Finished my DIY keyboard with printed case, feet, and RPi Pico "caddy". Keycaps are not 3d printed, but the labels were DIY from my laser.
I like the look. I’d totally use this.
I also want to call you crazy for putting another tab button on the numpad, just so you can say “they called me crazy…” after its wide adoption.
Thanks. Kind of a 2004 Apple and Logitech thing going. Probably need another couple of years before it's in vogue. white filament on the printer though, so white keyboard it is.
putting another tab button on the numpad
Horizontal spreadsheet data entry, my friend. it's probably one of the less crazy parts of this layout! Of course, ten minutes on the laser and/or 5 in the software, and I can make it any key you need. Programmable keyboards are a godsend when you're winging it on the layout.
Keyboard looks great! Did you laser the keycaps directly on the keyboard or in some sort of holder?
Doing it on the keyboard could very easily work, but I have a laser-cut jig that holds twenty-six 1u keycaps, and has one open-ended spot for anything up to maybe 3u. I considered 3D-printing the jig, but 30 minutes on the laser made more sense than 5 hours on the printer.
This plastic didn't love my "Infusible ink" pens, so the legends are duller than the last time I did this, but the jig helped a lot with alignment, as did adjusting my ambitions and expectations. Much less disappointing to land 1mm off when you can pretend you wanted it there all along, and that is much easier to do with corner legends versus centered. :-)
I'm also curious about the laser engraving process! What are the keycaps made out of, and what settings/type of laser did you use on them? This isn't something anyone has used our laser for, and I'd like to recommend it to my patrons.
I am not quite sure I'd be ready to recommend it, but your more adventurous patrons may want to experiment. These keycaps are PBT, a cousin of polyester. They are not particularly pleasant smelling when heated or especially when burned, but they're not as unhealthy as ABS (the other common plastic for keycaps) and certainly not as bad as the straight up poison gas that comes from PVC. I use a basic 5W blue diode laser, coat the keycap with an "infusible ink" pen from Cricut (most of their infusible products are polyester-based), put it in an alignment jig, then laser a raster image "low and slow." My particular laser seems to do best when I do two or three passes at 2% power and 45mm/minute. The idea is to heat it roughly in line with the crafting heat presses without letting the heat spread and color in areas beyond the beam. I experimented with actually burning or engraving, and that sort of works, but (1) it's stinky, and (2) the ash wipes away and you're left with a mostly colorless letter-shaped indentation. The "dye sub" technique produces barely any fumes at all. There are a few people on youtube who've tried similar techniques, and quite a few who have used different heat or dye sources.
Aesthetically, the process was only marginally successful, though I'm optimistic about the longevity, at least compared to other low-end manufacturing techniques. I've been using a similar set of home-lasered keycaps for about a month with little to no wear. My jig was not as good on that set, AND I tried to center the keycap legends, meaning every fraction of a millimeter was painfully obvious. These legends didn't end up exactly where I might have liked either, but they're all off by the exact amount (about 1mm), so being consistent, the alignment isn't too bad.
Half my brain thinks this looks awesome, and I love it, and the other half is aghast at its non standard shape and hates it.
LOL, fair enough. Don’t go investigating ergo and 40% keyboards though. This thing is boring ol’ vanilla by comparison.