Author Topic: [Orders closed] Aluminum poker case (Read 63352 times)

NorrisB · « **Reply #50 on:** Sun, 18 March 2012, 14:01:21 »

I'm on the fence on this one talk me into it, the middle looks wobbly as hell and there's no dip switchers, how did the cut out look (on the usb hole) on the final version?

morgofborg · « **Reply #51 on:** Sun, 18 March 2012, 14:08:34 »

^^Huh?

oneproduct · « **Reply #52 on:** Sun, 18 March 2012, 14:11:55 »

I remember a lot of people complaining about the Poker's PCB flexing a lot, but I was never really bothered by it all that much. In the Pure they added another screw in the middle to help solve that but this should also do nicely.

morgofborg · « **Reply #53 on:** Sun, 18 March 2012, 14:19:06 »

I thought you were saying the case looks wobbly as hell. I was like "I don't see that."

As far as the PCB flexing, it does, but at least for me, it's pretty minimal unless I'm really mashing keys.

oneproduct · « **Reply #54 on:** Sun, 18 March 2012, 14:22:26 »

I figure he meant either that or my camera work in the typing video where I had the camera sort of hanging on the collar of my shirt lol

demik · « **Reply #55 on:** Sun, 18 March 2012, 14:30:15 »

does the case sit flat? i also noticed some noises when you were hitting the top left hand corner. i mean, im sure some rubber feet will fix that but just wondering.

morgofborg · « **Reply #56 on:** Sun, 18 March 2012, 14:31:43 »

Yea, you need one of those helmet mounted ones. Only to be used to photograph keyboards.

oneproduct · « **Reply #57 on:** Sun, 18 March 2012, 14:43:08 »

Quote from: demik;549859

does the case sit flat? i also noticed some noises when you were hitting the top left hand corner. i mean, im sure some rubber feet will fix that but just wondering.

The metal insert on the prototype isn't attached to the base of the case so it's still free to move around inside it a bit so that's probably what the noise is. I haven't attached it because it's good to have it separable to take any measurements if I still need to. Both the case itself and the metal insert lie flat on a desk though, I'll take a quick video to show that later.

demik · « **Reply #58 on:** Sun, 18 March 2012, 14:45:11 »

ah, yeah it could probably be that then. thanks for answering my question

oneproduct · « **Reply #59 on:** Sun, 18 March 2012, 16:13:30 »

Quote from: NorrisB;549818

I'm on the fence on this one talk me into it, the middle looks wobbly as hell and there's no dip switchers, how did the cut out look (on the usb hole) on the final version?

The middle piece in the videos is not attached to the case yet, which it will be for the production versions, so even if there is a little unevenness to the metal, which is not completely out of the question due to what the pieces go through, it would be held firmly in place once attached.

For DIP switches, it would be fairly unusual to change them more than once or twice during the period you owned your Poker for. I basically changed them once when I first got it and have never touched them since. If you do need to get to them you just have to unscrew the PCB from the metal insert and change them then screw it back in, which I think is much better than having a huge hole in the bottom of the case to touch something that you basically never need to change.

There is no final one yet, but the cut should be square, or at least relatively so, the bending may make it less than perfect. If you look at the oldest video linked in the first post which was before deciding to make the hole simply extend along the bottom you can see the cut is pretty nice.

Overall though, this is for function rather than form. If you want something that simply looks pretty, hand made things will never match up to something made by a CNC machine. This however is much cheaper and will give similar benefits with a bit less cosmetic nicety. If you're not sure, you can just stick with your money instead.

I'll do my best to keep everything honest though so that people can make informed decisions. You're not the only one who has doubts though I'm sure, so if you're not comfortable with it there's no pressure, I'm not going to try to sweet talk people into buying one. I was originally just going to make one for myself but then I figured I'd see if I could supply some geekhackers at the same time. But again, these are hand made, so there will be slight imperfections and differences between each of them, like some might have a little cleaner welds or smoother finishes than others.

Reptile · « **Reply #60 on:** Sun, 18 March 2012, 16:21:55 »

pmed and payment sent

dippingriz · « **Reply #61 on:** Sun, 18 March 2012, 21:13:03 »

Edit my order to just one. Sending payment now.

oneproduct · « **Reply #62 on:** Sun, 18 March 2012, 21:42:55 »

Here's the full disclosure on the noise that NorrisB and demik heard in the typing video. Long story short, there's like a fraction of a millimeter of wobble on the metal insert but when it's attached it won't be an issue.

[video=youtube;5Y_0GYvy9SQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y_0GYvy9SQ[/video]

If anybody has any comments or question about anything don't be shy. I'm going to go visit tomorrow morning before class to talk about the tacking and glass beading the top edge.

oneproduct · « **Reply #63 on:** Mon, 19 March 2012, 11:44:35 »

Just got back from my visit this morning with some good news:

1. confirmed that the metal insert will be tacked to the base which is a bit nicer than gluing.
2. Told them to glass bead the top edge in addition to the outside of the case.
3. They told me about an anodyzing/powdercoating place nearby, so I'm going to go take a peek and see what can be done there at some point.
4. I spoke with the owner of the company, who kind of double checks everything before it goes to production and he had suggestions to the design that should make it even better, mostly concerning the metal insert.

morgofborg · « **Reply #64 on:** Mon, 19 March 2012, 13:11:12 »

Nice, definitely look into finishes; that would be cool if they could ship totally good to go as far as that goes.

Oh, and put me down for a second one; I know I want another poker, and it will feel incomplete without a case if my other has one

I get paid on Thursday so can pay then.

Now I just need to find someone that wants to part with theirs in either blues or browns

h2oxide · « **Reply #65 on:** Mon, 19 March 2012, 20:43:15 »

Any chance of seeing the final product before we have to pay?

mkawa · « **Reply #66 on:** Mon, 19 March 2012, 20:54:22 »

i talked to a local metal place. it's <10$ a piece in lots of 30-40 to do either powdercoating or anodizing (including their thick anodize process). they bead blast when they anodize, and they chemical treat when they powdercoat, so if oneproduct doesn't do finishing and coloring, every unit that goes through me will probably get completely bead blasted.

NorrisB · « **Reply #67 on:** Mon, 19 March 2012, 20:57:12 »

Morgo there that group buy for pokers

morgofborg · « **Reply #68 on:** Mon, 19 March 2012, 21:02:58 »

Quote from: mkawa;550986

i talked to a local metal place. it's <10$ a piece in lots of 30-40 to do either powdercoating or anodizing (including their thick anodize process). they bead blast when they anodize, and they chemical treat when they powdercoat, so if oneproduct doesn't do finishing and coloring, every unit that goes through me will probably get completely bead blasted.

Nice. So we would just send you that $10 or whatever it ends up being when we pay you for the shipping from your place to us?

Yea, Norris, I saw that group buy, but I think I sat on the fence just a little too long; I think they are all taken already.

oneproduct · « **Reply #69 on:** Mon, 19 March 2012, 22:28:18 »

Quote from: h2oxide;550981

Any chance of seeing the final product before we have to pay?

During my visit today with the owner it sounded like he was going to make a second prototype because he wanted to make some changes. If he does I'll take some pictures of that but there won't be any pictures of the final product until it's made and they're only going to make them if we pay for them of course.

Quote from: morgofborg;550995

Nice. So we would just send you that $10 or whatever it ends up being when we pay you for the shipping from your place to us?

Yea, Norris, I saw that group buy, but I think I sat on the fence just a little too long; I think they are all taken already.

There's some for sale right now in the classifieds.

morgofborg · « **Reply #70 on:** Mon, 19 March 2012, 22:39:15 »

Quote from: oneproduct;551060

There's some for sale right now in the classifieds.

Just bought one with Blues lol. Now I just got to get paid for that second case

Definitely put me down for a second one though, I'm good for it.

metafour · « **Reply #71 on:** Mon, 19 March 2012, 22:42:18 »

Quote from: mkawa;550986

i talked to a local metal place. it's <10$ a piece in lots of 30-40 to do either powdercoating or anodizing (including their thick anodize process). they bead blast when they anodize, and they chemical treat when they powdercoat, so if oneproduct doesn't do finishing and coloring, every unit that goes through me will probably get completely bead blasted.

I take it everyone would have to at least choose the same process and possibly the same color in order to get the <$10 rate? Any word on colors?

Nighted · « **Reply #72 on:** Mon, 19 March 2012, 22:55:24 »

Sorry bro, I wanted stainless steel. I live in a major mining town and have plenty of machine shops around. I was looking for something quick and easy.

oneproduct · « **Reply #73 on:** Mon, 19 March 2012, 22:57:06 »

Also, does anybody have or know somebody who has a Pure? I think that the only difference is that there's an extra screw in the middle and if I could figure out exactly where it was (specific measurements) I could probably make the case work with either. If somebody does find one, make sure that nothing else is different either.

jonnybastard · « **Reply #74 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 00:14:08 »

I don't think the Pure is being released until early April unfortunately.

mkawa · « **Reply #75 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 01:46:17 »

well, supposedly vortex is going to make and ship some pures this week. if i can get one of those i can give you the location of the last screw.

hell, i've asked if i can buy all of them. we'll see what happens with that...

also, i'm going to see if i can combine the coloring service with the swede's gb. my guess is that prices will go up if we get different colors, but if i only offer a couple reasonable colors i think the difference won't be too bad.

jonnybastard · « **Reply #76 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 01:59:41 »

If you manage to get hold of multiple Pure's I'd be keen to purchase one from you :biggrin1:

irjoe · « **Reply #77 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 02:52:18 »

Can I call dibs on pures... is there such a thing as dibs?
I will gladly throw my wallet at the screen multiple times.

emptythecache · « **Reply #78 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 05:13:31 »

do we want to make another thread to vote for finishes/colors to keep this thread from getting too cluttered?

morgofborg · « **Reply #79 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 08:37:56 »

Quote from: emptythecache;551297

do we want to make another thread to vote for finishes/colors to keep this thread from getting too cluttered?

I imagine we will once both oneproduct and mkawa get definitive answers on price and color options.

oneproduct · « **Reply #80 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 11:20:30 »

I may be able to guess where the extra screw is on the Pure. Assuming that it's exactly in the middle of G and H, you can see in these pictures that it has vertical play so I could put a tapped hole right in the middle horizontally and even if I'm off a little bit vertically it would be okay. There's also an extra integrated circuit along the bottom where the spacebar is and I could make an overgenerous cut for it.

Here are some pictures of it (the 4th one is the most relevant):
http://kbtalking.cool3c.com/article/50499

Could somebody take a picture of the bottom side of their Poker? Mine's at the shop again.

morgofborg · « **Reply #81 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 11:35:07 »

I would, but it's the only board I have at work right now. So I would have to reassemble it before I could even type the post lol.

mkawa · « **Reply #82 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 12:37:16 »

i can tonight oneproduct

i shot off a quick email to the plating place on how pricing changes with multiple colors

also let us know how it goes with the plating place nearby you. if they're a comparable price we may just want to go with them

morgofborg · « **Reply #83 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 12:50:03 »

Quote from: mkawa;551552

i can tonight oneproduct

i shot off a quick email to the plating place on how pricing changes with multiple colors

Just throwing out another vote for the previously mentioned gunmetal color. And a blue, similar to imsto's, but maybe lighter. Like a baby blue

emptythecache · « **Reply #84 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 14:52:56 »

yes! gunmetal! (This is not a third vote, just reiterating the first vote.)

dippingriz · « **Reply #85 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 18:29:31 »

Black or white for color is fine with me.

KyesaRRi · « **Reply #86 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 19:17:31 »

Simple black or white is fine with me too, possibly going to spray it myself if this drives the cost up too much.

Changdrew · « **Reply #87 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 19:31:24 »

Payment finally sent

Can't wait for these

mkawa · « **Reply #88 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 20:56:52 »

oneproduct: would you prefer to deal with coloring service and US shipping service in this thread to keep things in one place? or do you want me to start another thread for that stuff.

i don't think we should try to guess where the last screw on the pure is. in fact, i don't think we should even assume that the existing screws will maintain their positions at this point. let's get a pure in hand before we start changing the design for it.

oneproduct · « **Reply #89 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 21:41:29 »

You can talk about it here for now since this is where all the discussion is happening and then once the cases actually get into your hands maybe start a different thread to formalize coloring orders and local shipping.

Judging by the pictures I'm pretty confident that they decided to keep the same general PCB layout for the Pure and that the existing screws as well as other features, such as the DIP switches, have stayed in place. The new IC is probably to either control the LEDs or maybe does something for the new tilde and escape keys. I wouldn't need to change the design except to tap one more hole, which has no real penalty if I'm wrong, and to cut another whole in the metal insert for the new IC, which would remove a bit of weight but shouldn't affect stability really. I'm interested to hear people's thoughts about whether it's worth trying to make it compatible with the Pure.

mkawa · « **Reply #90 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 21:45:58 »

my feeling is that this is extra effort and time that is only worth it if it actually pays off. so, if we want to do it, we do it right; we wait until someone gets us accurate measurements and then make the changes. i'm all for doing it right, but i don't think it's worth half-assing it.

wilsongunawan · « **Reply #91 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 21:49:10 »

I want it compactible for pure.. I don't really like the pure alu case but I like the backlid, this case is just awesome.

mkawa · « **Reply #92 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 21:57:55 »

it would certainly be nice. but i also don't want to make your buddy's company wait a month for this job to be finished...

jonnybastard · « **Reply #93 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 22:23:02 »

If it ends up compatible with the Pure I'll add a 2nd case to my order but not that phased if it doesn't happen for whatever reason.

mkawa · « **Reply #94 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 22:43:32 »

hmm, no response from vortex yet. hopefully qtan's talking with them on getting the first run of pures to the US...

oneproduct · « **Reply #95 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 22:48:02 »

Would be happy to just have their blueprints, but I don't think that's something they'd want to hand out, especially if they knew what we were using it for.

I like the look of their case, but I use/would use the Poker/Pure as a travel keyboard and would worry about the stress on the side of the keys as I put the keyboard in my bag, so I like the walls of this one better for that.

mkawa · « **Reply #96 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 23:01:10 »

ok, so the current situation is: we have about 20 units on order, and it's still pretty hard to get hold of a poker, so it's not clear how many more we'll get in the next week. if we wait until pures get to the US and we amend the design we could get 10-20 more cases ordered, but we'll have to wait at least a couple weeks..

another option is we just get these 20 cases made as a trial run and then test the waters with a new design when there are enough pures in people's hands to generate interest again.

keep in mind the pcb will be able to handle backlighting, will have a better function layer etc; it's basically a poker 2.0

oneproduct · « **Reply #97 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 23:35:53 »

I don't think I have enough flexibility with this to go with an order of 20. I'm hoping that we get to at least 30 orders and then I'd order up to 35 myself if I need to, which was the minimum range I had asked for a quote for (not that it's necessarily solid so I'll see). I already asked if it would be okay if we were a little short of what I was expecting, but the 23 we're sitting at is quite a bit lower than what the /two/ separate interest checks sort of showed, and that's not counting the people who wanted stainless steel. I had 38 people who said they were interested in aluminum and something like 16 for stainless steel and figured some might convert but I guess people have changed their mind.

I can understand though, some people are kind of scared off by the less than perfect nature of this, but I think it's pretty good for $80.

Delaying production would probably be okay, but doing a run of 20 and doing a second run probably isn't going to happen, or if we did a second run it would probably be more expensive since this run is kind of a favor for me. Even if we had 50 orders for this, at $80 a piece it's only $4000 total which is kind of like chump change to them, so what we're doing isn't really all that profitable for them for the amount of time and resources it takes to handle it.

mkawa · « **Reply #98 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 23:44:13 »

hmm, ok. let's keep it open, refine the design and nail down production + finishing while we wait for the pure then (it should hopefully be a couple weeks max -- qtan thinks he'll have some in two weeks, and vortex keeps making noise about producing some shippable but unclaimed product this week.

imo i think the finishing will pull the nail-biters in.

morgofborg · « **Reply #99 on:** Tue, 20 March 2012, 23:49:36 »

Yea, I can wait a bit longer too, I guess. Kind of a bummer for those of us that don't have any intention of getting a pure right now, but I'll wait for the benefit of everyone, and hope more people jump on board here.

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Author Topic: [Orders closed] Aluminum poker case (Read 63352 times)