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I updated the 3D-printed keycaps for my Mantis v0.3 keyboard to create more sculpted keywells that require less finger movement for typing.

Thanks to the rotation of the switches on the PCB, this needs only two different keycap profiles, a flat one with 15° tilt of the dish, very similar to the keycaps I had printed for the first prototype, and a tall one with 28° tilt.

The flat keys are used on the home row, the outer pinky key and most thumb keys. The tall ones are used on the remaining keys. I'm not quite happy with the rotation of the inner index finger keys with the taller key profile. Fixing that will require a revision of the PCB, if I want to keep the number of distinct key profiles to just two.

I was able to print these keys very cost-effectively at JLCPCB, by joining 10 keys in a single 3D object. For the flat keys it brings the cost down to 30 cents per key. This leads to more imperfections than printing individual keys, but they are mostly cosmetic and don't affect the usability. The savings are worth it for me to make several prototype keyboards cost effectively.

The updated 3D models, including 10-key versions are on GitHub.

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[-] SinningStromgald@lemmy.world 56 points 1 year ago

Those keycaps look like teeth and creep me out.

[-] crawley@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

If it wasn't on this community it would belong in c/trypophobia

[-] some_guy@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago

This looks like it belongs in eXistenZ

[-] 108@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

now we just need to order "The Special"

[-] seaQueue@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

This keyboard really needs an umbilical looking cable to go along with the keycaps.

[-] luckybipedal@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Thank you for the reference. I just watched the movie for the first time. I mean I was going for an organic looking shape with these keycaps, but maybe I succeeded a bit more than I intended. I should make a "special" version for Halloween.

This is a movie I wanted to hate, because of how odd it was, but I loved it.

[-] harry_nola@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

oh wow! yeah great reference!

[-] deeroh@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 1 year ago

I'm impressed, and I love how this project is pushing the boundaries for keyboard layouts, but damn if this doesn't make me uncomfortable

[-] 404@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 year ago

Really cool! They kind of look like botfly larvae

[-] MartinXYZ@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

These look amazing! Do you have any more pictures of them installed?

[-] luckybipedal@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

The title picture and the first picture in my post both show them installed. Here is a direct link to the title picture.

[-] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 1 points 10 months ago

That looks absolutely crazy, I love it! Like some kind or teeth or something

[-] luckybipedal@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Yeah, I wasn't really happy with the height and sharp edge of the taller keys. The latest version flattens that a bit. It still has the lower half a spherical dish facing the key well, but flattens out above that. This makes it more versatile as a thumb key as well.

https://github.com/fxkuehl/mantis/raw/main/assets/mantis-v0.3-leds.jpg

https://github.com/fxkuehl/mantis/blob/main/keycap/keycap-v3-28.stl

this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
110 points (97.4% liked)

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