Build log: Alps64 in a handmade birch case

[andrewjoy]

Nah thats cool i will get a full batch eventually !

Did you design the plate yourself or get it from a design file somewhere ? , i need a plate for my 64 as the SGI plate i cut is missing the spacebar sablisers . I would need ansi tho , with 1x1 keys between CTL and ALT

[pansku]

I used this tool to design the plate: http://builder.swillkb.com/ and checked that the measurements seemed about right in some free CAD-software I found online. I just used KLE to make keymap and copypasted it there.

[pansku]

Now that the switches are off I noticed a problem with the test fitting. Spacebar stabs are in the wrong place
So a word of caution when using the site I linked earlier.

Now I have to wait till tomorrow to go get my dad, who has assisted me at almost every step so far, some drill bits and stuff so he can help me new slots. And after painfully desoldering all of them I decided to bite the bullet and use my scholarship money to buy the Hakko. I would've never guessed that Alps are so fragile when removing from the plate. So far this project has been a huge learning process

[pansku]

Finish line is getting closer. I've been super busy as I'm about to move to my own apartment for the first time and I need to sort out a whole bunch of stuff.

Now I need to fix solder on letter "I" and finish the case and flash my layout. Some notes to those who are attempting to do something similar. The online tool I used for making the layout doesn't completely work. When I'm using SGI caps the following things are wrong:
Enter has wrong spacing as it is too far right. Also the stab holes for it are too close.
Caps lock is too far right.
Spacebar stab holes are way too far left.
Standoff hole between G and H is tight fit.
Also lasergist plate is kind of poor quality. I had to file some switch holes bigger as the switches didn't fit.

Now when I still remember I'd like to thank the following great people on Deskthority who have helped me make this happen: Andrewjoy for the EU group buy from which I got the donorboard from, Gogusrl whom I got the keycaps from, elecplus who tipped me about the EU groupbuy and who the board originally came from and lastly Hasu who made the great PCB I'm using for this project. Now time for some pictures:

Wyse PCB desoldered

IMG_20170620_184822.jpg (3.08 MiB) Viewed 2404 times

Naked board

IMG_20170620_180847.jpg (3.14 MiB) Viewed 2404 times

With some caps

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EDIT:::

The switch was broken. My cheapo 1euro multimeter didn't get a resistance reading out of it unlike the working ones. Now I replaced it with another and the keyboard is 100% functional. I couldn't resist making a keychain out of it

[pansku]

At last, finally done!

I'll just leave it here with a few pictures and notes.

From an angle

IMG_20170630_163517.jpg (2.88 MiB) Viewed 2366 times

From the top

IMG_20170630_163508.jpg (2.92 MiB) Viewed 2366 times

After using it a couple of days I think green Alps are what red Cherrys should've been. Even when coming from a used board these are much smoother than Cherry MX Reds in my Ducky Mini. Also the weight is a tiny bit better for my taste and the sound is nicer but that also comes from the case and keycaps so it's hard to compare.

For plate I recommend staying away from stainless steel as it is hard to work on when something needs fixing and it makes the bottoming out sound really pingy. At current configuration this board sounds more pingy than my Pingmaster which just arrived. The bottoming out produces a pretty thick thock but the springs are very audible. These switches aren't as smooth as the NIB ones in the IBM, but they come very close.

TL:DR for some rookie mistakes:

For standoffs use M2 or M2,5. M3 Is too big and the screws fasten from plate instead of the PCB.

Use a softer metal than SS so if something goes wrong you don't have to spend hours making new holes and filing them to size.

The plate generator mentioned earlier has some faults when used with ISO SGI Granite keycaps. "Caps lock" is too far right so the keycap won't fit. It didn't generate proper cutouts for spacebar stabilisers. ISO Enter is too far right and also the stab cutouts are too close to the switch. When dealing with Alps in a poker case I found that the standoff position between "G" and "H" is too small so I couldn't put a screw there with my M3s at all.

Now that one project is taken care off I have all summer to convert my new pingmaster and start restoring my 5251

[Wingklip]

Looks sweet! I reckon the contacts are merely dirtied, some alcohol and cotton swab ought to cleanse the sense leaves of corruption

Maybe ultrasonic too.

Come to speak of restoring, my schedule is identical to yours xd

[swill]

Now that the switches are off I noticed a problem with the test fitting. Spacebar stabs are in the wrong place
So a word of caution when using the site I linked earlier.

Now I have to wait till tomorrow to go get my dad, who has assisted me at almost every step so far, some drill bits and stuff so he can help me new slots. And after painfully desoldering all of them I decided to bite the bullet and use my scholarship money to buy the Hakko. I would've never guessed that Alps are so fragile when removing from the plate. So far this project has been a huge learning process

Are you saying that the spacebar stabs are in the wrong place for the Alps layouts on builder.swillkb.com? If so, please give me more information so I can fix it. I was going off measurements provided to me by other builders. Thanks...

[pansku]

Hi, I used keycaps from SGI Granite and the stabs which where provided with it. For the editor I used Alps and Costar fallback option. Here are some pictures to illustrate the problem (Ignore my finger ):

IMG_20170718_170803.jpg (2.7 MiB) Viewed 2271 times

In the first picture you can see where the stab mount is in the keycaps and it's relation to the bend in the wire.

IMG_20170718_170820.jpg (3.27 MiB) Viewed 2271 times

In the second picture you can see where placed the stab mount in the plate. That hole was made afterwards as a fix. The big slot left from it is the automatically generated hole. From the pictures it is clear that when using these keycaps the stab hole is too far outward even beyond the stab mount in the spacebar.

I was too dumb not to make my own measurements for a double check when I ordered the plate so I hope this information could help.

[swill]

I am trying to understand. What size spacebar is being used? The holes currently being used were or were not produced by my tool. If they were, are they too close to the bend in the wire and would need to be move out?

If the costar stabilizers were cut by my tool and are too wide, I can look to add the correctly Alps stabs. I used this for most of my stabilizer spacebar measurements, but as you can see, it is very much lacking in Alps measurements. The Alps measurements were all crowd sourced, so if you have suggestions I will add them. That is why it falls back to Costar because I don't stabilizer dimensions for all the Alps configs, so I have to give people an option for stabilizing the key even if I don't have dimensions for the Alps sizing.

If you can give me:
- What size key you were stabilizing
- The optimal measurement from center to center of the stabilizer cutout
- Is the switch centered in this key size, or is it off to one side? If it is off to one side, do you know the measurements?

The Alps support has been a community effort as there are a lot of competing configurations and there is a distinct lack of documentation of the different configurations. If I see people having problems I try to get their feedback and integrate it back into the tool so others don't have the same problem.

Thanks for your support on this. I really appreciate it...

[pansku]

The spacebar should be 7u wide. It is 133mm at the widest point which is the front edge. The used holes for stabs are made by me and are a bit too high up. The non used large cutouts are made by the tool.

Here's a few quick pics with my phone and a measuring tape:

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IMG_20170718_191847.jpg (4.5 MiB) Viewed 2249 times

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