deskthority

Switches, switches and switches...and did i mention switches?

What I did:
*Unmout with paperclip tool
*Place stickers
*Lubricate 6 points in each switch housing
*Change springs to from black to 62g and reds (and som white klickies)
*Assemble
*Lubricate stabz
*Dampen the larger keycaps
*Mount O-rings



Startingpoint of the day, the mounting of the switches to the plate was a breeze and they sit really well!


Materials used for this operation was: stickers, springs, Krytox lube, a needle (for applying lube), paperclipp tool for dissassembly...and a big dose of patience and time dom spend!


Some of the switches get transparent switchtops to spread some extra light from the LED and it is only for the modifier/function keys.


To further differ the modifier keys I use white stems and springs to get a harder key with tactile bump and click.
If someone has a spare MX lock Switch i would love to trade it!


This white switch will be used to switch the cluster to the right into a "numpad"-layer. If you notice the red dot on the shift key this is my way of indicat which switches that use red springs. The switches that use red springs is the ones that I use with my pinkyfingers and the layout is not from any standard but rather my own layout for them.



The spacebar is turned 180° to give the nice angle against the thumb. I always do this on my keyboards and would not want it to be the standard way. Also, the highly visible stabilizer feels totally right in this build, I just love the bare naked look of it!



The keycaps in the pictures are just for initial testing and are not to be used in the final setup. The thing I want to show is rather how I use damping mat to get the larger keys more quiet and sound much more like the regular 1x keys. Lubricating the stabilizer inserts is also of great importance in my build because the inserts where not positioned 100% centered (we are talking 0.5mm here!!)


An hour or so...



These switches use the lighter red springs.



Close up on the switches before closing them, the points I like to lubricate is the following:
*sliderguides on the sides of the bottom part.
*both ends on spring, plentiful on the top part that will smear of onto the stem.
*The gliders that regulate the contact plates.






So much time put in and the work is not barely visible from the outside. I'm glad you guys know why we to this kinds of mods to our keyboards. The feeling of modded switches are like night and day compared to stock MX´s.


A mock-up of different keycaps I had lying around just to get a better look of what the finished keyboard will look like. As i turned the NUMPAD-shift key 180° i almost feel like i must turn the whole row but we'll see about that. The NUMPAP-shift will be pressed with right thumb just like the spacebar and they are the only two keys that essentially needs to be flipped this way.

UPDATE!

The next big chapter after finishing the plate and the initial switchmodding is wiring of the matrix(es).
There will be two matrixes:
1. Switch matrix; cols:17 rows:6
2. LED matrix; cols:17 rows:6

These will be identical in layout but separated from each other so that I can control them one by one as the switches will register keypresses and the LEDs will be controlled by a separate driver taking instructions from the teensy++.
Lets start with the matrix for switches:



By now this must be the leading standard layout for a DIY matrix with diodes from one leg to the rows and plain wire on the columns.



This is where work had to stop for the first night consisting of planning and pondering over best placement for diodes. The trick i used to get the diodes in a nice uniform position was to first bend them 90deg with the pliers and then i pre-applied a bit of solder onto the leg of the switch and lastly just positioned the diode and heated the solder for a second. Flux was also used prior to every heating.



On the areas that needed special treat i used i thin wire. Guess i coult have gone for a even thinner one but this I had at hand and so the trick just fine.



Repeating patterns and straight lines is truly beautiful;)



First layer of 4 done!



Now I got too the point where I realized that the LEDs where going to be difficult to add later on due to small soldering points and overlaying wires . The initial plan was to focus on the primary functions of the switches and later on add the LEDs but I will take a step back here and prepare the LEDs and their SIP sockets and then solder everything at once.
FYI...I got 93*3= 279 solderingpoints left to do





After a few moments with the small wire cutter i ended up with a small pile of bare sockets.



Mounted in the switches they look like this. I wished Cherry could have done a similar soultion from the beginning and removed the option for internal diode, it would have saved some time and effort.



A small problem i ran into when placing the sockets in the bottom part of the switches was that the top part had to be forced down to snap into place, the reason was interfearance with this edge in the top part.



Luckily the solution was easy and I just mounted the short legged LED with the sockets in the top part making it a unit and then put it back on.



As of today I'm still working on mounting the LEDs and have 50% left to do, then on to the soldering again!

Wow, this keyboard is looking great.

Yeah, I was amazed by those straight diodes too

Damnit euf0ria, I want to nominate you for the self made keyboard DTA, but you're right on the deadline! The further you're getting into the project, the better it looks; which I couldn't say for when I tried last year. Good work!

neat

Thank you very much Sirs!
I feel that I have been lurking these forums for long enough and after all material I have been soaking in it's about time I give something back.

Here's a progress shot of the LEDs coming into place:

As of today there's only 20 left to mount and I think it will be done by the end of the day.

UPDATE!

Finally done with the mounting of LEDs and stopped for a moment to take some close up photos of yesterdays progress.


The pile of LEDs and sockets, for some days this seemed to never decrease.





Step by step on how I mounted the LEDs. 1. Press LED in place, held in place by friction of the 3mm round recess in the switch top. 2. get the sockets on. 3. Make sure the sockets gets past the edge on switch top, or it wont fit together nicely.



On the underside I now got two more points to solder...per swtich. Next design will most definitely be using a PCB, no matter if diy or professionally fabricated because I cant really say that I look forward to solder the rest 279 points i got left (plus wiring for the controllers...).



Outside is close to finished and all that is left here is some fine sanding and polishing of the chassis.


Below is just some macros showing nothing more than nice blurred shots of switches and leds;)












To take control of the LEDs I plan to use two pieces of Texas Instrument TLC5941 which is a 16channel led matrix driver. If I put two of these in there it will have enough output to control 2 sets of 8x8 matrixes giving a total of a 16x8 matrix and thats where I'm heading.
There is only one problem and that's the physical matrix beeing 17x6 (which you see from the outside). There is enough empty spaces in the last row to fit the 17th column and thus making it a 16x6 matrix. But, this will give me a lot of extra wiring which I don't want. I have not yet figured out any other solutions and therefore I'm asking you guys if you have a smart solution for this kind of problem, what would you have done?

After hand wiring a couple of keyboards myself, and much more messily than you have, I'd have gone for a PCB too! Very nice work on show here, though. Glad to see you've got most of the way to the summit. The LED matrix will be a sight to be seen. Especially with nice, macro-style, depth of field haze! Pictures always lead my interest, what can I say?

So, what lighting modes are you thinking about now? One I forever want to do is a dynamic, really slow fade on recently pressed keys. A live heatmap, with a halflife of 10-30 seconds; configured on the fly! Ducky showed me that subtle is better, by not being very subtle!

Yup, the LED matrix will be a sight to be seen but thinking about it doesn't really bring any worries to mind anymore. I had an moment of clarity earlier when thinking about the matrix layout and all the options, and as it turns out I acctually talked about the solution before but never saw it from the right point of view so to say.

To sum it up: 2x TLC5941 drivers á 16ch will give me a total of 32 output channels to work with, I need 23 and the problem is solved! Earlier I got stuck in the thinking that each driver only managed prompt 8x8 matrixes and never thought about all channels as equal and thus giving the freedom to design the matrix as more cols and less rows as long as the sum was less then 16 (or 32 in this case). Learning step by step here, this is a whole new territory for me!

Next thing to clarify is if the current limitation of USB 2.0 will cover my needs, hopefully the LEDs will suffice with max 3mA each but this remains to be tested. The driver has good options for both dot correction and pwm control to limit the power of each LED.


What about the lighting modes then?
Well, Im mostly a practical thinker here but some eyecandy will also be implemented so lets list what modes I think about:
1. All on with 3 dim-levels.
2. Cluster light that goes with my function layers so you clearly see when NUMPAD is active, the Macro layer also needs light on the affected keys that will be spread out based on first letter of function. CAPSlock will trigger a full matrix flash to really announce the entering. If I bring the keyboard for gaming (GTA) I want a cluster for that also.
3. Idle mode, when AFK the lights will display a logo or a "star effect" with slow random pulsating light and blinking.
4. Heatmap mode / touch'n'fade. Press a key and it glows, I will try a fade of 5seconds but also longer as mentioned by Muirium.
5. A breathing effect for ESC will probably be implemented as well as a heartbeat function. (With a bit of luck I will get hold of a most awesome artisan keycap for this keyboard)
6. More idle modes could be "pacman", showing idle minutes or lighting up the numberkeys for idle minutes.

This really feels like a never ending playground and will most certain be a work in progress for whenever an idéa pops up.

I will not strive for a working copy of snake as I don't think I will have enough CPU or ram....if i get bored I always have the option to add further stuff to my teensy++ as the outputs is kind of limitless for this setup.


Edit. I had luck and a most awesome keycap is soon on its way to my door!

Bad news: Three columns in one day...
Good news: I have learned a pretty good technique for doing this and the rest will be bearable to solder;)

Solderpoints left: 243