Building my own keyboard

[grug]

Hey everyone,

I'm currently in the early stages of building my own keyboard and I've been using http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/brow ... t6050.html as a guideline for learning what I need to do.

I'm pretty comfortable with doing the wiring and sourcing the switches/keycaps etc... The only thing my mind is stuck on at the moment is that I can't quite see/comprehend how the switches wouldn't have a small amount of 'wiggle' room once in the enclosure. My only guess is that the hole that the switch is inserted into is the same size as the switch itself, but it seems really unlikely that you can get that level of accuracy getting the enclosure made. I might be wrong here but other than using some sort of adhesive (I'm assuming some sort of glue) I can't see how the switches would nicely fit in the enclosure.

If anyone could shed some light on how the switches mount inside the enclosure I'd be extremely thankful

I will of course be documenting my keyboard build once I'm done (and post on here).

Thanks guys!

[chzel]

The switches have four tiny little "teeth" that click into place when using a 1.5mm plate.
Cutouts should be tight enough to be slight friction fit, but achieving that depends on the technology used to form the holes.
In this picture (from the DT wiki) you can see the "teeth".


Hope that helps.

[grug]

Hey chzel - thanks for the quick response!

Please forgive me being a bit slow here, but where on that switch are the teeth located - I can't seem to see what you're referring to. Also, you specifically mentioned a 1.5mm plate - are you able to get switches that are catered towards different sized plates?

Thanks!

[Kurk]

Cherry switches are made for 1.5 mm thick mounting plates. ALPS and ALPS clones (e.g. Matias switches) use thinner mounting plates. IIRC 1.0 mm. Matias is currently experimenting with dual use mounting plates for Cherry and Matias switches (geekhack thread).

cherry-mntng-clips.jpg (54.48 KiB) Viewed 2389 times

Here's a diagram from Cherry's website. The left switch uses no mounting plate (it's mounted on the PCB), the right one is installed on a mounting plate and on a PCB (measurements in inches).

[chzel]

Kurk thank you, couldn't have made it better!

[andrewjoy]

Was just wondering , but i am assuming you can plate mount a PCB mount cherry so you can have pins and a plate ?

That would be super stiff

[Nuum]

Yep, that's possible, but I don't think that it would feel different to just plate mounted.

[andrewjoy]

prob not but it would make the construction more sturdy, less stress on the solder joints