Like any other community, the keyboard takes all sorts of things to round the world. Some prefer their thicker – more support for clicking and everything – but some prefer the smoothest and thinnest keyboard possible. For now and in the near future, the go-to method for making whisper-thin kibs is to use Kailh Choc switches, because that’s where it is.
But Chox isn’t for everyone, and there are plenty of die-hard cherry fans out there who want it either way. Becoming one of them, [Khmel] Set about designing the lowest-profile possible keyboard (and cap) that uses the standard cherry-shaped key switch. Will you take your money in silence? Okay, okay, but the case and keycap files are all available on Thingiverse, so.
The whole video is great, and in less than 26 minutes, it’s definitely worth your time. A few small gems of knowledge are scattered across the printing keycaps standing behind them (e.g. where they would have a small flash dot if made in the factory). This gives them a nice texture for the layer line. But the real reason we are here today is this DIY method of creating a doubleshot keycap with little hassle. [Khmel] Just towards the end tosses out there.
Traditionally, the doubleshot keycap is made of two layers of plastic – one for the legend and one for the rest. It makes a fairly durable keycap and (used to be the norm), but the expensive process gave way to laser-HD and pad-printed keycap legends in the 90’s. [Khmel] Legends were printed at a height of 0.25 layers and then a thin piece of glass (think slide of a microscope) was spread on top and a soldering iron was applied for a few seconds to fuse each into its own key-cap to mimic the look. Excellent!
Isn’t tweaking little legends really your hungry kind? Instead there is a method for DIY waterslide decal.
Via KBD # 77