Infinity x GMK 3Run 60% Keyboard Kit Discussions | Drop

May 31, 2015

Alright well for those of you that want to buy a plate for this keyboard, I got around to making a CAD and finding a suitable website. So far the plate seems to be averaging at $50 to 3d print it in ABS, with the more expensive options ranging in the low $100s. http://goo.gl/FdnCJ0 I'm not sure if I'll buy this or not, but as of now it's the best option, aside from trading a person for their case and plate. Massdrop please have a drop for a plate and case! (also if a person with a plate could measure their dimensions and tell me that'd be great, the ones I have are 285mmx94.6mmx1.5mm)

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May 31, 2015

IEATPOLESWhy not laser cut it out of 1.5mm acrylic or polycarbonate sheet?

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May 31, 2015

A0.CDo you have a website that does that? Big Blue Saw does water cutting.

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May 31, 2015

A0.CI just had another idea, although it is very stupid and I wouldn't suggest it. Depending on the width of the bent metal plate, I could technically just cut off the bent parts. It would make a decent plate if I did a decent job, but again I don't know what the measurements of the bent plate are.

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May 31, 2015

IEATPOLESThey also do laser, though only for acrylic.

May 31, 2015

IEATPOLEShttps://github.com/kiibohd/case/tree/master/infinity-keyboard should have the measurements, I believe.

Jun 1, 2015

Victor_LIf you can find others who want one the price drops dramatically for a stainless steel plate if you do 5 or more.

Jun 1, 2015

A0.CI don't want one myself - happy with my plate & bent plate from the first drop and for the second one I have

ready to go for when my PCB comes some day.

Jun 1, 2015

Victor_LThat keyboard/design is EXTREMELY impressive :)
I would love to hear more about it / about the design/process
I also find the costar cutouts better aligned than the swillkb ones, did you align them yourself in the design? (Edit: from the switch cutouts, I'm guessing the entire plate design is custom too)

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Jun 1, 2015

Victor_LThis the the PCB you need. https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=69740.0
TMK firmware.

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Jun 1, 2015

Victor_L @Victor_L Is that the provided plate? That looks really good, where did you get that from?

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Jun 1, 2015

KaanThanks. :) I was initially inspired by Ethan Schoonover's Cartesian Longboard (http://imgur.com/a/SFPwH) stylistically, a bit, and I used the same manufacturer for the plate, mostly because they do standoff mounting on the backside so the top is completely clean.
The design did actually vaguely start as a swillkb design but I decided to modify the cutouts as I was doing the Matias switches and that's cleaner + holds them more securely. At that point I just used it as a reference. The costar stabs fit nicely in those holes and it seems to work fine width-wise.
I'm waiting on the PCB and once I have that installed and tested I'm going to try to do a wood (probably walnut) center case - basically, imagine a piece of wood with about an 8mm border on the sides/back, top flush with the plate, and then functioning as a built in wrist rest in front, gently sloping, rounded edges, that jazz. We'll see if I can pull that off as I envision it, though - I have no wood working tools and even less knowledge of how to do shit with wood. Most likely I'll just try to find somebody who knows what they're doing and have them do it.

Jun 1, 2015

IEATPOLESNope, that's one I had made. Cut by these people: http://www.frontpanelexpress.com

Jun 1, 2015

A0.CIt's relatively new but I still quite like the kiibohd firmware, tbh. I'd stick with it if only for proper n-key rollover (i.e. not via hub emulation) which I'm not sure of anything else supporting. I'm also happy with my existing infinity boards, and don't see any reason why I wouldn't be happy with the ones I get (someday) from drop 2.

Jun 1, 2015

Victor_LHow much did it cost and what material did you opt for?

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Jun 1, 2015

IEATPOLES1.5mm anodized aluminum, & it was just over $100 iirc.

Jun 1, 2015

Victor_LBeautiful, thanks for the inspiration
I will likely use the infinity's for 6 months and in the meantime work on a custom 75% layout myself, and I will likely handwire it too like the Cartesian Longboard did
Looks like my fomo is still at play, going to try sculptured SA keycaps in my next build, if anyone else is interested, the SA Retro only has 14h left: https://ctrlalt.io/buys/sa-retro
The center case seems to be the most challenging part, I might end up with GON-like clear acrylic myself, the wood seems very challenging - or I might just simplify things and throw my money to GON :) - For Cherry MX users, the MX-Mini is too attractive - the custom build costs will likely exceed the GON build anyway
Not that there is anything wrong with the infinity's - I wasn't using right shift, so replacing it with an arrow cluster worked out for me, now that it's gone I'm wondering whether I should've went for a 75% layout that had everything without any compromises Also not finding exact keycaps for my exact usage is bothering me a bit on some level
Anyway, I have 14 hours left to holster myself and settle on my infinities :)

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Jusion

Jun 2, 2015

KaanThat SA Retro looks cool, how do I ensure it will be compatible with the Infinity keyboard? Which set(s) should I be purchasing? I just don't want to make the purchase and find out it won't fit the Infinity keyboard

Jun 2, 2015

JusionYou need either of the $80 base sets and one of the $35 Pro Mods sets to get the Short right shift and the backspace/Delete keys. You will have a lot of keys left over.
There is only a 6.25 space bar so this will not work with the Hacker layout, only the standard Infinity layout.

Jun 2, 2015

KaanYeah, I feel like through trial and error and if I find somebody with a router I can eventually manage a wood middle case (drill holes for standoff, route out middle + some surface area so plates fit flush?) but maybe it'd be better to do mdf + veneer or more likely I'll just find somebody who knows what they're doing.
For acrylic, I think there's a good number of web laser cutting shops if you don't have one local, as well.

Jun 2, 2015

A0.CIndeed the base+pro mods cover everything - as far as infinity and placements are concerned (maybe the apple set too, if you are obsessive about the 1.25 CMD like me)
I'm still not sure about DSA vs SA - the sculptured SA seems a bit better typing wise, DSA seems more prone to mis-typing On the other hand, DSA is more available blank-wise, also the non-sculptured nature of the keycaps allow mixing
I want 1.75/1.25 R4 blanks in TBN for my arrow cluster for example, It's unclear whether SP will be willing to mold them at an affordable price, still couldn't decide whether I'm going to join myself or not :)

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Jun 2, 2015

Victor_LWould acrylic work as well as aluminium? I'm hesitant about going for aluminium simply because of the price.

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Jun 2, 2015

IEATPOLESI would not, personally, use acrylic for a plate, though to some extent that's a matter of taste. I think the general feeling is steel > aluminum > plastics, but personally I prefer the feel of aluminum to steel plates (slightly more yielding). If you are going to go acrylic for a plate, I'd suggest researching a bit on geekhack &c - I think I recall reading that 1.5mm wasn't holding switches securely so you might need to go thicker than that though how thick I couldn't say.
For the middle/bottom part of a sandwich case, well, whatever you like the looks of works - doing that out of metal would be pretty heavy and probably fairly expensive.

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Jun 2, 2015

Victor_LThanks a bunch, I've also been looking at different premade plates for anyone else interested in this endeavor, here's one I found:
Gonskeyboardworks offers plates that are premade, although they are meant for his inhouse keyboard, the NerD 60(He also has a universial plate, but it doesn't seem to be the same as an infinity plate): http://www.gonskeyboardworks.com/7-housings-and-related-parts
Perhaps the NerD's plate could be modified to fit the Infinity, I'd have to look more in depth. As of now I'm also considering 3d printing the plate from a 3d printer my buddy has, he put it together himself so I'm not sure how accurate it will be.
EDIT: I just sent Gonskeyboardworks a support ticket about the "universal" 60% plate, I'll post results after. It also happens to be much cheaper than any custom plate I could find, so that's a plus. Fingers crossed that it works with the infinity.

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Jun 3, 2015

IEATPOLESMost Gon stuff uses only PCB mounted stabilizers, the Infinity does not support PCB stabilizers.

Jun 3, 2015

A0.CUgh that sucks, are you sure if the universal plate is also pcb mount? I can't tell from the picture, but it doesn't seem to be

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Jun 3, 2015

IEATPOLESYes, he even has it in the description. "(This Plate does NOT support Frame/Plate Mount Stabilizers.)"
You can tell by the big gap in the Enter key. No place to clip anything on the right half.

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Jun 3, 2015

A0.CI don't like his plates honestly, I saw one keyboard that also has the left-gap that I complained about earlier, they also all have the switch gaps as they are all universal, all his keyboards have pcb-creeps from these gaps, not too aesthetical in my opinion, as I gather, it's also impossible to reach him lately, as he is extremely busy
Victor_L, my remaining clear'd drop shipped last week, yet it ships with UPS Surepost, it still hasn't arrived yet, the ground post takes extremely long, so if you're going to contact massdrop about the delayed matias's, it might make sense to urge them to use a faster post for yours

Jun 3, 2015

KaanI see, I guess I'll have to 3d print it then. They really should have a separate drop for cases and plates, I would totally get one. I'll post my results of 3d printing it after I have it done.

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manapua

Jun 3, 2015

IEATPOLESLaser cut it out of 1/16 acrylic, birch plywood, or even cardboard. Much more dimensionally accurate than 3d printing.

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Jun 4, 2015

manapuaHonestly, it looks beautiful, the color of the wood wouldn't be appealing to me as my plate, however I agree about the acurracy - 3d printing is positionally accurate, yet the edges are a bit rough, it's not a bad thing tho, it secures the switches especially well, however, when I perfect my dimensions, I might also get my plate machined, but I don't think that will be the case, as I won't be able to handle any more delays - as soon as I get my parts, I'm sure I will 3d print a plate and get things wrapped in 24 hours
Here is my current progress: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=72183.0
With vvp's suggestion, I combined the advantages of 1.5mm plates and 5mm plates, this is practically impossible with laser cutting/cnc - the result is an extremely solid and hefty plate
Currently I'm experimenting with different materials/printer settings - I will likely end up using black PLA for all 3 parts and coat the parts with some matte acrylic spray coating to make them ghetto anti bacterial - this is the most practical solution (slicing the plate into 3 parts is to reduce the dimensions, however it also enables matching the color of the modifiers and alphas and get a 2-color plate thing going on :)
The reason I don't like PLA is that it shines too much, comparatively ABS is matte/cool - but I'm guessing with a bit of post-processing I can improve the looks of the PLA

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Jun 4, 2015

KaanThat's quite nice, I can't get mine laser cut as the closest one is about 40 miles north, which is too far for too little. Are you making your plate 1.5mm thick, and how well do your switches fit? I'm probably going to have mine cut in 2 pieces as the 3d printer I'm using is limited to an 8x8x8 space. Do you mind posting the files somewhere?

Jun 4, 2015

IEATPOLESWHPGH, in reality, it might be called flush, the plate is 0.2mm-ish lower than the case, it looks pretty good, great actually, my only complaint is there is a 2mm-ish gap on the left side, some custom plate/pcb combos also have this 2mm left gap, I've seen it on a Nerd60 setup too, If you're going to use the default plate, the vortex case is a pretty nice choice
IEATPOLES, I made them 1.52mm's as I like to print -0.2mm-ish into the Z axis, they stick very very well, 10 times better than the cutouts the infinity plate uses, I'm using the square cutouts
The nudges are 1.52mm below the plate, however the plate is 5mm, I'm basically enlarging the plate to be 5mm, and them I'm manually adding small nudges below 1.52mm so that the switches latch on, it's a match made in heaven
My calculations are not very accurate and scientific, I'm going to test various calculations for the plate thickness once I finalize my printing method (the z axis displacement to be specific)
I'm also printing the plate upside down, so the first layer is the top of the plate, this ensures a nice finnish and the bridges are below the nudges, so they don't mess with the switch latching

Jun 4, 2015

KaanWould it still fit in cases even with the added Z axis displacement? I'm planning on going for 1.5mm exact, just so it can fit in a case. Also how far did you space the edge from the first set of cutouts? I'm probably going to go for 1-2mm for that, again would that fit in a case

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Jun 5, 2015

IEATPOLESWhat do you mean by the edge? If it's the border radius, I haven't tried alternatives yet, if customs don't pose an added issue, I should receive the items in 1-2 weeks, but 2mm would be a safe bet I guess, the default one looks 2mm to me, I will probably try various values and select one when I receive the cases/pcbs, as far as I recall, I'm using 3mm in my trials
Z-axis displacement is really minimal, as far as the fitments go, it should fit into cases without issues, in a visually pleasing manner, I really enjoy 5mm plates now that I've tested them, I probably can't easily go back to 1.5mm now (the displacement is <<0.5mm)
I've also finalised my material choice yesterday, it's black PLA with some over-extrusion, when you build into the printer-plate, it creates a really nice looking matter finish (assuming you have blue painter's tape on, the plate adopts the surface characteristics of the tape, which is just beautiful) Also tested ABS but it was soft compared to PLA; also printing with ABS is extremely challenging, so I gave up, with PLA it's easy to get perfect prints, yet with ABS it would likely require many trials

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Jun 7, 2015

KaanI meant the distance from the cutout to the side edge. Also if anyone's wondering, the bent metal plate fits perfectly inside this Lego case I made. I actually like it a lot, considering using it.

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Jun 7, 2015

IEATPOLESPictures!

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Jun 7, 2015

A0.CI'm dumb, I just realized I didn't post any, It's something like 38 studs by 16 studs EDIT: Pictures are hard EDIT EDIT: UGH [img:eadss.jpg]

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Jun 7, 2015

A0.CScrew it, here's an imgur link: http://imgur.com/6GJ5J76 Like I was saying, it's 38x16 or something

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Jun 7, 2015

IEATPOLESLooks beautiful, I was also considering using Lego's as a case for a custom 65% project, they are certainly up for the task, I would tile the upper part with glossy tiles, and use 1x top/bottom width
I will let you know when I finalize my calculations, but just by guessing, just enlarging the left side of the swill's 60%/poker output by 1-1.2mm's should make the right/left/bottom gaps equalized in the vortex silver 60% case - otherwise the left gap is the odd one out, I can see the bottom of the case from a meter away

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