PCB thickness

[ju6ju8Oo]

Do you think we can use 0.8 or 1.0mm PCBs instead of 1.6? assume the plate is a steel plate or carbon fiber.
I think a thinner PCB will result in a lighter weight keyboard, which is good for portability.
Any disadvantages?

[yui]

I am not quite sure that a thinner pcb would do much for the overall weight with a steel plate, the part of the pcb that get thinner is the glass fiber part, so really you would not gain much weigh and the manufacture of larger thinner pcb being more complex it gets harder to get them as cheap, and 1.6 is pretty much the standard thickness for pcb so will be stocked everywhere and most likely cheaper because of that as well.

so the short version is you will get a keyboard that is a tiny bit lighter but at the cost of it being harder to manufacture and having potentially more expensive raw materials.

[Applet]

Be aware that most cases is designed for 1.6mm thickness. Changing the thickness will in most cases change the position of the USB-connector in the case.

[Findecanor]

The standard PCB material is fibreglass with epoxy resin, which is already a very light-weight material.
The PCB would need to be 1.6 mm for PCB-mounted stabilisers to fit.

If the only option for plate material is metal, then I'd rather avoid the plate altogether and make it a PCB-mount keyboard. MX switches would be a variety with fixing pins and use diodes inside the switch to provide more legs for maximum stability. The original Poker and many keyboards in Cherry's own G80 series are made this way. You would have less protection for components on the PCB though, which is why these keyboards tend to have surface-mounted components on the bottom side or the controller within a covered area.

[clasicks]

The standard PCB material is fibreglass with epoxy resin, which is already a very light-weight material.
The PCB would need to be 1.6 mm for PCB-mounted stabilisers to fit.

If the only option for plate material is metal, then I'd rather avoid the plate altogether and make it a PCB-mount keyboard. MX switches would be a variety with fixing pins and use diodes inside the switch to provide more legs for maximum stability. The original Poker and many keyboards in Cherry's own G80 series are made this way. You would have less protection for components on the PCB though, which is why these keyboards tend to have surface-mounted components on the bottom side or the controller within a covered area.

FWIW Spacers made of FR4 were used on my 1.2mm PCB designed and ran by HineyBush and everything works as intended.