deskthority

matt3o wrote: ↑

28 Dec 2020, 09:41

how's the battery life?

Sorry for the late reply; this thing lasted a bit longer than I expected. I managed to get two samples of battery life using a hard-bound bluetooth dongle and the fully charged 4400mAh battery. Both lasted right around 4.5 weeks of continuous connection.

The diodes were simple enough, but how did you open the switches without damaging anything? I can't even seperate the individual switches that formed the right column. I left the 'waffle' assembly together and just pulled the sliders. There's two little clips on the bottom that hold in each one. I ...

I'm good with CAD and well set up for 3D printing if you want me to make a clone. Recent clone I did: Measurements/pics/loan from someone who has one on hand would be helpful.

pmd

pmd

PMd

I designed one for the plate mount PCB model M variants a little while ago: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4663662
Cool to see one that works with the case mount PCBs, nice work!

Have you checked in the casing to see if the broken pieces are floating around? If you can find them I'd be glad to make a CAD model and print a few.

General electric CT scanner board (don't recognize the switches): https://www.ebay.com/itm/CT-KEYBOARD-MO ... 3623089776

PMd

I've been working on fixing up an old TEC terminal that had a few broken/missing keys and sliders. Managed to get some pretty nice results after a couple test prints. I printed the parts once and measured how far off the critical dimensions were from the actual model (it was consistently oversized b...

Some of the commonly available 'high contrast' sets are just black text on bright yellow with large letters. It would really depend on the person what's most readable though; max contrast isn't always the best option. Some forms of sight/reading impairments benefit from different color schemes. A co...

This thing been posted yet?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Siemens-Keyboa ... 2718111494

Also a neat looking Industrial M

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mitutoyo-Coord ... 4160597577

The diodes were simple enough, but how did you open the switches without damaging anything? I can't even seperate the individual switches that formed the right column. I left the 'waffle' assembly together and just pulled the sliders. There's two little clips on the bottom that hold in each one. I ...

Sorry for the necro! Just want to confirm - is it possible to open up Monterey/SMK switches while they're in a keyboard? (= not desoldered) Not really. Even if you could get the clips apart there wouldn't be a good way to align stuff when reassembling. The contacts would stay with the bottom housin...

I haven't done the case yet but I'll get around to it once I can find a plastic bag big enough. I used a sous vide cooker and a plastic storage container wrapped in towels.

I tore down the switches and ran them through an ultrasonic cleaner before I soldered everything in place. Threw on a quick QMK map and it works great! Switches are surprisingly smooth given their reputation. I got lucky with my board in that very few of the stems were cracked. I just put those on t...

Update on the PCB: Got 5 in the mail from JLCPCB today. There's about 4mm that needs messaging around where the case screws in but other than that they seem like they fit fine. https://i.imgur.com/YoxwbDM.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/RNN21uu.jpeg See the messaged areas at the top https://i.imgur.com/1Gp...

It's yours to do with as you please but man do I hope you keep the surface finish as it is. Only way it could get that patina is years of neglect. Definitely one of a kind!

I have a few NOS IBM Model M kbs made in Greenock around 97. They're all US layout terminal boards with an extra key on the numpad and some legends specific to their original use in a bank system. Most of them are good to go but a couple have some broken rivets. Should I do the screw mods myself or ...

Awesome 3D models! Hopefully there will be one day when you can get reasonable surface quality with 3D printing for projects like this. You can pretty easily get mirror finish on an FDM printer if you are willing to do a lot of sanding/vapor polishing. Resin prints are even easier. Getting the orig...

CallmeJohn wrote: ↑

03 Jan 2021, 05:15

spend the ludicrous amount and get a metal case cnc'd or something.

I was initially going to get my design milled from an aluminum billet on a 5 axis. Got a quote from Protolabs that was well over $3k! Suddenly PETG wasn't too bad after all.

Well the sanity check passed! The PCB won't be perfect but there's enough wiggle room that alignment can be made to look good. I finished up the PCB and ordered a set of 5 (the minimum); they should be here in about a week. Here's the KiCad project and the gerbers that I sent out: https://github.com...

For bare metal it's a good idea but not strictly necessary. There's plenty of paints that don't require it such as the engine enamel mentioned. It generally won't be as durable as good prep+etching primer+color but for this application it doesn't make a huge difference. Biggest thing to watch out fo...

I'd do primer on the whole thing since it can affect how the color layers look. The color coat would only be needed on the front of the build plate which helps. If you don't care too much about the finish (matte vs gloss vs satin) you could just do a few thin coats of black primer and call it good. ...

I'll definitely make the files available once I finish them. I think the minimum order quantity is 5 so I'll definitely have some extras! I'm able to get the layers plotted to DXF and extrude but there doesn't seem to be an easy way to do that for the drill map. I'm probably just going to print the ...

I scanned and counted pixels on the case, switch grid, and PCB and everything seems to be standard 19.05mm/u. The right F row was spaced a little funky on the PCB at only ~0.94u. I rounded it up so it should better match the case. The arrow key column wasn't a clean fraction of a U in distance from ...

Another option would be to do a few coats of something like https://www.rustoleum.com/product-catal ... t-reformer after sanding. Depending on how nice you want the finish, I probably wouldn't even do a color coat.

nfc wrote: ↑

28 Dec 2020, 19:45

By the way... what type of plastic did IBM used? ABS+PC?

I don't have an SSK but all the 101s I've come across are PVC.

You'll definitely need to remove the rust before you paint it but sandblasting and all that isn't necessary. I would: Remove the switches Get the bulk of the rust off with a wire brush or 220 grit sandpaper Soak the plate in Evapo-rust and rinse Get it pretty smooth with some 220-800 grit sandpaper ...