Just a thought, but maybe you can include homing keys with deeper wells rather than a dot to identify them, and keep the look clean.
Deeper wells are sadly a can of worms I do not like to open at this point. It is on my list, but with my requirements towards perfection it would take way too long to get right.
Very interesting. How does the Nylon 12 feel as a keycap material? More than that, how does it feel typing on these compared to Cherry or other sculpted PBT profiles, like say SA or MT3?
The plastic is more flexible than ABS and PBT, so the feel is softer in my eyes. SA and Cherry surface textures feel noticably smoother and I am not the biggest fan to begin with. MT3 feels a little smoother, but has noticably sharper edges as well as a slightly smaller finger contact area. I feel that TRIFL is more forgiving regarding misplacement of the fingers compared to MT3 especially and Cherry somewhat, because of their sharper edges, while at the same time not making me feel lost like XDA does. Sculpted profile for me is mostly aesthetical and I have rearranged my MT3 and KAT rows for better feel and I still currently prefer my TRIFL. Could be novelty bias and IKEA effect, though.
The profile looks really great, I love the triangle look! How come you are using Nylon 12, instead of perhaps Resin Printed SLA?
I assume to keeps costs low, but I'd like to hear why from you.
Costs is the reason for Multi Jet Fusion. Traditional nylon SLS could do color, but is more expensive. I used resin printed SLA for my prototypes and there is way too many issues for high volume production:
1) Getting warping under control is an art form.
2) Even if that gets managed, resin likes to cling to the insides of the stems due to surface tension, making post processing extremely cumbersome.
3) The resins I used were way to brittle and did not survive more than a couple of couplings to a switch before breaking.
4) Even if I found a resin with the exact properties I needed, it is just way too expensive to produce more than prototypes or mold masters with resin printing.