geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboard Keycaps => Topic started by: lrochfort on Tue, 25 October 2016, 12:37:54
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Hello all,
My first post here.
I recently joined a hackspace that has a Boxford 2.5d CNC mill and an injection molding machine.
Are there any tutorials or design templates that would help me make my own keycaps?
Ideally I'd like to make some spherical caps but I don't have any as a reference.
Cheers,
Laurence
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You might want to check around in the "making stuff together" subforum.
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You are going to want to do some research into injection molding as plastics can be very finicky. Mold design, sprue setup, the channels for the plastics all need to be made properly to allow for proper molding of caps.
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You can refer to some cartoon characters.
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Do you have access to a 3D printer?
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You are going to want to do some research into injection molding as plastics can be very finicky. Mold design, sprue setup, the channels for the plastics all need to be made properly to allow for proper molding of caps.
To add to that, be prepared on the cost of molds as they're not cheap. You're either using aluminum or steel with steel molds being particularly costly. You'll also want to make sure the cap designs you've got are solid before committing them to metal and likely accepting that the first round won't really be the final product.
In terms of templates, you might want to talk to Matt3o and see if you can use the designs he's got. They're for hi-profile spherical keycaps based on IBM beamspring caps and not currently designed around doubleshot but it might be a good starting point unless someone's already got some files saved for other cap profiles.