deskthority

With this thread I'm going to tell you how I made the cherry to alps adapters. With these adapters you can put cherry caps on an alps keyswitch.

The design in FreeCAD :


The printing of the protos The result after printing


First protos : New design based on protos :

Nice job.

What plastic did you use?

phetto wrote:Nice job.

What plastic did you use?

The plastic used in an Orca 3D printer

For the final product, I demand the highest quality standards!!!!

once we have the prototype, wouldn't be easier/faster/cheaper to mold them? epoxy resin should be way more durable

7bit wrote:For the final product, I demand the highest quality standards!!!!

But of course my liege-lord.....

matt3o wrote:once we have the prototype, wouldn't be easier/faster/cheaper to mold them? epoxy resin should be way more durable

Yes, they shall be cast!

of course. sorry for being noob

Latest design sent to i.materialise
5 @ 100%
5 @ 102%
5 @ 98%

matt3o wrote:once we have the prototype, wouldn't be easier/faster/cheaper to mold them? epoxy resin should be way more durable

I tried with a latex mold and polyurethan resin. It worked but it was way to much work to mass produce. I managed to make at most 4 at a time. The quality was often not good enough ( air bubbles ) and the mold broke often. I think you need a real tool out of metal that you can put melted ABS in or something like that.

i.materialise came back with a price......
6,50Euro per piece. That's too much, so I tried shapeways : 1,05 euros! That's more like it.
I trust my design to be perfect, so I just ordered 5. Starting february they will arrive.

What about adapters for both ways? If you like Apple extended II caps but want them on MX switches?

I have looked at the mounts and I think Alph caps on Cherry switches is going to work a little better because the hight of the key will increase less.

dirge wrote:What about adapters for both ways? If you like Apple extended II caps but want them on MX switches?

Yes,

But first these... If I know how to make / mass produce them , the Alps to Cherry adapters will be much easier...

Why not make whole sliders, then? Designing them will probably be somewhat more difficult but production cost should be nearly identical for sliders and adapters.

mbodrov wrote:Why not make whole sliders, then? Designing them will probably be somewhat more difficult but production cost should be nearly identical for sliders and adapters.

I checked that, but for the cherry to alps you also need to design another upper switch housing because the keycap slider part won't go in if you don't make more room.

Thanks so much for making the designs!

REVENGE wrote:Thanks so much for making the designs!

My pleasure... Really. Love doing it.

Actually , this is my step towards bigger projects

I guess the bigger project would be to design a slider for Alps switches with a Cherry MX key cap mount!

7bit wrote:I guess the bigger project would be to design a slider for Alps switches with a Cherry MX key cap mount!

Exactly....

7bit wrote:I guess the bigger project would be to design a slider for Alps switches with a Cherry MX key cap mount!

Would the widths be even combatible? Haven't read the spec, but by my memory the ALPS slider is thinner than normal MX cap mount...

I'm just wondering how much higher the keys would be on the keyboard. Wouldn't they stick out a lot now?

7bit wrote:I guess the bigger project would be to design a slider for Alps switches with a Cherry MX key cap mount!

I think I remember having seen photos of such switches, made by ALPS.

Ekaros wrote:Would the widths be even combatible? Haven't read the spec, but by my memory the ALPS slider is thinner than normal MX cap mount...

An APLS slider is 5.0mm; a Cherry slider is 5.6mm.

The cross is the important thing. Maybe it can be smaller to fit when the switch is depressed from time to time ...

Does it work well?

Preliminary results :

Cap is slightly higher ( need to measure the difference with a normal Alps cap ) and the Alps section turned out to be too small so that could be slightly bigger. My approach to the MX side of the adapter seems to work...

More info after I have some time to dive into it.

Updates?

pasph wrote:Updates?

Not yet.

Trying to find time to create an array of the adapters so I can 3D print them cheaper....

When you get this into production I will be first in line to buy them!!

I think for the adapter to work you really need them to be durable. As you know it takes a lot of force to pull alps key caps off their switches. I see these snapping off easily like that red prototype there. Good luck, I'm keeping my eye on this thread.