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swill / kad

Keyboard Automated Design (KAD) is a Golang library for designing mechanical keyboards
http://builder.swillkb.com
GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
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Choco Switch Support #8

Closed upsampled closed 5 years ago

upsampled commented 5 years ago

I am trying to add Choco Switch support to 'kad'. The plate cutouts should be the same as normal switches, but they have different keycap dimensions. The low-profile, standard keycaps used by the Choco Switches appear to not be perfectly square. At a minimum this means I need to replace U1 with U1.Width and U1.Height and corresponding math to allow a non-square U1.

Before I dive in, can you think of any other logic that might get thrown off by this change?

Naturally I'll submit anything that works as a PR and leave it up to you to add it.

Low Profile 1u difference 1) 17.5mm x 18.5mm - https://oddrocketkeyboards.blogspot.com/2018/05/koda-keyboard-4x12-grid-using-kailh-lp.html 2) 17.5mm x 16.5mm - https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/7hjks9/help_dimensions_of_low_profile_keycaps/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/7h79qg/comment/dqp63tw

upsampled commented 5 years ago

Actually, let me order some keycaps and confirm this. I am seeing schematics still spacing them at 1U standard.

Confirmed that the NovelKey Choco Keycap is 17.5 mm by 16.5 mm.

upsampled commented 5 years ago

Just found out first hand that I will actually need to make a new cutout for the choco as well.

Looks like the sides with the clips are 14.5mm at the edge of the clips and 13.8mm wide where the switch will rest.

Confirming this thread

Looks like a 14 mm by 14 mm square cutout, in material less than 1.3 mm thick will work.

swill commented 5 years ago

Thanks for confirming. I suspected that they would work as expected, but please report back if you have any issues. Cheers...

upsampled commented 5 years ago

@swill sorry, I used this ticket to collect notes. Now that i made a test plate let me summarize my findings:

  1. kad currently cannot handle the low profile keycaps because they require a non-square 1U. I added this capability in PR #9 .
  2. The square 14mm by 14mm cutout will work for the choco switches. (I probably will reduce the cutout slightly for a more snug fit later).
  3. Material thickness must be less than 1.3mm for clips to function. (thickness is not used in the code but worth mentioning)

Test Plate image

swill commented 5 years ago

Awesome, thanks for following up. I have been getting through the issues today, I was planning to get through the PRs soon. I will review and merge your PR over the next few days. Thank you for the contribution. :+1: