deskthority

Rayndalf wrote: 19 Oct 2020, 10:48 How do you go about finding things like this?

Patience (the previous one I found in 2012).

I picked one of these up a long time ago: https://flic.kr/s/aHskqR9W7G

Untitled

Long time (no post)!
I'm still around, and still gathering keyboards :mrgreen:
Sadly life has made it more difficult to actually photograph and measure force curves...

Anyways, I have something special that just arrived from Japan.
An NEC DT-KCD2000C Type A keyboard. I'm not entirely sure what ...

I'm a bit stuck right now with graphs.
Plotly removed their paid accounts so I don't have an option to post any more plots there...
So I need to come up with another option (and sadly I don't have time to build something right now).

Yeah, texture analyzers work. The software tends to be a little bit painful to work with, but usually workable.
eBay prices can be good though full price is usually painful.

Found an old numerical keyboard from what looks like the 60's on ebay. Sorry for the low quality image:
Switches.png
What could the switches be?


Those look like Honeywell Micro Switch magnetic reed switches. Those were common in the 60s. My guess is that there's a kind of cover over top. The ...

Beamsprings for the REST of us.

Now this is becoming a a proper switch which should gain full support as time progresses.

Sick and tired of seeing $2000-5000USD various keyboard models for sale on Ebay. Just hope this new Beam Spring doesn't follow the very same price guide line as well.


We ...

Generally that won't work because most hall effect sensors for keyboards utilize threshold detection inside the sensor rather than the MCU. So all you're getting is on/off signals.

These switches were provided to me by Jesse from keyboard.io, so he'll have more info than me. He also works fairly closely with Matias so I think he'll have the best analysis at this point (though I can tell you what's going on in the force curve).

Basically, between the different versions there ...

I think the contacts may not have been working, I'll see if I can remeasure it.

(the pins are hard to get a grip on with my minigrabbers)

These are all NOS.

Sorry for the delay, I measured these over a week ago, but life happened...

(There are some missing, but I don't have the loose switches so I'll need to dig them out of a keyboard unless someone can send me loose versions)

Futaba

https://plot.ly/~haata/481.png
https://plot.ly/~haata/479.png ...

I think that uses the 4th gen Fujitsu leaf spring switches, which have a single piece housing for the whole keyboard (like a model m) and uses a mylar sheet for contacts ( also like the model m).

I believe I have the yellow and blue in a keyboard somewhere (may take me a while to find them...).

wiki/SMK_Cherry_MX_mount

wiki/SMK_Cherry_MX_mount

wiki/Alps_SKFF_series

I do have some force sensors that have a higher rating (not as precise though). The calibration takes quite a while so I'll probably need to hold off on that for the time being.

Haha, the force gauge is safe up to 600 gf (and is critical around 1200 gf). So I wasn't super worried with this one, lol.

wiki/Alps_SKCM_Green

This switch is just funny. The peak force is just over 400 gf



wiki/Tai-Hao_APC_series

Wiki Entry: wiki/USw_LARB01

At the request of Chyros, the next switch to measure is the USw LARB01.
(again, thanks Daniel Beardsmore, this one is also really interesting ).

Yeah, it feels a lot heavier than it actually is.
I think this may have to do with the amount of momentum your finger has when pressing a linear switch. For a linear switch your finger knows to keep pressing even harder to go down. But for a switch like this (as well as the later half of parabolic ...

Thanks to Daniel Beardsmore for sending me a bunch of switches!

To start off, an "interesting" one: wiki/ITT_ETL18



It feels like your flicking something when you press it. Quite smooth too.

Sadly, mine arrived loose, in a box labelled "Gourmet Small Batch French Fries", lol. So I don't have any further docs.

Well, these are interesting.

Cast metal (likely aluminium) keyswitches! They have small microswitches inside of them, along with rubber gaskets (probably ultra extreme environments).
Going from the pins, likely hotswap as well.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4599/25305994098_ed258a3656_h.jpg IMG ...

At least from my understanding, I'd say it's mostly On/Off.

In theory, if you could ramp up/down the magnetic field as you pressed the slider in a similar range to the magnetic field generated by the pulse, you could measure the output current (or voltage).
But this is pretty tricky (calibration ...

It's California Bay Area Meetup Time!

This time, I've teamed up with /u/manofinterests, Andrew Lekashman of Input Club and /u/yuppie (of our wonderful sponsor company) to make the meetup just that much more awesome.

Our host, the wonderful company, known to the world as Nest, has graciously ...