ground up keyboard help

[shelbydz]

Hi everyone,
I'm new to these forums so forgive my noobness. I have been reading many of the posts here about building custom keyboards from the ground up. And they have a lot of good information. what I don't see though is specs on things like how to cut the mounting plate for the keys, what shape the holes should be, how far apart they should be, stuff like that.

Is there a wiki page that I missed with this data?

Thanks a bunch.

[Muirium]

Good question. Cherry has some data here:

http://www.cherrycorp.com/english/switches/key/mx.htm

I think the holes are 14.5 mm squares. The .dwg file we used for laser cutting our last group build is on the opening post here:

http://deskthority.net/marketplace-f11/ ... are%20hole

And if you want to join in, we're at it again over here:

http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/grou ... up%20build

[scottc]

Muirium, thank you! I have been so lost while trying to design my own plate. I had no idea that all of the schematics were posted in that thread. There's even a plate that's similar to mine except in ISO instead of ANSI so I'll just have to hack around for a while to fix it!

[Muirium]

Forum memory, at your service.

Who's plate are you looking at / what's your plan? I suspect it has an MXLOCK in it…

[suka]

Since I just recently looked it up: the Cherry spec on cutout is 14+/-0.05 mm and 0.3mm max corner radius - I usually go as low as 13.85mm on my plastic plates since it is easier to take a little off later on

[shelbydz]

Muirium,

My plan is a game pad. Something like an extended 10 key. My super rough sketch looks like this:


Ignore the legends, they're just there for my mapping. I thought about ordering the switches and some caps, mounting them in a cardboard 'plate' to test the layout before i get serious

thx!!

[Muirium]

Right: ortholinear, or a "matrix" layout, like a regular numpad but bigger. Your 2x1 unit keys will need stablisers:

http://deskthority.net/wiki/Stabiliser

The common kinds are Costar and Cherry. Well, unless you're up to something cunning like a Tipro, where those caps sit on two switches instead:



Matrix keyboards like Tipros are actually a good place to prototype such layouts, as they are programmable and have double and even quad sized caps available to fit. I got my Tipro (sneakily pictured above) used for less than 20 quid.

[shelbydz]

awesome. thanks.

yeah i was planning on Cherry switches. I have two Mx Blue key boards and LOVE them. I might get some other types just to get a feel for them and see how i like them.

i am still undecided on keycaps though. i would like backlight. don't necessarily need legends on them, probably just a homing key where the '4' is now. Is there somewhere I can order single caps? Like, this layout basically needs 5 '+' keys. I couldn't find anywhere that sold them separated.

thx

[scottc]

Actually, where can we even get Costar stabilisers from?

[tlt]

Wasd keyboards have them

[Muirium]

i am still undecided on keycaps though. i would like backlight. don't necessarily need legends on them, probably just a homing key where the '4' is now. Is there somewhere I can order single caps? Like, this layout basically needs 5 '+' keys. I couldn't find anywhere that sold them separated.

Well, step one is to forget about backlights! You'll see why.

Then, if you like the look of these:



Try searching through all this:

http://deskthority.net/wiki/Round_5

The immense Round 5 group buy closes Friday.

Otherwise, WASD might do individual caps like you want, or you could try one of the many GBs around here, or even Signature Plastics inventory.

[shelbydz]

Interesting. I like those caps. They seem to be row independent? Or are they cleverly laid out?

[Muirium]

They are spare French caps from a set I bought (for their ISO RETURN and SHIFT keys) from Round 4. They're Signature Plastics SA profile tall spherical doubleshots. And they are so thick that they do this to backlights:



That's why I suggest against lighting. It forces you to use thin, lower quality caps, with legends crammed in the right place to sit over their LED. Without backlights, the whole world of MX caps is yours.

As for rows: these SA caps are entirely row dependent. The (row 1) numeric keys on the top of my OneHand are much taller than the (row 3) Q and M in the middle. In fact, this is the same keyboard with caps from the same row 3 profile across every switch:



Rows are definitely something you have to plan for with SA. But there is an all-flat spherical profile called DSA that's popular here too. We have a few open group buys for it at the moment, too. But again, not generally backlight friendly.

[scottc]

Thanks tlt, I just ordered a load of them along with some other things.

[shelbydz]

i like the look of that. i'll keep that in mind.

i have seen the DSA caps before. maybe i'll order one or two of them and see how they feel.

thanks a bunch for all the input. i'll post some pictures and whatnot as i get started


Oooh. last question. What diode type do I need? I couldn't find that either.

[Muirium]

Good old 1N4148, which are dirt cheap and available everywhere. Wee red things.

http://www.dribin.org/dave/keyboard/one_html/

[shelbydz]

awesome. can't wait to get started.

[Findecanor]

Since I just recently looked it up: the Cherry spec on cutout is 14+/-0.05 mm and 0.3mm max corner radius - I usually go as low as 13.85mm on my plastic plates since it is easier to take a little off later on

Yep. If it is cut with a laser, then you may have to adjust for the width of the beam.
I noticed yesterday that on a set of laser-cut acrylic plates that I had made, the holes for my Cherry-stabilisers had been made too wide; The stabilisers did not snap to the plate as they should have, and I had to use glue.
I had copied the stabiliser shapes from the cad drawings of Phantom plates. The switch holes were fine, though.