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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Those keycaps look like teeth and creep me out.
If it wasn’t on this community it would belong in c/trypophobia
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This looks like it belongs in eXistenZ
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.
now we just need to order “The Special”
This keyboard really needs an umbilical looking cable to go along with the keycaps.
oh wow! yeah great reference!
This is a movie I wanted to hate, because of how odd it was, but I loved it.
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
Really cool! They kind of look like botfly larvae
That looks absolutely crazy, I love it! Like some kind or teeth or something
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
These look amazing! Do you have any more pictures of them installed?
The title picture and the first picture in my post both show them installed. Here is a direct link to the title picture.
