Building a Keyboard: Part 2

http://blog.fsck.com/2012/12/building-a-keyboard-part-2.html

by flapjack • 14 years ago

113 22 14 years ago

blog.fsck.com

shabble• 14 years ago

Part 1 (from yesterday): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4893457

gambiting• 14 years ago

He's really lucky he wasn't arrested by the TSA, like that guy who had a custom-made watch and got arrested for "possessing all elements needed to make bomb". Namely - a few wires and a battery. He was arrested and put under $10k bail. A Keyboard that was opened and soldered on the inside? That could earn you some nice jail time in the Uncle Sam's land of freedom.

Edit: But yeah, the project looks really cool, something that each one of us uses every day and yet is so complicated internally. Well done.

obrajesse8• 14 years ago

Part of the trick is that I was aware of what I had with me and was careful to actually open its case so the TSA agents could easily see what it was. I was friendly and engaged and prepared to talk their ears off about ergonomics ;)

Flying out of DCA a week later, the TSA agent was astonished that I wasn't _selling_ keyboards -- "People will buy anything. You should make some money on that shit."

Transiting Narita and flying out of Taipei a week after that, I just put it through the X-Ray. Nobody said a thing.

sbierwagen• 14 years ago

- Poking holes in a plastic project box with a soldering iron isn't something you'd do in production, but it's fairly common when screwing around with a hobbyist project.

- Twisted-pair cable either requires either grounding one wire in the pair (in 100baseT) or fancy differential-signalling tricks. (in 1000baseT or HDMI)

- Sounds like the biggest problem was solder joint failure as a result of inadequate strain relief. In satellite design, where repair is, of course, impossible; the rule is to never use a solder joint as a mechanical connection. The component is secured to the frame, and the wire coming off the component is separately secured.

If you're not building a satellite, the method of accomplishing this is usually hot-glue, copious amounts of it, on everything. (As seen in cheap hand-assembled electronics. Expensive electronics are robot-assembled and use SMD components, which usually don't need strain relief unless you're doing something really exciting.)

obrajesse8• 14 years ago

Thanks!

In a bunch of the cases, the problem was "hysterically bad solder joints." It wasn't so much that the joints would fail when put under pressure as that they'd fail when you looked at them funny.

Kliment3• 14 years ago

Please don't melt holes into that material with a soldering iron. The plastic you are using appears to be nylon, and nylon releases highly toxic fumes when melted. In addition to the nasty smell, there are some things in there that can kill you before you notice them. I highly recommend using a drill and a small file to make access holes like that. It's faster, safer, and looks better in the end.

wallflower• 14 years ago

> as a result of inadequate strain relief.

OT: Related from yesterday, a USC doctoral student has proven that a "strain or stress gradient" is key to tin whisker growth

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4893745

thinker• 14 years ago

What!? How do you not like Modern Family. I think you need to give it another chance.

obrajesse8• 14 years ago

I know that many people love it. It...just doesn't work for me. Ah well.

kurjam2• 14 years ago

Reading this made me feel like building my own keyboard. Maybe use a little dvorak on it... Thanks!

obrajesse8• 14 years ago

Awesome. That's what I was going for :)

grimborg• 14 years ago

Me too! It seems like it's gonna be hard to obtain keycaps and shells, though..

kurjam2• 14 years ago

Yeah. After butting some hours of research into this I'm afraid that would be a little too big project for me to start with currently. So from this site ( http://www.fentek-ind.com/FootPedal.htm#afs3usb ) I found a little idea which i just might try out. But instead of leg switches, I thought about adding a new modifier(s) under/near my palm rests (pressure switches I guess, but needs some testing first, what feels comfortable) to get brackets, colons, <> and other daily signs from the home row.

obrajesse8• 14 years ago

For keycaps, you can often find mechanical keyboards at goodwill. Failing that, there are many companies that will sell keycap sets to you (Like WASD)

For the shells, yes, those will cost a bit of money. Or you could make friends at your local hackerspace.

pkamb• 14 years ago

An interesting wrinkle in these "column" keyboards (where Q-A-Z are lined up in a column rather than staggered) is that I self-corrected for this deficiency years ago; my left pinky hits Q-A-Shift, ring finger hits W-S-Z, middle hits E-D-X etc.

The W-S-Z fingering leads to a nice curve that mostly follows the movement of your finger, just like what you get on the right side of the keyboard (U-J-M, etc).

I don't know how folks type Q-A-Z with their little finger. It causes immediate hand pain to curl my fingers inward/perpendicular to hit Z, X, C, and V.

I imagine this method was only taught in the first place thanks to clueless typing teachers who thought "first keys on the left = first left finger", ergonomics be damned. Does anyone else type "Z" with their ring finger?

obrajesse8• 14 years ago

Actually, I do. That's part of what has made this design challenging for me. The next thing I build will have a ...somewhat different layout.

joebadmo• 14 years ago

There's a personal balance point between customization and portability e.g. how much to customize Vim or rely on shell/git aliases. These kinds of customizations can improve your personal workstation, at the cost of incompatibility with other people's machines and the spin-up time for new machines.

For keyboards, having to sometimes use other people's machines as well as frequently switching between my desktop and laptop means that, while tempting, this level of customization is too far for me. The sweet spot for me is a high quality mechanical switch (-style) keyboard: Topre's Realforce.

Building a Keyboard: Part 2

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