Building a Mechanical Keyboard

I’ve found some PCBs and aluminium case shell on ebay so I ordered that to finish my keyboard.

I won’t be was i was thinking at first (using a laser cutter to build the « plates » myself) but at least, I will finalize that keyboard and make use of my Cherry switches.

I’m building a 3 key prototype. It’s pretty ugly since it was cut « by hand » but the idea is to test it before using a laser cutter.
The keyboard is working using https://github.com/tmk/tmk_keyboard/

Now it’s time to customize the keys (mute, volume up and down).

I just found out about keyboard-layout-editor.comkeyboard-layout-editor.com and http://www.keyboardcad.com/.
Theses tools allow you to design your keyboard and then generate the SVG to laser cut it.
It makes thinks really easy. Wonderful !

The case

The next part of the process is to design and build the case.

The case is composed of 4 plates :

1. the « base » plate where switches will be mounted,
2. the « supporting » plate,
3. the « spacer » plate,
4. the bottom plate.

In picture :

        _
     __|_|__
    /       \
+----------------+
|                | 1.5mm « base » plate
+----------------+
|   |       |    | 
|   \_______/    | 5mm « supporting » plate
+----------------+ 
|     |   |      | 
|     |   |      | 5mm « spacer » plate
+----------------+
|                |
|                | 5mm « bottom » plate
+----------------+ 

The goal is to design 4 SVG files that will feed a laser cutter.

Since I’m not familiar at all with that process, I'm thinking to first design a 3 keys keyboard (volume up, down and mute).

That will limit the costs if things goes wrong.

Inspiration to build my mechanical keyboard came from an article from « beastie.lesfurets.com ».

I like the visible micro-controller (a Teensy 2.0) but I’m thinking to use a more traditional layout (without numerical pad).

Components

I ordered almost all parts, including :

• 100 Cherry MX blue switches (face plate mount),
• 100 diode 1N4148,
• I also ordered stabilizers parts from wasdkeyboard for large keys (like space, tab, shift and backspace) :
  • Cherry MX Stabilizer Spring for Spacebar,
  • Cherry MX Stabilizer Spring for 2x+ Keycaps,
  • Cherry MX Plate Mounted Stabilizer Clips,
  • Cherry MX Keycap Stabilizer Insert,
    
• and, of course, keycaps from pimpmykeyboard composed of
  • a DSA blank base set - Gray (GTA),
  • a DSA blank modifier set - Red (RBD),
  • + a DSA Rainbow blank set (to change my DAS keyboard keycaps),

DSA key means they can be placed anywhere ; other families (DCS or SA) means keycaps are different according the row, see http://pimpmykeyboard.com/key-cap-family-specs/ for further details.

For the micro-controller, II will reuse a Teensy I already bought.