Making keyboard Mechanical.

[jensbond]

I got a project that some people call huge and crazy. But i really want to go through with it.
As you saw in the title of the thread, making it mechanical is what i want to do, and i want it to look pretty much the same.
Why?
-Mechanical is better.
-This one is starting to break down
-It sounds like 10 keyboards being smashed at the same time.

Now before i start with this i want to know what i should do, just give me some basic ideas and ill try to evolve on that idea and fill in the gaps.

Heres a pic of my keyboard, that just happends to have measurements on it. ^^


Ask me anything, critics is also welcomed. imma read all of ur posts and i apprecieate them very much. 

[SpAmRaY]

Isn't that already an ALPS board? If so it is mechanical.

[Candyflip]

Isn't that already an ALPS board? If so it is mechanical.

I think its a rubber dome one, one of those 'fake' ALPS with rubber underneath.. correct me if I'm wrong.

[Findecanor]

IMHO, the mechanical parts is the keyboard.

In some cases, you could put a mechanical keyboard inside the enclosure of a rubber-dome keyboard after a great amount of cutting away plastic to make it fit.
However, in this case, I see that the Escape key is not aligned with the ~ key.. which is something that is very unusual.
If the keycaps are Alps-compatible, then keycaps would fit on a keyboard with Alps switches, and you could paint the case yellow to match.
However, finding one where the keycaps match exactly could be a problem. It should not be impossible, but I can't find any right now. A keyboard that has a "big-ass" backwards L-shaped Enter key may have the bottom-row modifiers in different sizes or the Caps Lock could be stepped, etc.

[fohat.digs]

I had a vaguely similar one (Milton Bradley) with simplified white Alps.

You may find a similar internal assembly and swap case shells, but if the key stems are not standard, you are out of luck.

[jensbond]

Isn't that already an ALPS board? If so it is mechanical.

I think its a rubber dome one, one of those 'fake' ALPS with rubber underneath.. correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes its rubber beneath. I can show you how it looks like under the keys, sorry i didint have time to totally clean it.

[MKULTRA]

Just buy a mechanical, the cost and time you spend doing that mod would be so high it wouldn't even be worthwhile.  If you really wanna just put together a mech buy a KMAC or something from sprit's group buy.

[jensbond]

Just buy a mechanical, the cost and time you spend doing that mod would be so high it wouldn't even be worthwhile.  If you really wanna just put together a mech buy a KMAC or something from sprit's group buy.

Im not going to buy a new keyboard.

Also chould it be possible to remove everything under the keys to reveal the elctronics, then to solder these mechanical keys to the circut board?

Stop saying i shouldent do this, try to help me instead, that whould be really appreciated. 

[mooswa]

Perhaps this could be of help:

http://www.slideshare.net/obrajesse/building-a-keyboard-from-scratch

Good luck!

[dragonxx21]

Mind posting a picture of the underside of the key caps?

[jensbond]

Perhaps this could be of help:

http://www.slideshare.net/obrajesse/building-a-keyboard-from-scratch

Good luck!

Thanks, gave me some insight.

But whould it be possible to solder new mechanical key switches to the current circut board?

Mind posting a picture of the underside of the key caps?

like this?

[mooswa]

But whould it be possible to solder new mechanical key switches to the current circut board?

I don't think so.  PCBs are normally designed for a specific switch.

[Photekq]

I'm not trying to discourage you but I just want to make you aware of a few things before you go forward with this...
It will be INCREDIBLY hard to modify this to mechanical. Really, it will take you a heck of a long time and effort. I've only seen one thing similar to this before : here. Note that he did that mod so that he could benefit from the MS4000's layout, not so that he could save money or anything.
If you manage to pull this off you'll end up with a messy, bad quality, regular layout, fullsize mechanical board. You could buy a board of much higher quality, with more features from a store, unlike the ergo4000+ mod. It might cost you a bit less (not much.. switches aren't cheap) but the time and effort you will have to put into this simply aren't worth it. You're better making a keyboard entirely from scratch.
In fact.. you know what? It won't even cost you less. It'll almost certainly cost you more. The insides of a rubber dome and an MX board are totally different. You will need to replace all the internals to make it work. And you'll need to remove about half the plastic. There simply is no point to this project, sorry, unless you really, really, REALLY love the aesthetic of that little tikes board SO MUCH that you must own a mechanical version, which I somehow find very hard to believe.

[fohat.digs]

like this?

That looks a lot like a cap from an IBM 8923 which was also used by Sony and others. The 8923 is a very nice rubber dome keyboard, and if you are very lucky you might be able to fit IBM internals into your case, but the bigass enter and small backspace could pose a problem.

[AKmalamute]

I'll have to compare while I'm at work, but it also looks a fair bit like the keycap on my HHBK-lite; at least in that there are tabs on the sides gripping the case.

Jensbond: the folks here aren't trying to be dismissive, they're trying to be helpful. You're getting input from a few of the very small number of forumites who have built a keyboard from scratch and seen it to fruition at a functional level. Building a keyboard is a very ambitious project and not where you should start your journey into the world of electromechanical engineering.

 Keyboards are a system; all the parts of the keyboard have to work together to make it be useful to the end-user. When you design a keyboard, the very first consideration is the actuation mechanism. It's at so low and primal a level that to change that, you'd have to change keyboards. "Making it mechanical" is, while a beautiful pipe dream, a dream nonetheless.

 There are keyboard mod threads, where people paint their cases ... you could build a phantom with a yellow case, but the old keycaps won't fit onto any of the popular mechanical keyswitches so you'll have to buy a new set. I've never seen that set so you might have to custom order it to the tune of $750 (it's on SP's FAQ actually), but then you could make sure the new keys looks like your old keyboard.

 No, there's no way to "convert" a membrane keycap to a cherry mx keycap that I've ever heard of.

[Oobly]

This is a nice idea, but not very practical, I'm afraid.

1. The keycaps won't fit any mechanical switch I'm aware of. At least not any "modular" ones. Which means you need to either mod the caps to fit mechanical switches or replace them with something similar.

2. The PCB most likely won't accept any mechnical switches and in fact it may not even have a PCB at all, just a membrane. Which means you need to have a PCB made or direct wire the switches.

3. Even if you DO mod this into a mechanical board and use the existing controller, you won't have NKRO, so in order to improve this, you need to replace the controller.

4. The switches will need to be mounted to something, either a plate or a PCB. The existing case probably doesn't have a plate, so you either have to cut switch holes for each switch into the top case or make a plate..

Do you start to see a pattern? You have to replace or modify practically every part of this to make it into a mechanical board, so why not just buy a mechanical board.

[bueller]

Stop saying i shouldent do this, try to help me instead, that whould be really appreciated. 

The reason why people are saying you shouldn't do this is because it's pretty much impossible. Not one part of that keyboard is compatible with mechanical parts so by the time you've replaced everything to get it working you won't have that same keyboard anyway.

[Moosecraft]

As I see it the only part you could use for a mechanical would be the case, and even then you would have to make your own pcb basically. So I strongly advice against this project and don't quite understand your obsessiveness about it.

[Melvang]

 No, there's no way to "convert" a membrane keycap to a cherry mx keycap that I've ever heard of.

There is a thread here somewhere in the realm of geekhack where a member converted a rubber dome n52te from Belkin to cherry MX switches.  I was about a week from starting down that road myself with my Nostromo then Razer released the Orbweaver with blues.  He did end up using regular cherry caps though.  It also was a TON of work and that was only about 16 switches.

[Melvang]

 No, there's no way to "convert" a membrane keycap to a cherry mx keycap that I've ever heard of.

There is a thread here somewhere in the realm of geekhack where a member converted a rubber dome n52te from Belkin to cherry MX switches.  I was about a week from starting down that road myself with my Nostromo then Razer released the Orbweaver with blues.  He did end up using regular cherry caps though.  It also was a TON of work and that was only about 16 switches.

I finally found one of the threads with making a rubber dome mechanical.  This one was done in a different forum

http://www.xim3.com/community/index.php?topic=8122.0

The one that I saw here was a member that has been permabanned so I believe they deleted most if not all of his posts.

[CPTBadAss]

Take out the PCB, matrix wire and run it off a teensy?

[Oobly]

Take out the PCB, matrix wire and run it off a teensy?

That's possible, but with what switches? If he wants to use the same keycaps, he's got a lot more to do than that. He has to modify the caps so they fit the new switches (whichever he chooses) and mod the case so he can mount the switches (cutting mounting holes for EACH switch). Only then can he mount all the switches and solder them up with diodes and a Teensy.

Then he has to still program the Teensy.

It's going to be hard to both mod the caps and case to fit MX switches.

Another possibility is to find a mechanical board and just mod the keycaps to fit, then cut the "plate" section from the board and replace the top part of the mechanical board case. That way it looks the same, but it's a full mechanical board underneath. Less work, better results.

If the square part of the cap fits inside the MX switch around the stem, it may be okay to mod the caps by filling the square parts with some epoxy or resin and use an MX stem as a mold, after adding a little material to it (where the "cutout" on the crosspiece is).

[bueller]

If the square part of the cap fits inside the MX switch around the stem, it may be okay to mod the caps by filling the square parts with some epoxy or resin and use an MX stem as a mold, after adding a little material to it (where the "cutout" on the crosspiece is).

I could picture myself getting through like 2 caps before I'd chuck in the towel hahaha

[Neebio]

Modifying the caps to fit cherry mx stems could be very difficult, but it could also not be too bad... If he has access to a cherry mx stem/cap, he could create a mould of the stem, and cast the stem portion of the caps using resin.  It would require each cap to have it's stem cut out first, but it could be doable.  It would be pretty hard to keep everything straight and aligned though...

Maybe it could be easier to buy a cheap set of cherry caps (thin blank abs, whatever) and cut the sides off them, flatten the key top, and glue the mx cap top/stem into the bottom of these non-mx caps...

[MKULTRA]

Also you'd have to figure out a way to mount stabs.

[CPTBadAss]

Take out the PCB, matrix wire and run it off a teensy?

That's possible, but with what switches? If he wants to use the same keycaps, he's got a lot more to do than that. He has to modify the caps so they fit the new switches (whichever he chooses) and mod the case so he can mount the switches (cutting mounting holes for EACH switch). Only then can he mount all the switches and solder them up with diodes and a Teensy.

Then he has to still program the Teensy.

Yes I'm not sure how he could retain the same keycaps with new switches...just throwing an idea out haha.

[kolonelkadat]

converting the default rubber dome stems to mx stems wouldnt be hard. Although it would be tedious, painstaking,  and possibly suicide inducing.

here is my thought.
buy a cheap set of mx key caps.

step 1) grind out original rubber dome stems. grind it smooth, but be careful not to grind through the surface of the cap.
step 2) remove the sides from the mx caps so only the typing surface and stems remain.
step 3) glue the remains of the mx cap into the rubberdome lid.

for the circuit board and switches,
step 1)use a QUALITY set of digital calipers and take copious measurements of the case
step 2)design circuit board in Eagle or KiCad. this is where you use all those measurements
step 3) send the design file to oshpark, or whatever pcb manufacturer you prefer.
step 4)wait a week or so for your pcb to arrive
step 5)populate pcb
step 6) clearance all the holes in the case to allow switches room to pop through.
step 7) button it up
step
step 9) profit

estimated time to completion: 8 months.
estimated cost: $600 USD

[MKULTRA]

estimated cost: $600 USD

For the cost of a rare korean custom you get this ugly ass mechanical that you may not even get to work.