deskthority

Go-Kart wrote: ↑

18 May 2022, 05:43

Not the caps I intended for this board but it doesn't look bad. Lubed Glorious Pandas in there, carbon fibre plate, hot swap version. Gotta say, stabilisers on the NCR80 are attrocious, even lubed.

Hey Go-Kart <3
Now thats lovely. i kinda want to hop on the trend of this ncr kit aswell :O

Go-Kart wrote: ↑

18 May 2022, 05:43

Not the caps I intended for this board but it doesn't look bad. Lubed Glorious Pandas in there, carbon fibre plate, hot swap version. Gotta say, stabilisers on the NCR80 are attrocious, even lubed.

How does it sound? Does it have anice thock?
CF plate should help getting it nice and thocky.
Are these MG set?

I think it looks nice and sounds nice (for the most part) - sounds how it looks, in my opinion. Big old keyboards have that low, open thock; this is reminiscent of those boards. Would've purchased full-size given the option! As mentioned above, this is the NCR80 hotswap kit with a carbon fibre plate, Glorious Pandas lubed with 205 G0, ABS SA 'Ponyo' cap set from Ali Express (literally listed as 'GMK clones', they just don't give a shit, do they ). I would have gone for the FR4 plate but I didn't spot that there was a choice on the listing.

The stabilisers really let this board down the though. They're PCB mount clip-in. I greased the wires good, lubed the housings with Krytox, as one does, but they're still shocking. Space bar isn't too bad but the rest really let this board down. I must sort this out. Here's a vid of a bit of post-work clickedy-clack: https://photos.app.goo.gl/NNuq4rDokchXUvoNA.

The other thing I'd caution is choice of switches. Depending on how deep the switch protrudes through the PCB, they can interfere with the Kailh hotswap sockets, or in my case, outright damage the PCB! I had to break out the soldering iron to repair the pads/traces that were damaged when I put the switches in! This is briefly (barely) mentioned on the listing but what they're referring to isn't particularly clear, so you're been warned

I also have an NCR80, but I built it plateless with a soldered PCB. Great board for it's price. "Low, open thock" seems to describe the sound well, but mine has "low, open, heavy click" because of the Kailh BOX Jades. Moreover there are Durock screw-in v2 stabilizers and a lot of foam in the case. A few days ago I cut the LEDs (useless imho) and soldered three additional switches.

Sound test

Tasty. How's the bottom-out with the plateless build?

Soft to bendy, I’m guessing. But with enough support behind the PCB it could be greatly improved over the PCB mount Cherry experiences I’ve had.

Bottom-out is quite hard, although the PCB has two flexing cuts. But they are pretty useless because of the braces in the bottom case. There's no room for the PCB to bend itself. O-ring-mounting could be a thing, I guess. Some flexing is great in my opinion, I'm going to take a test on this soon.

I'm into a wee bit of flex. Keep us posted!

I finally got my 4704 guts up and running. I purchased a barrel plate, back plate, and pcb with an Xwhatsit pre-installed from Orihalcon a while back. New barrels, flippers, foam, and caps recently came from Model F Labs. I still need to finish the barrel plate and make a case, but it works like a dream!

You'll have to excuse the Ikea coaster "feet" and sticky note inserts for 2 of the relegendables lol

ThermometerSandwich wrote: ↑

20 May 2022, 22:25

I finally got my 4704 guts up and running. I purchased a barrel plate, back plate, and pcb with an Xwhatsit pre-installed from Orihalcon a while back. New barrels, flippers, foam, and caps recently came from Model F Labs. I still need to finish the barrel plate and make a case, but it works like a dream!

You'll have to excuse the Ikea coaster "feet" and sticky note inserts for 2 of the relegendables lol

20220518_153520.jpg

Looks good! Do you have any ideas for what type of case you’re going to make?

ThermometerSandwich wrote: ↑

20 May 2022, 22:25

I finally got my 4704 guts up and running.

Looks amazing! And you have your layout almost to the key exactly how I would lay out an F107!

thefarside wrote: ↑

21 May 2022, 00:27

Looks good! Do you have any ideas for what type of case you’re going to make?

Thanks! I really want to make a concrete case with a brass or stainless pencil holder. I'm going back and forth between replicating the original case or making a wedge-style case with an integrated wrist rest.

Johnbo wrote: ↑

21 May 2022, 00:56

Looks amazing! And you have your layout almost to the key exactly how I would lay out an F107!

Thanks! I've been using that layout on another board for several months now and I love it. The top two keys in the macro block are escape keys - if I just smack at that corner of the board I'll inevitably hit escape. I'll throw a 2u cap up there eventually.

ThermometerSandwich wrote: ↑

20 May 2022, 22:25

I finally got my 4704 guts up and running. I purchased a barrel plate, back plate, and pcb with an Xwhatsit pre-installed from Orihalcon a while back. New barrels, flippers, foam, and caps recently came from Model F Labs. I still need to finish the barrel plate and make a case, but it works like a dream!

You'll have to excuse the Ikea coaster "feet" and sticky note inserts for 2 of the relegendables lol

Wow, that's just stunning! And I bet it feels and sounds as good as it looks.

Concrete might get a bit messy, but has anyone ever made a case from resin or some other composite material? Back in the day I had a turntable made by Kenwood, and the base was made of some sort of resin that looked like granite. Very heavy and solid, whatever it was.

ThermometerSandwich did you notice any issues using the barrels from Model F Labs regarding key alignment? When I was restoring my F107 I wanted to see how well the new barrels worked with the old and noticed a significant offset between the the new barrels and old (pic below). The bottom row are the new barrels and you can see they aren’t aligned with the originals. I didn’t need them so I didn’t know if the offset would affect key alignment. Your keys look good but I thought I’d ask

Polecat wrote: ↑

21 May 2022, 04:56

Concrete might get a bit messy, but has anyone ever made a case from resin or some other composite material?

A quick search yields plenty of results for 60% resin cases, unless you meant something more specific.

davkol wrote: ↑

21 May 2022, 18:51

A quick search yields plenty of results for 60% resin cases, unless you meant something more specific.

I meant as a custom and as a less-messy alternative to concrete for ThermometerSandwich's 4704 above. Trying to turn a humorous suggestion into a slightly less unserious one. Sorry, I'm emoji-blind, those didn't exist for the first three quarters of my life.

Concrete would certainly keep the weight similar . I’m not sure if it would be strong enough on the bottom where the material gets thin. I’ll look into making a resin case and if anyone has any other info I’d be willing to give it a shot on my F107 to help.

Polecat wrote: ↑

21 May 2022, 04:56

Wow, that's just stunning! And I bet it feels and sounds as good as it looks.

Concrete might get a bit messy, but has anyone ever made a case from resin or some other composite material? Back in the day I had a turntable made by Kenwood, and the base was made of some sort of resin that looked like granite. Very heavy and solid, whatever it was.

Thanks! Feels good, sounds good.

I'll definitely make a mess with concrete, but I can't get the idea out of my head now... lol I've dabbled in a lot of making over the years, but never concrete. I'm going to have a stainless substructure laser cut. It will show through where the keyblock dividers are and probably the pencil holder, so I will avoid having any concrete areas too thin. I was planning on having the concrete part be one-piece with the plate assembly installed through an open bottom and secured with screws from underneath into tapped holes in the substructure. Then, I'll put a metal cover over the bottom access opening and secure it with screws into similarly tapped holes. I will use glass fiber reinforced concrete. I'm not sure about the mold yet. I can resin print parts that all bolt together to make the mold or I can print a positive and silicone cast a mold around the positive... still not sure either way. The resin printed mold would be cheaper. I am very much open to any suggestions on concrete casting. I'll make a post in the workshop once I get started.

Before any of this happens, I'll get case dimensions from my other 4704 and draw up an unmodified two-piece case and post the CAD file for everyone. I'm not sure about when I'll do that, but if you want to use that for a resin version, @thefarside, feel free!

It would be great to see more custom IBM cases in general. The one's I've seen so far have been awesome!

As far as barrels are concerned:

thefarside wrote: ↑

21 May 2022, 14:31

ThermometerSandwich did you notice any issues using the barrels from Model F Labs regarding key alignment? When I was restoring my F107 I wanted to see how well the new barrels worked with the old and noticed a significant offset between the the new barrels and old (pic below).

Spoiler:

20220515_174551.jpg (2.34 MiB) Viewed 12609 times

The bottom row are the new barrels and you can see they aren’t aligned with the originals. I didn’t need them so I didn’t know if the offset would affect key alignment. Your keys look good but I thought I’d ask

I did notice a bias in the registration angle. It's quite annoying. Once I put the plates back together and put caps on I tried to twist them straight. It kind of worked, but I suspect they'll drift back. I may have to file some notches in the barrel registration tabs next time I open the plate assembly. It's pretty clear to see in the attached pic. I wonder if ellipse knows?

ThermometerSandwich wrote: ↑

21 May 2022, 22:09

I'll definitely make a mess with concrete, but I can't get the idea out of my head now... lol I've dabbled in a lot of making over the years, but never concrete. I'm going to have a stainless substructure laser cut. It will show through where the keyblock dividers are and probably the pencil holder, so I will avoid having any concrete areas too thin. I was planning on having the concrete part be one-piece with the plate assembly installed through an open bottom and secured with screws from underneath into tapped holes in the substructure. Then, I'll put a metal cover over the bottom access opening and secure it with screws into similarly tapped holes. I will use glass fiber reinforced concrete. I'm not sure about the mold yet. I can resin print parts that all bolt together to make the mold or I can print a positive and silicone cast a mold around the positive... still not sure either way. The resin printed mold would be cheaper. I am very much open to any suggestions on concrete casting. I'll make a post in the workshop once I get started.

I didn't realize you were serious about the concrete! Strangely I have actually played with cast concrete, when we made some custom fire bricks (skulls) for the kid a couple years back. We used refractory (fireplace) cement from Amazon, Rutland was the brand I believe, with excellent results. It mixes thin, and has no sand or gravel so you get a smooth surface even with a finely detailed mold. We used some plastic Halloween skulls as molds, and were able to split them for removal and reused them several times. So I have no experience with making molds from scratch. But the stuff works really well and is easy to use.

Go-Kart wrote: ↑

19 May 2022, 20:34

I'm into a wee bit of flex. Keep us posted!

I'm into that too, so here's the NCR80 flexing edition! I have marked in the bottom case where the flexing cuts are and removed all braces in this area. First with a cutoff wheel on the grinder, then with a box cutter whose blade I heated over the lighter.

Here you go for a test.

That looks just about right. Stabilisers are the first on my list ...second may be a Dremel!

Speaking of the NCR80 - I know the solder pcb version can do ISO, but what about the hotswap one? The ali shop page doesn't say. (that I can see)

According to the photos, the hot swappable PCB is for ANSI layout.

Here's my other WIP F107.
It's not pretty,
but I love it.

Looooooooovely!

IBM Model M11 Modifiable Layout Keyboard from 2006, the 133-key otholinear buckling sleeve leviathan! To my knowledge, this is the largest IBM buckling sleeve keyboard in terms of key count. It was introduced in 1993 and first produced by Lexmark and released alongside the Models M7, M7-1, M8 and M9. After Lexmark ‘lexited’ the keyboard market, production was first moved to Mexico under Maxi Switch and then eventually to the Far East via XAC (ROC) and XSZ (PRC).

On release, it was hella expensive: $645 in 1993, which is ~$1,210 in today’s money…

Jan Pospisil wrote: ↑

26 May 2022, 13:19

Speaking of the NCR80 - I know the solder pcb version can do ISO, but what about the hotswap one? The ali shop page doesn't say. (that I can see)

Wouldn't be too big a job to move round a hot swap socket or two.

I've been mixing and matching sets to try and get close to the beauty that is the Novel Keys X-Wing Set.
Close enough?

Terminal keyboard from 1983 by CPT. Hoping to get a converter built for use over usb in the the near future. Note the ginormous return key!

The Phoenix Jr is such a neat board! The whole word processor/terminal is just weird looking. I almost grabbed the one that was on ebay recently but the price tag was eye-watering.

It has ITW intermediate mag-valve switches right?