So in the absence of fancy moulded silicone keyboard membranes, Im still on the hunt for a good keyboard experience

The hunt has slowed a little, the re-desgn of the pcb has been taking up my hacking time but I managed to make some amendments.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it..

The task is a fun one, The printer can do features down to 0.5mm, which gives plenty of scope for playing., but if you dont leave big enough gaps, they will fill with the printing powder and at best be hard to remove, and at worst clog up all together.

The buttons are 5.4mm square, and i decided that the central shaft that activates the snap dome is 2mm in diameter. That already limits things somewhat!!

The next limitation is the space below the button. With just 2.4mm between the bottom of the button and the pcb, which will reduce by 0.25mm when the button activates.

Anyone following along at home will have seen my last attempt, which failed because of too much reliance on the 0.5mm minimum feature size (too fragile) and not leaving enough clearance (blocked up the gaps)

After many different attempts I think this might work

Im hoping that there is enough material to stop the buttons falling off, but enough flex to actually work as buttons

New Materials...

I had an email from my local printer guy (Shout to Paul @ Midlands 3d) and he has a new toy!! The last prints were done in nylon using magical HP MJF printers. The new printer opens up SLS printing in TPU, resulting in flexible prints with similar accuracy. The prints have been ordered, and its just a case of waiting to see how they turn out.

To be continued.....