Have been steamrollering ahead with the keyboard, and making rather good progress – Except for this little annoyance……..
It’s annoying enough to me , and a couple of trusted others to put a freeze on this method of doing things – and to invest more time doing something else!
The problems i’m facing….
The keys rotate around a bit – which, frankly, to me, is unnaceptable.
The GOOD news –
I have a way to IMMEDIATLEY fix it, Different, more expensive switches- BUT…it will increase my COST by 400% – meaning this product needs to sell for around the £70-80 mark, which I feel is waaay too high.
I do believe I have a few other good ideas which won’t cost so much, but need quite a bit of development. I’ve gotten the keys to print superbly and quickly on the printer, so I can work to good, tight tolerances. I can iterate quickly!
SO, it’ll take a couple of months longer than intended, no worries, worst case, i’ll do a limited run of expensive boards…and a wider run of boards with keys that rotate if there’s a demand (I really hope not)
Bleugh.Biz Blog Thingy 
How about gluing the keys to a flexible sheet of some sort and just having the keys over the button? Then alignment might be less difficult?
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That’s partly my second idea :-p
Though I’ve already tried glue, there’s issues with sideways flexing of the keys, and longetivity is in question.
What I’m trying next will be to use the existing switches AND a flex sheet containing square holes.
I’ll sit a square peg on each round switch
Sit the flex sheet over the assembly
Clip on the keycap….
The switch gives the rock steady stability,
The sheet reduces the twisty ness!
Have also looked at plain ‘dome’ switches – but there’s too little space to use them 😦
I’ve already started working on suitable materials and ideas for manufacturing- laser cut would be nice, but my vinyl cutter will serve for prototypes…
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Yeah. There are thoughts and there are thoughts.
I think it should be a material not unlike cellophane tape (it doesn’t like to twist at all) and somehow affixed to the PC board. this would prevent one key press from affecting others. Each row would have its own strip. If the strips were just laid across and not affixed to the board in any way you’d see all of the keys move with every key press.
Just re-read your idea about the sheet. YES! That definitely sound like a better and easier to implement idea.
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