Spherical Buckling Spring Thread

[rsbseb]

Yeah pictures or some illustrations would be great.

Give me a few days for pictures. I currently have the mill running a proper mold for resin casting a set of prototypes onto OEM stems. For now here is a render

[rsbseb]

I imagine that these will be single piece keycaps?

Doubleshots would need to be single piece for sure. The dimensions do not work out well for a 2 piece doubleshot.

A two piece PBT with dye sub would be the easiest and cheapest option but I do not have the capability for dye sub at this point. The more I look into it the more I think I need to develop the capability for dye sub.

[macmakkara]

Drool~~~~~ that render looks amazing. I could love with Blank PBTs. But at some point dyesubs would BE fantastic.

I don't really care about doubleshots...

[Redmaus]

I don't really care about doubleshots...

Me too. Dyesub for the win!

Black on black spherical dyesub please...

[andrewjoy]

this with round 4 space cadet style colours ... mmmm

[Khers]

Dyesub PBT would be the dream! Doubleshot can be nice too, but dyesub is magic.

[andrewjoy]

indeed.

Any spherical will be nice to try on a model M / F. I just hope that the slider is better than unicomp ones ( not hard)

In fact i think i would want several sets

[Muirium]

I love dyesub, too. But doubleshot is the ultimate legend method. Total freedom in colours. (Try dyesubbing white legends on black caps. Doesn't work. That guy on Etsy has one nice tricks but you still get an unwanted halo.) Superior sharpness and contrast over dyesub. And doubleshot definitely works on deep sphericals. Apparently dyesub gets harder the more spherical you go. SP had a lot of trouble with humble, almost flat DSA.

[andrewjoy]

its not i prefer dyesub , i just prefer PBT and dark on light lettering and that is only posible with dyesub as doubleshot PBT are not that common , and the ones that are are not super thick cherry profile or IBM caps

[modology]

nice, count me in as well. Would go so well with Ellipse's upcoming F62

[facetsesame]

Oh my, these as white on black doubleshots would be irresistible!

[XMIT]

Just out of curiosity - since the Model M backplate is curved - would there be one spherical key cap mold for all positions? Or would you vary them by row to more closely match SCM?

[rsbseb]

They are specifically designed for the IBM curved plate and are uniform from row to row like the factory caps. The only thing they share with SCM is the spherical top.

When SCM development resumes I will look into provisions for a BS mount for flat plate customs if there is interest in it.

[Muirium]

Suggestion: call the curved backplate caps SBM to distinguish their profile from SCM.

I don't think flat plate IBM customs have much interest in general. IBM made a lot of great boards. The customs getting all the attention are faithful remakes. Curved is the way to go. For buckling spring at any rate.

[rsbseb]

How about SBS for "spherical buckling spring" ?

[Muirium]

That works too. I was just going for a pun on IBM! A separate name is the important thing. So we can be sure what we're talking about.

[wcass]

An-stepped 1.75 would be a great cap to have. Use it on the left as a Caps Lock or Ctrl, or on the right to split Shift. You might also think about space bar options like the Code key for customs.

[Techno Trousers]

Are there any updates on this? I'm definitely excited for a new IBM key cap player to enter the market.

I'm a bit disappointed in all the unimaginative dyesub comments.Yeah, classic PBT is great, but we could have something really new and special here.

rsbseb, if you're still seeking input on color schemes, I think an homage to the classic beamspring with white on gray alphas with white on black mods would be sexy as hell. Especially if you can duplicate that large and in charge font!

[romevi]

Ditto. Would like to know whether there's any progress.

[grasshopper]

Could you not just make a buckling spring stem that has a cherry cross on the top instead of a keycap? If you did that, then it would be possible to fit any cherry keycap (including doubleshot spericals) onto an IBM Model M.

You could have different height stems for each row to compensate for the fact that most cherry keycaps are a different height for each row.

[Muirium]

Nope!

[rsbseb]

I have a few proto-typed but wont be working on any production tooling until after the holidays. And yes sphericals on a BS is pretty awesome. In fact there was one on my M when I took the pictures of my IZOT.
You can kind of see it in the second picture here - http://deskthority.net/photos-f62/izot- ... 11781.html - it's in the upper right hand corner.

[pr0ximity]

I have a few proto-typed but wont be working on any production tooling until after the holidays. And yes sphericals on a BS is pretty awesome. In fact there was one on my M when I took the pictures of my IZOT.
You can kind of see it in the second picture here - http://deskthority.net/photos-f62/izot- ... 11781.html - it's in the upper right hand corner.

Woohoo, awesome to hear! Spherical BS caps are a dream I never thought would come to fruition. Quite a time to be a BS fan with this project and the new Model F's!

[grasshopper]

Nope!

I don't see that as an insurmountable problem. As I said in my earlier post, you could simply manufacture different height stems for each row to compensate for the fact that most cherry keycaps are a different height on each row.

So, for example, a tall stem would be paired up with a short keycap, and a short stem would be paired up with a tall keycap, resulting in the same overall height.

You could still swap the caps around as long as you made sure that both the keycap and its matching stem was moved at the same time.

[Muirium]

I've debated this concept before, but can't seem to find the relevant posts. So here we go again. I'll bookmark this explanation for the next time I need it!

Here's what MX adapters are like in reality:



These particular ones are Mr.Interface's Alps to MX adapters. Buckling spring to MX would suffer from the same extra tall geometry. See what it's like:



Really high! Why? Nothing to do with Alps, and everything to do with MX mount. MX caps are meant to sink inside the switch when pressed. Their mount is an extra wide pillar, that most other switches simply don't have room inside to accept. Alps uses a much smaller prong, which means there's just no way to swallow up any of the MX cap's mount, and so it all stacks up in extra height. You get really tall, extra wobbly caps. They're okay on that Monterey board of mine, as Monterey's are superbly well behaved switches, but try it on Matias and it's a nightmare!

So what about buckling spring? Well, where do you think the MX mount is going to sit? Bingo. You said it earlier: right on the top. Expect really, really tall caps, like those above but much worse. As there is nowhere on buckling spring to go except right up where the final cap should be!

Buckling spring also brings another variable into play. Check these props by Jacobolus:



That's regular row profiled caps on a board with a flat plate. You know, like every MX out there. Imagine them riding quite a bit higher up, like on my Monterey board.

But this is what buckling spring is like:



A *curved* backplate. That's a great idea in several respects — every cap is free to change to a different row and retain its appropriate shape, making things like Colemak drop dead simple on buckling spring — but just you picture crazy high caps on that. Not only are they awkward, ugly and wobbly, they're all scrunched up into eachother. They might not even fit at all.

Adapters seem like a great idea. And I did enjoy my experiment with low profile DSA dyesubs on a board full of awesome Montereys. But you've got to factor in the downsides too. I don't think they're practical on IBM. We're much better off making our own caps with buckling spring's geometry in mind, rather than hacking our way around it.

[Techno Trousers]

^^ Excellent summary of the issue, Muirium. I think folks with lots of Cherry switch experience don't really understand, or tend to forget about, that really cool buckling spring curved plate. I still think that's the best mass produced keyboard form factor, and it was perfected over 30 years ago.

[Muirium]

That curve, and the concept of barrel inserts for stabs, is what makes buckling spring so adaptable, layout wise. Where else could I so easily do this?



HHKB layout on a vintage board that's older than the M0110, let alone the HHKB!

Curved backplate has a couple of downsides (quite besides hypothetical adapters). It's more expensive than a flat backplate — IBM eventually gave up on it and went flat on the Model M2 right before they ditched mechanicals entirely — and it makes deeper keyboard bodies. The SSK is a classic example of that effect: the function row adds so much height to what's otherwise a compact keyboard.



The double function row 122 keys are just insane! Though I will admit the caps are right where your fingers think they should be. The curve is real, unlike all these flat mounted keys elsewhere.

[cods]

SBS... spherical caps plus the new build Fs makes me a little bit tingly!

[cods]

This... seems like it's sleeping.
Please tell me it's sleeping, and not dead!

[HighPlainsDrafter]

Perhaps waiting for the Model F project to begin shipping. Though layering matters (though no complaints) is the Model F project seeking a quote from China for decently made keycaps (rather than settling for Unicomp's) though not sphericals.