geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: N8N on Sat, 03 December 2011, 08:10:33
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at the request of another reader, here are some pics of various space bars
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Top to bottom original space bar from Leopold Tactile Force Tenkeyless; WASD keyboards space bar with posts glued in for Noppoo Choc Pro and Cherry; Cherry PBT space bar with extra post glued in for non-Cherry keyboards.
Calipers in 1st pic are set to C-C distance for Leopold stabilizers; in 2nd pic set to C-C distance for Noppoo stabilizers.
Sadly, I can't be any more precise on my Noppoo measurements because the stabilizer thing was apparently glued into the space bar on the original Noppoo space bar, so I had to get a little rough with it to make my gluing jig. However the one pictured has been working fine on that keyboard.
Based on what I see here, if someone wanted to make a truly universal space bar that would fit Cherry, Filco, Leopold *and* Noppoo, the stabilizer mounts would be awful close together, might require a new wider design for the stabilizer posts with a double cruciform to accomodate both Leopold and Noppoo.
I swear there was a thread earlier where someone had posted dims of the Leopold and I'd posted the dims of the Noppoo and it kind of looked like maybe a Leopold space bar would work on Noppoo, but after actually acquiring a Leopold (today was the first time the space bar was off of it) I don't think that that is feasible. The dims have to be exact for the Cherry-style stabilizer on the Leopold and I think it is too far off to work on the Noppoo, even though there's a little allowable slop with the Costar design.
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I just now realized something after looking at those pics - I actually had to pull the space bar off my Leopold again to verify. If you look at the Cherry space bar, the little stiffening ribs just inboard of the stabilizer posts exactly line up with the Leopold stabilizer post locations.
Just to clarify, even though I did say tenkeyless in my original post, that space bar is off a Leopold FC200RE/AB "tactile force" not a FC500, if it makes any difference.