Group Build prototyping phase

[matt3o]

I actually find it much less noisy than the M0110, consider that these are MX Blue.

[Muirium]

Yeah, that's what I mean by solid. The reverb in an M0110 comes from all the air inside the case. The sound in this one is bouncing around inside wood instead. You can definitely hear it's different to modern cases, but not as overbearing as the original Mac keyboard!

[SL89]

Sound test for the wood keyboard. I believe I will call it "Elf Board" (wood and steel), while robot-65 was the dev name.

https://soundcloud.com/matt3oaudio/robo ... sound-test

YES, it sounds really good. Thank you!

[Memoren]

Sound test for the wood keyboard. I believe I will call it "Elf Board" (wood and steel), while robot-65 was the dev name.

https://soundcloud.com/matt3oaudio/robo ... sound-test

Wow that sounds awesome I can't wait to eventually hear it for myself.

[matt3o]

Bianca!



I love it!

[scottc]

Beautiful!

[matt3o]

I just miss one 1.75u blank... I'll ask SP.

[Muirium]

Damn foxy!

[pyrelink]

Damn, that's what I was afraid of. The Acrylic case looks equally as stunning. Especially with that Granite set!

Might I ask how the stabless design turned out? Does it feel lacking in anyway compared to a stabilized keyboard?

Ironically, I bought the 1.75u spacebars in Round 5, but didn't get a HONEY/APPLE/1.5 mod kit or any of the other specific keysizes. Hopefully the Overrun packs will be able to make up for it.

[matt3o]

I don't miss any of the stabilized keys actually. I press enter right in the middle of the 1.25u key, left shift far on the left and right shift in the middle. For the spacebar I press the first 1.75u on the left and the second from the right.

I've gone really a bit too far with this layout, there are really more keys than you actually need, but I totally wanted to try a stabless layout and this works darn well.

Granite set is perfect for the white case too but I will be replacing the legends with standard (no Cyrillic) and mono-legends to make it even simpler.

[Muirium]

And white acrylic doesn't suffer from ABS style yellowing, either?

This is looking quite an appealing idea…

[pyrelink]

Since I am a chump and did not order myself a Granite set, I am thinking a similar white alphas/grey modifiers would look incredibly nice with the white acrylic and a white painted plate. Any price estimates on Bianca?

[Muirium]

Where did the controller go, anyway?

[SL89]

The white one looks awesome Matt3o

[matt3o]

Since I am a chump and did not order myself a Granite set, I am thinking a similar white alphas/grey modifiers would look incredibly nice with the white acrylic and a white painted plate. Any price estimates on Bianca?

Bianca is probably around 50/60 euros (excluding the paint job )

Where did the controller go, anyway?

just "floating" inside the case. I'll take pictures.

[pyrelink]

Since I am a chump and did not order myself a Granite set, I am thinking a similar white alphas/grey modifiers would look incredibly nice with the white acrylic and a white painted plate. Any price estimates on Bianca?

Bianca is probably around 50/60 euros (excluding the paint job )

50/60 for the case alone, right?

[matt3o]

case and plates, yes

[pyrelink]

case and plates, yes

Damn! I Really do hope Bianca has a good personality. The really attractive ones with great prices, always seem to have some major emotional issues...

Wait... Is this offer for a keyboard or my mail order bride?

Uh.

Right...

Never mind.

So about those rubber feet. Have you figured out how you want the keyboard to stand on the desk? I assume we aren't just going to affix those annoying little sticky rubber pads to the bottom on each corner?

[matt3o]

case and plates, yes

Damn! I Really do hope Bianca has a good personality. The really attractive ones with great prices, always seem to have some major emotional issues...

Wait... Is this offer for a keyboard or my mail order bride?

beware, they do it just to get the citizenship

So about those rubber feet. Have you figured out how you want the keyboard to stand on the desk? I assume we aren't just going to affix those annoying little sticky rubber pads to the bottom on each corner?

that's the only thing I have to figure out. I would need a CNC to make some nice feet, I really can't find anything at a decent price (and to avoid order from Korea). I finally have some budget for the CNC but I can't find a decent machine to buy (any suggestion?)

For this one I believe I'll hand cut/mill some feet in clear acrylic I have laying around.

[pyrelink]

Huh. Both metal and acrylic feet are miles ahead of those sticky rubber bumps.

Never really had a realistic reason to really consider a CNC machine, so no real suggestions on any specific machines. All I can say from experience though, is that you are far better off saving your money for half a year and buying the good stuff, then settling for what you can afford at the very moment.

While that doesn't apply to everything, I have found that with power tools, machines, and high end electronics, (especially power tools) the good shit is expensive for a reason.

I know 3D printers these days go up exponentially in price when it comes to printing surface area. I assume it would be similar in a CNC machine. I would say, hold off until you can afford the machine that will cut out a "Great White" Displaywriter case out of a solid block of aluminum

[matt3o]

To get a pro CNC you have to spend 8-10k *minimum*. Way out of my budget, no matter how much I save . In the hobby range you can find the Chinese routers at about €800. The next step is €2000-2500 (I couldn't find anything in the €1500 range), which are fine machines that can work aluminum in an area of about 30x40cm.

[pyrelink]

Yeah, that's about what I was thinking. I guess the main thing in that case is how much compromise will you have to make in the future with an 800-1000 machine compared to a 2000 machine. If you can honestly foresee yourself wanting to try a CNC project not doable on a cheaper machine then there is your answer. But if the $1000 machine will let you accomplish everything you can imagine (maybe just at a slightly slower pace, or some extra steps, compared to the $2000 machine), then there you go.

When you say "Chinese Routers", are these of any reputable quality?

[matt3o]

they don't have a good reputation, no

I might have found a decent compromise at €1800, I'll keep looking.

[bearcat]

I'm having some good luck milling aluminium on a hobbyist CNC that i'm only about E500 into. I'm in the states, though. I'll see if i can put up some pictures this weekend. Like matt said, i've got about 31x31cm of workspace -- barely enough for a 60% but otherwise workable.

[Muirium]

I'm after a simple prop to hold my iPad up on the helpful tablet ridge on top of Model F's…

Spoiler:

Something L shaped that I can slide under the keyboard and behind the screen ought to do it. Is this something your spare acrylic could handle? Or maybe I should be looking into folding sheet metal…

[pyrelink]

Just like to point out for anyone interested, that Matt3o posted his Elfboard over on Geekhack today: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=59827.0 including a bunch more pictures of the wiring and PCB and all that.

Midnight just got posted to PMK today, so no clue if he is busy or if he was planning on posting that here, himself =D

[matt3o]

simply got swamped

[pyrelink]

Not a problem. I really like what you did with the Teensy, and the rivet things were a nice touch. PCB looks beautiful. I can see why it would probably be best to get those fabricated, vs. making them all by hand.

I also have a PM I need to finally finish writing and send to you, about a project I am working on. Keep starting to write it, and then stopping and going on a spree of doing other things.

Speaking of which, a Chinese Dev Team just dropped the iPhone 7.1.1 jailbreak, so I am going to go do that...

But seriously, you should be getting a pm from me, within the next 8... to 10 business days

[matt3o]

Bianca finished, closed and kicking!

[scottc]

Awesome! I had some ideas for a no-stabiliser ALPS keyboard that was pretty similar in layout to Bianca, but I think you've got the optimal one here. Nice.