Wooden Mechanical Keyboard

[Transparant]

Hello everyone,

I am planning on making my own mechanical keyboard with my grandpa. My plan is to make this keyboard completely out of wood. There are a couple of questions I want to ask before starting on this though!
Because I am a beginner in these kinds of activities I might ask some stupid questions, but I hope you guys can answer them.

First of all:
Hand Wired or PCB?
Will there be a noticable difference in response time between Hand Wired and PCB? (I am an osu! player so I want it as fast as possible)
I've got an "old" PCB laying around, but it has a num pad. Is it possible to remove this without breaking the PCB?
Is there a good premade PCB I could use WITHOUT a num pad (and eventually with macros)?

What kind of wood is light and still sturdy enough to be keycaps? I would prefer is to be light in color and weight. I don't want the springs to go back up too slow.
If I would even used backlights, are these in the switches or do they need to be mounted on the PCB?

These are all the questions I have so far.

[FrostyToast]

Hand Wired or PCB?
Hand wired is the easiest to do.

Will there be a noticable difference in response time between Hand Wired and PCB? (I am an osu! player so I want it as fast as possible)
There should not be any difference.

I've got an "old" PCB laying around, but it has a num pad. Is it possible to remove this without breaking the PCB?
Depending on where the controller is located, yes. If the numpad area does not have the controller, it might be fine. Dorkvader knows everything about this kind of stuff.

Is there a good premade PCB I could use WITHOUT a num pad (and eventually with macros)?
Cut off the numpad of a keyboard and jump the wires allowing you to place the numpad on the opposite side. Do this with a programmable PCB

What kind of wood is light and still sturdy enough to be keycaps? I would prefer is to be light in color and weight. I don't want the springs to go back up too slow.
I hear that cherry is good (and fitting for the project!  )

If I would even used backlights, are these in the switches or do they need to be mounted on the PCB?
The pins must go through the switches into the PCB or at least through to back to wire it to a matrix.

[Hellcatz]

1. Depends on your experience however you will still need to buy a controller
2. No, but special features will be limited such as n key rollover (depends on the controller)
3. Possible if you close all the circuits after cutting (a big hassle)
4. the boards with out the numpad are tenkeyless recommend these http://www.gonskeyboardworks.com/8-pcbs-and-controllers
5. most pre made pcb such as good will come with full keyboard remap
6. http://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=295
7. I added led to my poker 2 keyboard and just use Round 3mm LEDs that work with around 3.2V or 2x3x4 square leds

[FrostyToast]

2x3x4 LEDs are more highly recommended as their diffuse the light in a better way.

[Hellcatz]

2x3x4 LEDs are more highly recommended as their diffuse the light in a better way.

look badass too

[kurplop]

What kind of wood is light and still sturdy enough to be keycaps? I would prefer is to be light in color and weight. I don't want the springs to go back up too slow.

Maple or beech might be good candidates given their fairly tight dense grain and light color. I don't think I'd trust them running cross grain at the stems however. I saw a thread where multiple pieces of wood were used for each cap so the stems could run parallel with the grain and still have the more attractive view for the faces. Probably a good way to go.

If you insist on milling the caps out of a single piece, you may want to consider one of the tropical woods, although most of them tend to be dark.

I've worked a lot with cherry and don't think it could handle the forces required for the stems going cross grain. The same goes for poplar and alder. Oak is relatively strong but very open grained making it a bad choice also.

I wouldn't worry about the weight. As a rule of thumb, the strength of the heavier woods would probably allow you to keep the walls thinner so your cap would be about the same weight.

[jacobolus]

I am planning on making my own mechanical keyboard with my grandpa. My plan is to make this keyboard completely out of wood.

When you say “completely out of wood, do you mean you’re going to use wood for the plate/structure that holds the switches? If so, I recommend using some exotic hardwood, something really hard, and ideally a CNC router, as cutting accurate switch holes with hand tools or even on a scroll saw is going to be a pain.

Or do you have a metal switchplate, and just want to use wood for the case? In that case, the type of wood is much less important.

Hand Wired or PCB?

If you use a PCB, you could potentially get away without using a switchplate at all. Personally I prefer plate + hand-wired vs. PCB-mount without a plate.

Will there be a noticable difference in response time between Hand Wired and PCB?

No. The latency is not caused by the wiring within the keyboard, but by the firmware / computer-side drivers.

What kind of wood is light and still sturdy enough to be keycaps? I would prefer is to be light in color and weight. I don't want the springs to go back up too slow.

Type of wood should have no noticeable effect on how fast the switches go up. To make keycaps with reasonable detail, I’d again recommend using a CNC router: making keycaps by hand is going to be a very tricky process. Again, I’d recommend using some kind of exotic hardwood.

[frosty]

Why not get a phantom?

[Findecanor]

Compared to the NerD TKL the Phantom does not support backlighting and it requires a plate. The NerD supports PCB-mounted switches and stabilisers.

For the keycaps, I would recommend to get some Tipro MID relegendable keycaps out of plastic that you glue wooden key surfaces onto. The Tipro MID caps with the tops off are as low as they could be and are flat on top. If you make the walls around the keys high enough then you would hide that there is any plastic in there.
Or.. you could cut off the side walls off the keys and put them inside milled wood keycaps, but that would be more complicated.