deskthority

I am in the process of designing my very first keyboard from scratch (PCB and up). My current thought is to do something similar to the Iris but possibly 3D in shape with an ortolinear design. Any tips out there?

Learn how to model using something like Fusion360 or AutoCAD and learn how to route PCBs in something like KiCAD. There are tons of resources for both, just not specific to keyboards (though there are some good keyboard PCB design resources).

Google will be your friend.

If you would go for a 3D keyboard then you can get some ideas from these: Maltron, Kinesis, Dactyl, ManuForm, K84CS, 3D topre.

If you're doing a one-off (ie, this isn't going to be a production run in hundreds of units) you're going to want to point-to-point wire it instead of using a pcb.

__red__ wrote: If you're doing a one-off (ie, this isn't going to be a production run in hundreds of units) you're going to want to point-to-point wire it instead of using a pcb.

That's not always true. You can get PCBs made for really cheap if they aren't massive. Sometimes it makes sense to use a PCB even if you're not going to sell or "mass" produce 'em (look at the Mitosis, for example).

Awesome! Thank you all so much for the tips!

AuthenticDanger wrote: That's not always true. You can get PCBs made for really cheap if they aren't massive. Sometimes it makes sense to use a PCB even if you're not going to sell or "mass" produce 'em (look at the Mitosis, for example).

Sure, but the OP is talking about building a 3D keyboard and flexible circuits are not only insanely expensive but modeling the correct distances across a curved surface is hard.