Yet another unfinished custom topre project. Help!

[cornfakes]

So, I bought a broken Realforce RGB off eBay which I first fixed and then salvaged parts from to try and make the compact Topre board of my dreams. Well, a prototype version of it at least.

I wanted the layout to be as close to a Kinesis advantage as possible but keep the board compact.

The attachment final rev2.jpg is no longer available

I had to do a lot of hacking to get this to work as I'm no engineer and made a lot of mistakes along the way but it works, well sort of.

final rev2.jpg (67.2 KiB) Viewed 2413 times

One of the mistakes for example is the fact that both sides work independently, just like a yamamotsu's topre split which I used as a starting point, but have a different number of keys which affects the signal strength making writing the firmware a bit more complex.
Another one is the fact that I left a weird solder mask on top (due to my crappy schematics skills) and had to put tape on all over the board so that it does not short once the springs are on... This whole board is a hack.

Anyway, I somehow ended up with a working board and firmware and all I needed was a case/plate to hold it all together. I decided to try and do it myself first and get something 3d printed. The dimensions are fine (although I did mess up and had to cut part of it for the controller) but the issue is that the plastic is way too flexible.

Screen Shot 2022-02-21 at 10.11.42 AM.jpg (174.74 KiB) Viewed 2413 times

This is where I need suggestions, I'm keen to redo the circuit board with SMDs (although I'm on a budget so that might not be an option) but I'm just not sure how to do the casing. I looked on Fiverr and Upwork and found a couple of options but I'm unsure if I should go with bent sheet metal, machining, or 3d printing.

Where do you get your custom cases/plates done?

[Palatino]

Can’t help you, sorry, but I do like what you’ve done so far. The exposed controller, albeit accidental, is actually quite a cool feature - maybe with a glass cover, you could keep it!

[ahmedali]

This hurts to see a beautiful keyboard like this, I am an online academic writer that provides assignment writing help in Pakistan, and most of my work is done by writing by keyboard and making documents on the computer, so I keep my stuff with so much care.

[Muirium]

Perhaps you could tell us more about your dayjob.

[orihalcon]

Mad props for your design skills and work on this!

It is probably for the best that I do not have such knowledge, as having those sorts of abilities would eat up any remaining free time I have working on projects like this!

I once wanted to just have a custom/compact beamspring made and this looks way more complicated by comparison since the beam spring is just a metal top plate and a component-less capsense PCB that an Xwhatsit Controller would just plug into, plus a relatively simple case.

If you ever start doing freelance work in the beamspring realm, let me know!

Layout I was thinking was something like this with "split space" and also "thumb shifts" which I've always found fascinating from a typing efficiency standpoint.

IMG_3820 copy 2.JPG (1.33 MiB) Viewed 2191 times

[Muirium]

Oh! Now that's a smart layout for a beamer. I'd probably use the thumb shifts as regular modifiers, myself, but there's definitely a lot you can do with that layout.

Your custom beamspring is presumably what you had in mind when you bought my punchcard machine caps some years ago?

[cornfakes]

It did eat up my free time for a couple weeks but now I just don't have any free time at all...

I'm a full stack dev, that's why I messed up the 3d casing, 3d is not my thing. Don't zoom in on the welds either...

Muirium, can't believe you remember haha I sometimes buy stuff on an impulse, thinking I'll have time for it and it takes me years to get to it...

[cornfakes]

Mad props for your design skills and work on this!

It is probably for the best that I do not have such knowledge, as having those sorts of abilities would eat up any remaining free time I have working on projects like this!

I once wanted to just have a custom/compact beamspring made and this looks way more complicated by comparison since the beam spring is just a metal top plate and a component-less capsense PCB that an Xwhatsit Controller would just plug into, plus a relatively simple case.

If you ever start doing freelance work in the beamspring realm, let me know!

Layout I was thinking was something like this with "split space" and also "thumb shifts" which I've always found fascinating from a typing efficiency standpoint.

IMG_3820 copy 2.JPG

I wish I could help, I like the arrow keys, and function row on the right. Thumb keys really improved my typing speed, can't go back now.

I'll definitely do some googling on beamsprings, had a lot of headaches writing the firmware for this. Although I like the fact that I can adjust the actuation point through firmware.