve shape plus the holes for the keys is the hardest part, but wonder if I can "just print them".

Too naive of real?

And if not just for prototype but for actualy use it as the body for long-term use? Or 3d print materials will break apart?

3d printing hasn't changed much in the last 3 years.

Most people are still using roughly the same systems, Shapeways is still expensive... VERY expensive. By the time you get a keyboard case from Shapeways, unless prices have dropped significantly, you could buy a couple pretty nice home printers for what you will pay. Will it last, yes. Shapeways can do metal, but the plastic they use is the same plastic other cases are made from (ABS).

That said, that's not going to be what causes the price to go insane.
I'm sure you've probably seen a tv show where they fire up cad and mill off something amazing. It happens, IF they started with a pattern they use regularly, if you're working from scratch, not so much. Not familiar with the machine, even less so.

Ever use a printer or mill? Ever do cad work? Every machine has different tolerances and people make mistakes. So let's say you make your keyboard and you somehow manage to figure out how to do it cheaply, you send it to Shapeways, they quote you $1000 for ABS. You do it, get the case and nothing fits. Your tolerances are too tight. So you fix that in cad and do another, this time you realize you forgot the USB port. So you fix that, but now you realize the cable routing for the USB is terrible. You finally get it right and now decide to change to aluminum, or stainless... All your tolerances just went out the window and your price just went to $3000 per test. Change to someone with a large home printer, again, your tolerances just changed. Finally decide to have a local machine shop just mill it, your tolerances just changed again. Also, designing for a mill is different than for a common home printer due to how they work (overhangs are treated VERY different).

I'm not trying to dissuade you, I'm just trying to make you have realistic expectations. Very few projects work well the first time, especially if you are new to cad and doing something more complex than a cube with a hole in it. And no, that isn't an exaggeration I Iaid out, that really can happen. Ask anyone here with a printer and/or does cad. It's VERY different looking at something on a screen than it is holding it in your hand. You don't see how you can't reach that screw to assemble it, you don't see how the cord may be kinked, or that you simply forgot that last screw hole. It happens, A LOT. I have yet to see someone (even someone skilled) design something remotely complex and have it work the first time, even on machines they know. There is simply a lot going on and things get hidden easily. You can twist and turn it to your hearts content, but it's too easy to miss something unless you render every single thing, including the tools, and you can still miss something.

And I didn't even get into shrinkage. You know metal changes with heat, but it's nothing compared to plastic. Plastic shrinks as it cools, up to 6% or more, which can distort your object, you never see this normally because most plastics are injection molded under pressure. On printers like Makerbot, this can cause the base to warp or even cause the print head to snag and shift or the whole print can simply pull off the bed creating a rats nest, or worse, a fire.


3d printing is amazing, and it can be very cheap (so can milling), IF you own the machine. Your time, for hobbies is cheap, plastic is cheap. Someone else's time for your hobbies is not.

[Criterus]

I think only really feasible if you had the printer.

I'm working on a 50% that I printed the plate and it took me a couple iterations before I was happy enough with the plate to move forward. There are just some specific things that need to be tweaked to make it work and it's only really useful if you have instant turn around where you can print, adjust the model and print again. It would get expensive and time consuming if you had to outsource the printing for every iteration.

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=81243.msg2137903#msg2137903



 

[vvp]

I have some experience in the area too.

First thing is that Leslieann is right. Assume more iterations and some fiddling with tolerances. You can kind of mitigate the tolerances problem if you add e.g. about 0.1 mm to all holes in which something should fit. That is about right number for RepRap FFF 3d pritner (ABS/PLA plastics). Maybe it will be a bit too much. In such a case just use glue. Anyway the point is that a cheap RepRap calibrated to about 0.1 mm precision is enough.

ABS plastics is enough from the strength point of view. You may go metal but in such a case it it more for the "metallic" look than the strength.

FFF 3d printers have hard time to print parts bigger than 20x20 cm without significant warping. Use adhesion pads even for smaller prints than 20x20 cm. If you need bigger parts then divide them into smaller pieces, print separately, and glue them together.

E.g. here is a picture of an FFF 3d printed keyboard. It is used for more than a year now and there is no strength problem. It took 7 iterations to get this shape right:

And here is a proposal for the 8-th iteration. Of course, it is far from finished:


If you are interested in more information then you can find it here:
https://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/katy-keyboard-or-k80cs-key80-contoured-split-t8524.html
There are at least 3 more 3d printed contoured keyboard case projects. The links to them are posted in the above thread too. I always post a link to any 3d printed contoured keyboard case project I know about.

[mamcx]

Ok, so is clear now this is not a easy way to do this. Now I'm thinking the most possible route is do this in wood, but then the plate will be problematic.

I see exist some options where the keyb is flat (where thing become easier, I suppose) and put in a angle, but then I'm unsure if the feel well be as with the MS Ergo keyboards.

[vvp]

If you require a contoured switch plate then 3d printing is the easiest and cheapest way to do it. It is just not as easy/cheap as you expected. The point is that you will almost for sure need 2-3 iterations and this gets expensive through shapeways (or similar services). So you should consider getting a 3d printer. But buying a finished one is expensive and building a RepRap is a time consuming project (probably more time consuming than the keyboard project itself).

The nearest competitor to 3d printing would be CNC. But you need more than a cheap 3 DOF CNC to mill contoured switch plate. E.g. I would need at least 5 DOF CNC for my keyboard. Those are much more expensive. Also you must realize that it is much easier to design part which is 3d print-able than a part which is CNC mill-able. CNC puts more restrictions on the possible shapes.

I do not have any experience with carving but I doubt one can hand-carve keyboard plate precisely enough.

PS: In my opinion, MS ergonomic keyboard is hardly ergonomic if it is ergonomic at all. It is not that far from a flat keyboard. You can just get a split keyboard and tilt it using an appropriate stand to get almost the same result. Kinesis Advantage or Maltron are ergonomic. And they already sell with mechanical switches. And Kinesis is not even that expensive.

Edit: Only grammar in the PS section.

[Charger]

If you require a contoured switch plate then 3d printing is the easiest and cheapest way to do it. It is just not as easy/cheap as you expected. The point is that you will almost for sure need 2-3 iterations and this gets expensive through shapeways (or similar services). So you should consider getting a 3d printer. But buying a finished one is expensive and building a RepRap is a time consuming project (probably more time consuming than the keyboard project itself).

The nearest competitor to 3d printing would be CNC. But you need more than a cheap 3 DOF CNC to mill contoured switch plate. E.g. I would need at least 5 DOF CNC for my keyboard. Those are much more expensive. Also you must realize that it is much easier to design part which is 3d print-able than a part which is CNC mill-able. CNC puts more restrictions on the possible shapes.

I do not have any experience with carving but I doubt one can hand-carve keyboard plate precisely enough.

PS: In my opinion, MS ergonomic keyboard is hardly ergonomic at all and it is hot that far from flat keyboard so that you cannot just get any split keyboard and tilt it using an appropriate stand. Kinesis Advantage or Maltron are ergonomic. And they sell with mechanical switches already. And Kinesis is not even that expensive.

I wonder if it would be cheaper in the long run to buy a 3d printer or a cnc router for doing something like that yourself. Although with a cnc router it would involve a lot of different setups to really get it to work without a 5 axis setup like you were saying.

[xtrafrood]

If you require a contoured switch plate then 3d printing is the easiest and cheapest way to do it. It is just not as easy/cheap as you expected. The point is that you will almost for sure need 2-3 iterations and this gets expensive through shapeways (or similar services). So you should consider getting a 3d printer. But buying a finished one is expensive and building a RepRap is a time consuming project (probably more time consuming than the keyboard project itself).

The nearest competitor to 3d printing would be CNC. But you need more than a cheap 3 DOF CNC to mill contoured switch plate. E.g. I would need at least 5 DOF CNC for my keyboard. Those are much more expensive. Also you must realize that it is much easier to design part which is 3d print-able than a part which is CNC mill-able. CNC puts more restrictions on the possible shapes.

I do not have any experience with carving but I doubt one can hand-carve keyboard plate precisely enough.

PS: In my opinion, MS ergonomic keyboard is hardly ergonomic at all and it is hot that far from flat keyboard so that you cannot just get any split keyboard and tilt it using an appropriate stand. Kinesis Advantage or Maltron are ergonomic. And they sell with mechanical switches already. And Kinesis is not even that expensive.

I wonder if it would be cheaper in the long run to buy a 3d printer or a cnc router for doing something like that yourself. Although with a cnc router it would involve a lot of different setups to really get it to work without a 5 axis setup like you were saying.

I would love to see a CNC machine that can carve up some stainless steel plates Not the X-Carve, I know this much

[Charger]

I wonder if it would be cheaper in the long run to buy a 3d printer or a cnc router for doing something like that yourself. Although with a cnc router it would involve a lot of different setups to really get it to work without a 5 axis setup like you were saying.

I would love to see a CNC machine that can carve up some stainless steel plates Not the X-Carve, I know this much

i would go with aluminum myself lol. X carve with a router on it can do aluminum but the x carve in general is rather weak in design. You would need a decent cnc mill to do stainless and not just a cnc router.

[xtrafrood]

I wonder if it would be cheaper in the long run to buy a 3d printer or a cnc router for doing something like that yourself. Although with a cnc router it would involve a lot of different setups to really get it to work without a 5 axis setup like you were saying.

I would love to see a CNC machine that can carve up some stainless steel plates Not the X-Carve, I know this much

i would go with aluminum myself lol. X carve with a router on it can do aluminum but the x carve in general is rather weak in design. You would need a decent cnc mill to do stainless and not just a cnc router.

Sums up what I was thinking almost perfectly

[Findecanor]

There was someone who managed to make curved keywells for snapping switches using laser-cut thin wood -- because that is slightly flexible and could bend. Really clever. I'm sorry I don't remember who did it.

Each column is two strips laminated together and snapped to a frame.

[vvp]

I wonder if it would be cheaper in the long run to buy a 3d printer or a cnc router for doing something like that yourself. Although with a cnc router it would involve a lot of different setups to really get it to work without a 5 axis setup like you were saying.

I do not know about CNC prices but you can get a very decent RepRap kit for about $1000.(*) But this requires you to built it from the kit and that is a big project. If you think you would enjoy building it then it is worth it. You can use it for many keyboard experiments.
The quote for my K80CS keyboard case from shapeways was about 270 € in May 2015. If you assume you will need 4 iterations to get the keyboard shape just right for you then it makes sense to consider your own RepRap.

(*) You can get much cheaper RepRap kits (definitely below $500) but then quality suffers. I would not recommend it.