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geekhack Projects => Making Stuff Together! => Topic started by: Chemoletter on Wed, 23 April 2014, 14:00:04

Title: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: Chemoletter on Wed, 23 April 2014, 14:00:04
hi folks,

as a noob with keyboards and having watched all the starcraft II casts for a night i stumbled upon whitefiredragon's youtube video about building a custom keyboard using the phantom pcb. three months later, having signed up to geekhack.org, having bought a soldering kit and everything else, having spent countless hours searching for parts like stabilisers in germany ( and not having found them here ), i've completed my (first) custom board. it is a phantom ISO 1.25x german keyboard with blue switches and cherry stabs ( thanks to whiskytango for providing my board with stabs - would be uncomfortable without them )

some of you may have seen this:

http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=56161.msg1270713#msg1270713

so this was my idea of a case for my phantom. it should be accessible all the time without screws etc. in my original case-post the case was to be lasered. at my place they wanted to charge 100€ just for the lasering and i said "no way". so i went to my university where they'd do it for 25€. too bad that their lasercutter was broken at the time. so i decided to mill it which was a bad idea with this material. as you can see the edges are pretty uneven which i tried to compensate for by sanding quite a lot ( you should have seen it when it came out of the milling machine... ). the result is rough to the eye but very smooth to the touch in deed. all parts are glued together with "ponal holzleim". the end result was spray coated unprofessionally ( see the white stains ) with matte clear spray coating.

but besides that i have to say that i totally LOVE the case, it is heavy like a brick and sturdy as hell. it's a tank seriously. and it has this rough underground style to it. ( well the next one will be lasered for sure and will look and fit better at the end )

i wanted to thank you all for your support, your suggestions and your help. this is an awesome community!!!

PICTURES:
[attachimg=1][attachimg=2][attachimg=3][attachimg=4]
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: jdcarpe on Wed, 23 April 2014, 14:01:34
Very nice! :thumb:
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: Flyersfan1 on Wed, 23 April 2014, 14:05:33
wow!! love that case!! great work.
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: agodinhost on Thu, 24 April 2014, 20:23:21
awesome handwork man!
how about the weight?
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: Chemoletter on Fri, 25 April 2014, 05:48:54
heavy for a wooden case i think. the recipe is 80g glue, 1,15kg of wood and roughly about 250g of enamel. that makes 1,48kg/2,2 lbs for the case. ( there are some rubber strips that i'm going to apply when i can spare some time. so add another 10g maybe ). the next case i'm going to build will be either the same material but lasercut - so no underground looks but nice burnmarks - or some kind of steel/wooden combination. but that is to be figured out designwise so it makes sense. ( and i will have to take a thorough look into my wallet for that )

speaking of money, is it just me or are the prices for material and cutwork in germany kind of insanely high? i hear a lot of people here doing their own designs in the US and paying moderate prices for good quality. that makes me wonder if it wouldn't be better for me having a bigger bunch of stuff manufactured somewhere other than germany. i mean this whole keyboard project ripped me off like nothing else and my keycaps aren't even of high quality... just wondering.
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: metalliqaz on Fri, 25 April 2014, 06:03:10
Congrats!  It's awesome,
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: whiskytango on Fri, 25 April 2014, 06:11:42
Nice dude! Did you sort out the stab issues?
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: Chemoletter on Fri, 25 April 2014, 06:37:19
stabs on backspace, enter and right shift are now working perfectly. spacebar stab needed a gentle scraping with a knife and runs smoothly now too. for some reason my F12 key does not respond on aqua. i'll resolder it to make sure. anybody know a remapping program that supports german layouts? ( ö,ä,ü an so on)
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: blackbox on Fri, 25 April 2014, 08:05:41
Smart case!
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: agodinhost on Fri, 25 April 2014, 09:15:19
You did liked the PCB?
I assembled one last week and to be totally honest I didn't liked at all the MK PCB. There are a few missing titles (the caps lock led/resistor, maybe because of the white background) and the quality of the plated holes was kinda poor.

The most annoying detail, IMHO, is the limited options for the diodes. Actually the only option you do have is to solder or not the diodes.
I do love the layout, but I'm wondering about other options for a TKL board.
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: metalliqaz on Fri, 25 April 2014, 12:47:24
Quote from: Chemoletter on Fri, 25 April 2014, 06:37:19
stabs on backspace, enter and right shift are now working perfectly. spacebar stab needed a gentle scraping with a knife and runs smoothly now too. for some reason my F12 key does not respond on aqua. i'll resolder it to make sure. anybody know a remapping program that supports german layouts? ( ö,ä,ü an so on)

Read what I said when I responded to you in my thread.  The layout is supported, the only thing missing is the internationalization of the GUI.  For that I would need volunteers that are native speakers.
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: Chemoletter on Tue, 29 April 2014, 01:17:26
you know something about the proper type of rubber to get for anti slip feet? yesterday i tried to buy some but i didn't because after smelling all the softernizers in it i thought it would give me cancer within a week and i got sick immediately. now i got myself some foamy rubbery stuff with rather good grip but it is difficult to apply because of the porous nature of the material. i don't have hot glue, just double sided tape. any recommendations for applying this sucker underneath my case?
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: Heezy on Tue, 29 April 2014, 01:19:48
That looks cute, gonna paint it?
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: Chemoletter on Tue, 29 April 2014, 01:27:47
already coated it with clear matte enamel. i'll stick to the grungy looks this time and leave it as it is. the next one will be painted for sure.
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: zeroni13 on Tue, 29 April 2014, 04:54:45
Quote from: agodinhost on Fri, 25 April 2014, 09:15:19
You did liked the PCB?
I assembled one last week and to be totally honest I didn't liked at all the MK PCB. There are a few missing titles (the caps lock led/resistor, maybe because of the white background) and the quality of the plated holes was kinda poor.

The most annoying detail, IMHO, is the limited options for the diodes. Actually the only option you do have is to solder or not the diodes.
I do love the layout, but I'm wondering about other options for a TKL board.
I have the same PCB and there was no issues with it what so ever. What do you mean with missing titles? And the holes for me was perfect, they were cut in some places to make room for the switch in different layouts but it wasn't a problem when it came to soldering. And limited diodes? you can have any diodes you want on there that uses 5V or less, you also have the choice of putting them in filco style on under the respective keys (caps and scroll lock).
The PCB I got was super nice quality.
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: strict on Tue, 29 April 2014, 10:02:52
Quote from: zeroni13 on Tue, 29 April 2014, 04:54:45
I have the same PCB and there was no issues with it what so ever. What do you mean with missing titles? And the holes for me was perfect, they were cut in some places to make room for the switch in different layouts but it wasn't a problem when it came to soldering. And limited diodes? you can have any diodes you want on there that uses 5V or less, you also have the choice of putting them in filco style on under the respective keys (caps and scroll lock).
The PCB I got was super nice quality.

I was very impressed with mine as well. I would have liked if there was printing for the diode holes like the black PCB had but thats a very minor complaint. I'm seriously considering picking up another PCB and building second one.
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: dorkvader on Tue, 29 April 2014, 20:22:03
much better than my phantom case:
More
(http://i.imgur.com/MPiVD7n.jpg?1)

Excellent work!
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: Chemoletter on Wed, 30 April 2014, 00:57:42
those caps!! where did you buy those - i want them  :eek:
btw your case is  beautiful. i guess it's light, portability=good thing.
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: Pacifist on Wed, 30 April 2014, 01:12:28
Quote from: Chemoletter on Wed, 30 April 2014, 00:57:42
those caps!! where did you buy those - i want them  :eek:
btw your case is  beautiful. i guess it's light, portability=good thing.

dsa retro set. classifieds
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: mrklaw on Wed, 30 April 2014, 15:33:22
Looks great. Great job.
Title: Re: my finished phantom keyboard with case. have a look!
Post by: dorkvader on Sat, 03 May 2014, 10:20:06
Quote from: Chemoletter on Wed, 30 April 2014, 00:57:42
those caps!! where did you buy those - i want them  :eek:
btw your case is  beautiful. i guess it's light, portability=good thing.

It's just some cardboard. I used it like that for almost a year to game with, etc. It worked quite well, all things considered.

Keycaps are DSA retro and DSA meebcaps. I prefer the meebcaps to clacks and they are the only custom keycaps I've considered getting.

It's not very portable though. The cardboard will fall off.