Hello All
Not sure if this hs been posted before, but here is my results for this little experiment.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:386789
I sent that file to https://jlc3dp.com/ which is the 3d printing side of JLCpcb.com
5 keycaps printed for $1.20 + $2.00 shipping
I used the grey color option for this inital test, the keycaps fit prefectly on the top row of the ][e keyboard
If anyone knows the correct colour value for the original beige-brown keycaps, please let me know and I will get another set printed for giggle'n'sh!ts
The texture, quality and fit of these are top notch.
Well done on making these available!
Whilst I don't need these right now, you never know when you might need them and having this as a resource is excellent.
Thanks for your work on these.
Make some numbers and print them on a laser printer using decal transfer paper, and you've got a winner!!
Not sure if you've seen this, but double- and even triple-shot key caps can be made by hand (without plastic injection molds). Check the videos at keymacs.com.
My vintage keyboard is missing a key, can you make me a replacement?
In theory, yes, but this may well be the most expensive keycap humanity will ever witness. Just the reverse engineering and re-modelling of the keycap profile can take tens of hours that we expect to be paid.
The above is a quote from their FAQ page. And their full keyboards while nice, may be the most expensive in existence. Is there really a market for €4975 (plus VAT!) keyboard?
https://keymacs.com/product.html?a620n
I directed you to the videos (of key cap fabrication), not the order form. There is enough detail shown that you should be able to work out the process. Generally speaking, if the price quoted by an artisan (in any field) seems excessively high, it indicates that he is not actively seeking additional work. Given that is the case, the price he proposes is what would make it worth his while to inconvenience himself.
Thanks for posting the link to that file! Has anyone done .STL files for the keycaps for the other four rows? It says this is a work in progress so I am guessing maybe they are still working on the others? I'm hoping so, or if failing that this could be the base for someone else to model the other rows. And then also the wider keys like DELETE, TAB, CONTROL, RETURN, SHIFT and the short RESET. Oh and not forget the space bar too.
Another idea is to use the profile for the top of the keycaps for the //e and make a version with a Cherry MX bottom side. That combined with a PCB design adapted to Cherry MX key switches would be amazing for the DIY world.
Laying these keycap blanks on top of every size-matched key on the keyboard there appears to be a slight change in the top surface height depending on which row, but the sidewalls and angles match.
When I get some time, I will try to re-model the keycap for proper fit
For the record, the Thingiverse .stl file is NOT my design. I used it for this experiment as a resin print and it worked out very well.
I thank you for posting the link even if it isn't your original work, because it benefits the DIY community here.
You are correct that the bottom part of the keycap is the same for all five rows, it is the angle of the top that differs. That is the "sculpted" part. It should be possible for someone who is very good at creating the .STL models to make all the other files needed to make a complete keyboard set for a //e. That would be completely awesome. Even more so if someone created keycaps that had the extra things like the different layers for the key labels and the little dimples for the D and K keys, etc. If there was that, it would enable people to make full keyboard replacements much more easily.
I guess you typed emojis in your posts: as discovered by other users, the database that backs this site uses UCS-2 (no surrogate pairs), so characters beyond U+FFFE cannot be stored. So characters like "ﬖ" (U+FB16) work, but (U+10426) will be unable to be stored, so the post content gets dropped.
Thank you for the information.
Sorry I dont remember if I have embedded an emoji.
The website returned an error screen.
I thought it was due to an incompatibility with my iPad.
I'm not sure if I can erase these annoying empty posts.
I was just congratulating the OP and asked if he plans to make other key caps for a Macintosh, for example
I have an MO118 with the left CTRL key missing.
Yves