Project Log: 3D Printed, "Double Shot," Spherical Buckling Spring Keycaps

[ThermometerSandwich]

Introduction

Hello all,
My name is Matt. In August 2021, I started 3D printing spherical keycaps for my Model F.

Here's how it started:

Spoiler:

blob

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Here's how it's going:

Spoiler:

Ooooo Shiny

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Acknowledgements

I kept putting off making a post here until I saw this post (and discord convo) by vyquad: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=26809 Props to vyquad for their MT3 buckling spring caps and for finally getting me to interact with DT. Seriously, thank you!
I recently made a batch of blanks for them in beamspring gray, so look for their awesome 5251-themed XT soon!

Spoiler:

Keycap Army

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I also have to mention rsbseb's amazing work on spherical buckling spring caps: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11186

Brief Overview

Spoiler:

Abridged Timeline

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My overarching plan is to outfit my F107 with a set of Space Cadet spherical caps. I plan to document as much as I can here. When I get time, I'll make some catch-up posts on the following topics:

• Getting Angry at Fusion 360
• Printing Blobs 101: FDM Printing
• Printing Blobs 102: Resin Printing
• Resin Infills on Resin Prints (and Front Legends)
• Custom Color Resin: The Woes of Color Matching (or 57 Shades of Beamspring Gray)
• Sanding and Polishing: Lessons from the Dice Makers

Future topics will include:

• Making Keycaps Wider than 1u (and getting annoyed when the spacebar inevitably warps)
• Why did I even start this project?: Imposter Syndrome and Making

TBH I'm not entirely sure where this project is heading. I think I'm at the "let's see where things go" phase.

Will I sell any standard sets of keycaps? Will I make you a custom set of keycaps? Just how horrible is color-matching? Stay tuned to find out!!!!!

[Muirium]

Oooh!



You have my attention!

I helped out rsbseb a bit, back in the day. He still has the bubble dome shaped Windows keys from my Realforce 87U. You probably know what I'm thinking. That and an SSK set, plz!

[Sheepless]

Really looking forward to learning more about this!

[ifohancroft]

Damn! Those keycaps have the quality of factory produced one! Can't wait to learn from you how to do that.

[mmm]

Can't wait to hear more about this! That one m looks gorgeous.

[dcopellino]

I want to put my bookmark here, so to be sure to getting notified on your amazing contents. I'd love being imposter's imposter of such beauty 3d printed goodies. Definitely the F104 space cadet project cannot go unnoticed. Congrats for your achievements.

[Lalaland124]

Getting Angry at Fusion 360

That part resonated with me deeply

What an awesome project - very hyped for future updates!

[themk]

I would love some alternative keycaps for my Mini M (and possibly other buckling spring keyboards)!

I will be following along, and good luck with the project!

[Shorle]

I hope this turns out as good as it's coming along so far, great work!

[TNT]

Looks gorgeous! Glad I didn't miss out on this. Also looking forward to your rants on Fusion 360

[durken]

Very impressive results! Looking forward more posts

[ThermometerSandwich]

Thanks for the encouragement everyone!

I have to mention that lispnick's work making keycaps has been super inspirational! Check it out if you haven't already: viewtopic.php?t=25131

Quick Update:

• I'm working on a new CAD model that plays nicer with parameterization. It still breaks when I look away though.
• I'm revising the core cutout shape. It seems that there are 2-3 slightly different stem sizes floating around out there... because this project was just too easy before... I will be making an entire post dedicated to stem fitment - you've been warned.
• I bought a vibratory tumbler for polishing! It's running atm. It's loud and it looks like a pumpkin. Dice makers have been getting great results: https://youtu.be/B6_9cxKXSoA

Spoiler:

Growling_Pumpkin

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Ta-ta for now!

[ThermometerSandwich]

I helped out rsbseb a bit, back in the day. He still has the bubble dome shaped Windows keys from my Realforce 87U. You probably know what I'm thinking. That and an SSK set, plz!

That project was awesome. I hope they're doing alright.

Bubble domes would be fun!

F122 is on my list of layouts to tackle, so SSK wouldn't be much of a stretch at all lol

[andreas]

Very nice, looking forward to reading up on your process. Great work, thank you for sharing.

[ThermometerSandwich]

Mini Update:

Vibratory polishing is going well. It took a bunch of testing to figure out which media and abrasive will work best (and which ones won't work at all). This test cap needed to be left in the coarse media longer to get rid of more layer lines, but it's enough of a result to say that vibratory tumbling will indeed work for resin prints. This is a critical factor in producing custom keycaps for others. I wasn't about to hand polish y'all's keycaps... More details to come in a larger update.

Spoiler:

Tumbling Results

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Very nice, looking forward to reading up on your process. Great work, thank you for sharing.

andreas! Thanks for the compliment! That means a great deal from you. Your work on URSA is amazing!

[ThermometerSandwich]

After some printer downtime (and COVID), I'm back to making keycaps!

Infill and finishing details soon

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[ThermometerSandwich]

More pics:

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[thefarside]

Looks great! Hope you’re ok!

[ThermometerSandwich]

Looks great! Hope you’re ok!

Thanks! I'm doing much better. I still get out of breath and lightheaded sometimes though. It's definitely not an experience I'd recommend.

[TNT]

I was wondering, how do you create those razor sharp cutouts for the legends?

[ThermometerSandwich]

I was wondering, how do you create those razor sharp cutouts for the legends?

Thanks for asking The cutouts are done in Fusion 360. The depth is ~0.8 mm. The most recent pics are of caps fresh off the printer (and washed and cured). I'm using a Mars 2 Pro with a layer height of 0.02 mm. I really want to get a 8k printer though.

Exposure calibration is a must!!! Dennys Wang has a great video on the subject: https://youtu.be/vf_2OZgDCMM I had a lot of exposure issues before I started calibrating.

[TheNeonKnight]

This project is awesome, I bet once the multi unit cap stuff is ironed out you could even do custom sizes, allow for easier split space.