XL keyboard technical drawings

[jamm]

I was afraid you were going to say that you contracted the Covid 19 virus during your outing, but this is much, much worse!  I'm sorry for your loss.  ?

[ivop]

Thanks for the laugh and putting it in perspective again

 

 

[ivop]

Here's keycaps that fit the stackpole adapters. Just an experiment.

 

Start:

 

 

Closing the gaps:

 

 

Keep calm, carry on:

 

 

Last layer plus start of character on top:

 

 

Done:

 

 

 

Character is only half of the Inverse Video key, but this was just a test. Printing more keys at the same time, and switch fillament to white before the characters are printed, could result in an acceptible key.

 

This keycap only fits the stackpole-to-cherry adapter. I'm also considering a hollowed out version that fits stackpole switches directly. They won't look as good as real stackpole keys, but it's better than nothing

 

They could look better when printed in ABS and polished with acetone, but I can hardly stand the smell of PLA (which is supposedly non-toxic), let alone ABS, which is toxic!

 

Oh, and here's another stupid thing I apparently did a year ago when I stopped 3D printing for a while. On the first two pictures you can see two bolts nuts are missing. Basically, my whole printhead is hanging semi-loose! It's a mirracle it prints as good as it does. I fixed the Y-axis belt tension, but I guess this is a way bigger problem. Going to fix tomorrow

 

 

edit: hard boiled eggs and nuts (not bolts )

 

Edited April 30, 2020 by ivop

[ivop]

Small update:

 

I have been experimenting with PETG instead of PLA. Took me a couple of prints to get up to speed, but now it's working great! I don't think I'll ever go back to PLA again

 

 

This must have been the largest and longest print I have ever done. 11.8 cm high, so it just fits in 12x12x12 It took almost 14 hours. Sadly it's not wide enough for SIDE2 and AVG Cart. Guess I have to scale that axis by 10% and print again.

 

I have also done keycap adapters and they look and work great. Have not started with the PCB yet, but that'll come soon. I have found a Cherry/ALP footprint that looks good, so I don't have to reinvent the wheel.

 

edit: https://github.com/egladman/keebs.pretty

 

 

Edited May 11, 2020 by ivop

[ivop]

I'm totally flabbergasted. Today, I found my Inverse Video keycap + adapter + switch! In my bagpack. The one I checked thoroughly like five times two and half weeks ago and have used almost every day since. Never found it. And suddenly it was there today. I almost cannot believe it. Consider I went back at night with a flashlight to look for it, hahaha

 

On the subject of 3D printing, I'm in the process of replacing my hot head. One of the reasons I quit 3D printing 18 months ago was because it had a leak. Now I'm printing hotter with PETG, this really became a problem again with long prints, like the 15 hour cart holder print¹. Luckily, I have three spare heads from China. I only had to order new silicone "socks", and while I was at it, ordered 1kg of black opaque PETG. Expected to arrive tomorrow or the day after.

 

Ivo

 

 

¹ Scaling one axis to 110% worked, but was a bit of overkill. I suppose 105% will work, too, to fit SIDE2 and AVGCart.

 

 

[_The Doctor__]

Maybe the better solution is to make cartridge shells that allow the side2 and avg cart fit all Atari's and holders.... I am told it can be done, but somewhat difficult....

[ivop]

Update. In between postponing stuff and doing Rastaconversions, I managed to replace my hot head and completely recalibrate all axes. Took me a while. Times are not easy.

 

But now I can print 45 pieces of cherry-to-stackpole adaptors in PETG (225/50) that don't need any cleanup afterwards. No filing, no sanding, no hacksaw, they just fit immediately to both the switch and keycap, but still are easy to take apart.

 

 

This photo is from yesterday. Have repeated this twice already and it works. Now that I am sure I can print enough adaptors, I really should route a PCB

Edited June 7, 2020 by ivop

[_The Doctor__]

and direct people to the exact hot head your purchased, NICE!

[ivop]

44 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

and direct people to the exact hot head your purchased, NICE!

Nothing special. Just an E3D J6, which is well known in the 3D printing community. My previous one was a €35,= real one. It leaked all over the place. This one is a $7,= Chinese clone

[Tezz]

Nice project ? Has anyone by chance created a model of the Alps console keycap? I have an Alps keyboard that I repaired a while back that's missing all of it's five console caps. I've located a suitable replacement metal trim so would like to arrange some 3D printed caps to complete the keyboard.

 

I noticed that someone has recently included a model of the AWC Futaba ML console keycap on thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4434526) although it appears they have raised the model to account for the thickness of the metal trim.

[Tezz]

I forgot to include the pictures. The model should be quite simple, I should have a go at the Alps cap myself if nobody has previously created one. We know the console keys are 18mm squares so Ivo's measurements and scans of the main Alps keys here should be enough for me to go on for the switch.

[jamm]

43 minutes ago, Tezz said:

I forgot to include the pictures. The model should be quite simple, I should have a go at the Alps cap myself if nobody has previously created one. We know the console keys are 18mm squares so Ivo's measurements and scans of the main Alps keys here should be enough for me to go on for the switch.

Those look like they might work on the 1200XL too (that looks just like the Mitsumi-compatible keycap socket)

[Tezz]

30 minutes ago, jamm said:

Those look like they might work on the 1200XL too (that looks just like the Mitsumi-compatible keycap socket)

Yes the Mitsumi switches do certainly look to be similar to the AWCs Futaba ML switches. I'd be interested to check out whether the switch measurements are the same. I do have XLs here with all keyboard types but they are not easily accessible in storage. BTW do you by chance have a photo of the Mitsumi switch? I created a list with photos of all the known XL keyboard types and their switches a while back but I'm missing a photo of the switches used in the Mitsumi and details of which type of switch they are.

Edited June 19, 2020 by Tezz
typo

[jamm]

26 minutes ago, Tezz said:

Yes the Mitsumi switches do certainly look to be similar to the AWCs Futaba ML switches. I'd be interested to check out whether the switch measurements are the same. I do have XLs here with all keyboard types but they are not easily accessible in storage. BTW do you by chance have a photo of the Mitsumi switch? I created a list with photos of all the known XL keyboard types and their switches a while back but I'm missing a photo of the switches used in the Mitsumi and details of which type of switch they are.

I can't think of any way to get decent pictures of the Mitsumi switches without removing them from the PCB, but I wonder if @bob1200xl has any loose ones in a drawer somewhere he could take pictures of.

 

[Tezz]

20 minutes ago, jamm said:

I can't think of any way to get decent pictures of the Mitsumi switches without removing them from the PCB, but I wonder if @bob1200xl has any loose ones in a drawer somewhere he could take pictures of.

That would be great if Bob has some loose switches. If not, a photo of the switch on the PCB would be good to have.

[Tezz]

On 3/29/2020 at 8:54 PM, jamm said:

This is the ALPS keyboard 12KF061B

Hi Jamm,

 

Thanks for including your scans of the keycaps, I'm currently attempting to create a model of the Alps SKFL console keycap, have you by chance measured the height of the cap without its metal trim and the depth of the hollow / height of the center connector? I've attached a further pic of the switch for reference.

[muleherder]

Hi there. I recently got an Atari 800xl with a mylar keyboard with lots of bad traces. I considered replacing the mylar, but even then the keys feel like they are passing through the gobi desert on their way down. Rough. I suppose lubrication might help. But then I thought hey, maybe I could make my own keyboard using modern switches. Googling around, I found you all talking about the same thing. Ben Heck's handheld xegs is the only other attempt (successful!) I've seen to fabricate a keyboard for an Atari 8 bit.

 

I'm a software guy with no real experience doing anything more than basic Arduino hobby electronics. But it seems like this should be a doable project. I'm not particularly concerned about matching key-caps, though that would be very cool.

 

I'm thinking of doing a hand-wired keyboard based loosely on this build but obviously interfacing via ribbon cable to the 800xl and with physical mounts that would match the Atari. I guess the hand-wiring might make fitting more difficult but could simplify the process for someone like myself who has no experience designing circuit boards (though I am interested in that approach too). I am terrible with a soldering iron but I think I could hack my way through it.

 

Anyhow, I'd be interested in hearing thoughts on what others have done along these lines and if there's been progress since the last post.

Edited July 10, 2020 by muleherder
typos

[muleherder]

Hi all,

 

I spent a little time this evening working on a plate design for mounting Cherry MX style switches for my little project. I used http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com and http://builder.swillkb.com/ to generate an exact Atari 800xl layout. It worked well, but I ran into a couple of issues.

 

 

Note: the text on the keys is not too important at this point - the goal right now is to generate the mounting plate cutout diagram...

 

 

First, the left shift key on the 800xl is 2.5u (where 1u is the width of a typical key such as the alphanumerics). The builder code would not generate holes for a stabilizer for this key, even though it generated it automatically for the narrower CTRL key. Took me a while to track down the issue, digging through the source code for the plate generator and googling a bit. It turns out 2.5u is not a standard size today. 2.25u is standard, as is 2.75u, but not 2.5u. So I could hack the code to make it generate stabilizer mounting holes for a 2.5u width key. But a related problem is that being non-standard, nobody manufactures keycaps in that size. I am planning on using standard Cherry MX compatible keycaps, so that's not an option. I think the best solution for what I'm trying to achieve will be to slice 1/4u off all the leftmost keys (ESC, TAB, CTRL, SHIFT) and adding 1/4u to all the rightmost keys (BRK, RETURN, CAPS, ATARI). Besides fixing the SHIFT key issue, his will make the overall appearance similar to ANSI, though not exactly a purist's 800xl keyboard. Purity is not my goal... Anyhow, I'll update the CAD tomorrow with this.

 

The other issue is that the spacebar is 9u, which is not entirely unheard of but rather unusual. So it might be hard to get a set of matching keycaps which includes a space bar that size. ANSI spacebar width is 6.25u, and 6u and 6.5u spacebars are commonly manufactured. One solution to this might be something like making the spacebar 6.5u and add extra 1.25u CTRL keys to either side. This might look like rubbish though.

 

I still haven't worked out the details of the console keys. The keys themselves appear to be 1u. I'm thinking a separate plate and spacers. There's an LED there too which needs to be considered.

 

I found a local laser cutting service that I hope will be able to cut me a steel plate based on the CAD file that comes out of the builder tool. Combined with my original metal plate from my mylar keyboard, some spacers, and some kind of insulating sheet... I should have something to wire up relatively soon. Would be nice to get some schematics rather than manually tracing and replicating, but I've yet to find a good schematic for the xl keyboard.

[muleherder]

Update: Adjusted the layout. Increased widths of DEL and right SHIFT rather than BREAK and ATARI since they are more heavily used. Also, the spacebar seems to be neither exactly centered nor precisely aligned with the other keys. I've offset it by 0.125u but I may need to do some more precise measurements.

 

You can play with the layout here, and take the json in the "raw data" tab to plug into http://builder.swillkb.com/ to generate CAD files for mounting plates.

Edited July 13, 2020 by muleherder

[dmsc]

Hi!

6 hours ago, muleherder said:

Update: Adjusted the layout. Increased widths of DEL and right SHIFT rather than BREAK and ATARI since they are more heavily used. Also, the spacebar seems to be neither exactly centered nor precisely aligned with the other keys. I've offset it by 0.125u but I may need to do some more precise measurements.

 

You can play with the layout here, and take the json in the "raw data" tab to plug into http://builder.swillkb.com/ to generate CAD files for mounting plates.

Just the other day I made an "Atari XL" layout, aiming at a more realistic feel, see it at: http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/ae00e3345bad1435fd30eb58e81cfd9e

 

 

Have Fun!

 

[ivop]

Progress.

 

Here's a generic schematic of the XL keyboard.

 

No PCB, yet.

 

 

Project Helena.pdf

[ivop]

More progress.

 

 

This might take precedence over the backplane computer. More or less the same cost as the bare backplane, but with a lot more functionality I already have the Cherry MX switches, and printed 100+ adapters in PETG.

 

Edit: note that SHIFT_L is a 2.5U key, but somehow KiCad had no such footprint (the rest were standard). So a 1.5U is shown here instead, but properly aligned for the left shift key.

 

Edited April 22, 2021 by ivop

[ivop]

Final version, ready for PCB house.

 

 

I decided to not pre-drill mounting holes, as there are different mounting frames. It's only 8-16 holes (depending on the frame), that one can drill manually, to get the best fit for your frame.

 

I was surprised that a PCB this size (~120x350mm) is a lot cheaper than I expected. Not in the backplane computer ballpark, by far. Probably $30 for 5 boards, 1.6mm, 2 layers, 1oz, which should be good enough IMHO. And then there's shipping, taxes and custom duties. Sigh... But still, something like $80 for 5 boards to start with, is not that bad.

 

As usual, all files are on github: https://github.com/ivop/project-helena

 

Edited April 23, 2021 by ivop

[Sugarland]

Very excited to see the final product! Can't wait for the flood of replacement keyboards on ebay. ?  Thank you for the updates.

[Sugarland]

For those of us who don't like the SCCO keyboard font and tiny CONTROL text, I hope there will be a keycap font choice for the ALPS design, please.  The alps narrow font and big CONTROL text is legend.