Customized keyboard parts introduction (Part4)

Keyboard

(1) Material: plastic, metal, wood.

Plastic, needless to say, the cheapest shell, and the color is also very rich, and milk shell and transparent shell is very suitable for PCB with bottom light, the effect is obvious. Of course, the disadvantages are also common to plastic, the shell is not strong and easy to deform.

Metal, generally CNC cutting, is strong and more tough, and the color after the anode is even richer than plastic, and because of the strong plasticity of the material, many high-end custom kits are metal shells. The disadvantage is fear of falling, fear of touching, once the metal bump is generally irreparable scars, and the price is also higher.

Wood, wood shell because of the universality of the problem, generally used in 60% of the keyboard, the color of the material is of course related to what wood, like a little dark walnut, like a clear texture of the yellow pear, like a little bright pine, it can be said that the choice of wood types is still very much. As for the disadvantage is that the wood will have a certain change in shell size due to the climate, and even crack.

(2) Size
Different working environments and typing needs also differ in the function and layout of the keyboard. This according to personal needs, from small to large according to the layout accounted for a lot, mainly including 40%, 60%, 65%, 75%, 80%, 90%, 100%, each collocation according to the author's own design and there are different key layout, such as the same 75% layout, different authors will give different designs, The specific number of keys included and the size of the keyboard also vary, and there are also no front teeth, small front teeth, and large front teeth. In addition, if the keyboard does not contain a numeric keypad, you can also purchase a separate numeric pad as a supplement if you do not want to replace other kits. Because the keys support customization, as well as the combination of keys can be set, basically small layout can achieve most of the functions, is a process that needs to adapt itself.

(3) Structure

1. tray mount. the shell has only one bottom shell, screws directly through the pcb and Positioning Plate to fix the inner liner on the column of the bottom shell, common in the entry-level customized keyboard, because of the simple structure;
2. top mount. the shell has two upper and lower parts, the inner liner is fixed on the upper shell through the screws on the positioning plate, and the pcb is suspended on the positioning plate through the shaft body, which is probably the most common fixing method at present;
3. bottom mount. the shell has two upper and lower parts, and the inner liner is fixed in the lower shell through the screws on the positioning plate;
4. sandwitch mount. the sandwich is fixed, the positioning plate is sandwiched between the upper and lower shells, and the screws will pass through the three at the same time;
5. plateless mount. no positioning plate is fixed, the shaft body is directly secured on the pcb, and the pcb is connected with the upper shell or the lower shell through the screw. The advantage of this is that the pcb is directly stressed when typing, because the pcb itself has a certain toughness, it can provide a relatively soft elastic bottom.
6. integrated plate. there is no separate positioning plate, positioning plate is a part of the upper shell, the bottom will be hard;
7. gasket mount. the current hot fixing method, has many variants. The basic essence is that the positioning plate is not directly in contact with the shell, but is isolated from the shell through the buffer material, and the upper and lower shells clamp the positioning plate between the buffer material (there is a little problem in the figure, in fact, the screws in the gasket mount do not touch the positioning plate). When typing, the buffer material bears the force exerted by the positioning plate, making the bottom more soft and soft, and at the same time, the vibration of the positioning plate is mostly absorbed by the buffer material and will not be transmitted to the shell, reducing the sound caused by the shell vibration, making the typing sound more low and pleasant.