First build. Is the plate supposed to float?

[TheCowGod]

Hey guys. I recently built my first handbuilt board, a dz65rgb in a Tofu65 case, with a kbdfans aluminum plate. Based on the length of screws provided with the case, and the size of the holes in the plate, it seems like the PCB is meant to be screwed directly to the case, and then the plate is designed to float, held only by the switches, and the holes seem like they're just meant to let a screwdriver through to reach the PCB below. But mounting things that way felt really loose and weird, and I couldn't understand why it would have been designed that way.

I experimented with using longer screws, steel washers, and nylon spacers of the appropriate thickness, so I could screw the plate down along with the PCB. It seemed to work quite well, and everything feels very nice and stable and sturdy this way. But since it's my first build, I wonder if there's something I'm missing. Is the plate really meant to just float, held in place only by the switches? I thought the plate was supposed to be what supports the switches, not the other way around. Is there some advantage to having the plate float freely that I'm missing?

[TheCowGod]

(The "spacer" in the picture is a nylon standoff I cut down to the right thickness with wire cutters for experimentation, so it's messy and ugly. But I ordered nylon spacers of the correct size, which I'll be swapping it out for, and of course I'll take better pictures when I do).

[Findecanor]

Yes. The plate was an addition to the design.
The KBC Poker and the PBT Pure who set the standard for 60% keyboards had only switches mounted on a PCB - and no plate. The successor Poker II was the same design with a plate pretty much only for feel.

Edit: I read dz60, not dz65. sorry.

[TheCowGod]

Yes. The plate was an addition to the design.

The KBC Poker and the PBT Pure which set the standard for 60% keyboards had only switches mounted on a PCB - and no plate. The successor Poker II was the same design with a plate only to keep the switches more rigid.

Ah, I see. Yeah, for a traditional, soldered board, I can see how the plate is just a nice addition. But on a hot swap board, it feels weirdly unsupported -- everything's basically just being held together by the hot swap sockets, which doesn't seem like a great idea, especially considering those sockets have a pretty limited lifespan (rated for 100 insertions/removals). So screwing down the plate like I'm doing won't give me trouble down the road in some unexpected way, right? To my novice eyes, it seems clearly better, but anytime something looks obvious to me but nobody else does it that way, I get wary that there's something I'm missing

[Findecanor]

Oh, sorry. I read wrong. I thought you had typed dz60, which is not a hot-swappable PCB or 65% but a 60%. Never mind.

KBDfans' 65% cases seem to be made the same way as the 60% tray-style cases though, and they do have other PCBs that do not offer hot-swapping for which this would make more sense.

[1391401]

Yeah it's not really plate mounted.  There's a plate but it doesn't act the way other plate mount keyboards do and you're ultimately pushing directly down on the PCB.  On my Tofu the top line of keys is very mushy presumably because of this.  I still like the board but it would have been better if were a true plate mounted board.