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OSH Park - Flex PCBs for Dactyl / Manuform / etc

Posted: 06 Apr 2019, 00:54
by ELLIOTTCABLE
Hi! I'm curious if anybody's used OSH Park's new flexible-PCB printing service to print PCBs for a Dactyl, Manuform, or similar traditionally-handwired/concave keyboard? Any experiences to share?

Most ideally, I'd love it if someone had files I could just upload and order, to finish the second hand of my Dactyl without any more g/d handwiring. :lol:

Re: OSH Park - Flex PCBs for Dactyl / Manuform / etc

Posted: 06 Apr 2019, 11:01
by vvp
It is very likely you cannot do this for Manuform without redesigning the keywell or making the case bigger.
Notice that you need one row of keys almost in plane to fan-out flexible PCB columns from. You either need such a row of keys or you need a bigger case to place the row of PCB connections outside the keywell.
The same seems to apply to Dactly though I'm not sure there.

Kinesis advantage solved this by placing the bottom row keys almost in plane and leaving out the bottom key of the outer pinkie column.

The problem with putting one row of keys in plane is that it is comfortable to have pinkie columns higher. That means you need to either put all the pinkie switches higher or have higher keycaps for pinkie columns. And getting custom keycaps is way too expensive.