Custom build? What's required?

[Ludovician]

I've been thinking of what my ideal keyboard would be and I'm thinking it will be an 80% Alps keyboard. I believe that's something I'd have to build myself, so if anyone could help me figure out what's required, I'd appreciate it.

Required specs:
Alps-compatible
87-key ANSI with winkeys

Thanks.

[katushkin]

Well you will need all the parts. 80% meaning you will need custom made everything.

PCB you can order from someone, unsure who, but a lot of people have done it I think. With a custom layout you will need a completely custom PCB.
If you want a plate, you will have to get one custom cut from  somewhere that CNCs that stuff.
Because you are going 80%, the case will have to be custom as well. That's more CNC costs probably.
Switches. I'm not sure where you can get a decent quantity of Alps from, but i would start at mechanicalkeyboards.com

So you are looking at a lot of money.

[SpAmRaY]

You could possibly hack apart an old dell alps board. IIRC it's been done before.

[Ludovician]

Yeah, I know it will be expensive and will probably take a long time to complete. I'm searching for blue Alps donor boards (obviously more expensive as well).
What do you mean by CNC?
For the plate design, that shouldn't be too difficult but are there any templates available? Given a 60% design it should be feasible to expand that.

Spamray, do you mean getting an old AT101W and cutting the plate out to make one for my 80%? Do you know if the PCB from that would also function if cut?

[SpAmRaY]

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=61967.0

On my phone but there are some links in that thread.

There is also an old IC thread for an ALPS TKL.

[katushkin]

Yeah, I know it will be expensive and will probably take a long time to complete. I'm searching for blue Alps donor boards (obviously more expensive as well).
What do you mean by CNC?
For the plate design, that shouldn't be too difficult but are there any templates available? Given a 60% design it should be feasible to expand that.

CNC is a computer controlled metal machining process which means you get very accurate products for a relatively low cost. If you have ever seen shots of robot arms cutting shapes out of metal sheets, it's probably CNC. You can essentially send someone a template and they will cut it out for you.

There are some community made tools that you can find in the Build Stuff Together sub forum I think, I'm not confident in my abilities enough to go in there to know where they all are, so you might have to wait for someone like CPT Badass' input

[SpAmRaY]

There's also the older filco zero alps tkl and I'm pretty sure kbparadise (sp?) has an alps tkl coming soon or just came out.


Also this custom project https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=72414.0

[Ludovician]

Getting a kbparadise v80 with Matias/Alps compatibility or the filco and just swapping the switches seems like a much easier and cheaper option than going with a full custom. That AEK mod is also certainly worth checking out. I have an AEKII with a couple of dead switches already that could work for that if I go that way.

[False_Dmitry_II]

If you don't want to go as far as handwiring like that was, you can just finish reconnecting the matrix on the PCB with wires and reuse the original controller.

It's harder to do something other than just TKL with cutting like that.