Unholy Mashup Of SpaceMouse And Sculpt Keyboard Is Rather Well Done

What do you do if you have a pair of input device peripherals for your computer, but they are from different manufacturers and thus not available as a single unit? If you are [Marco van Nieuwenhoven], you combine the two to make a mashup single peripheral.

[Marco]’s two peripherals were a 3Dconnexion SpaceMouse Wireless, and a Microsoft Sculpt Keyboard. His mashup isn’t featured here because it simply is a mashup, after all anyone with a hot glue gun could combine the two, instead he’s created a single peripheral that almost looks as though it could have been manufactured that way. It’s not complexity we’re looking at here, but elegance!

The Sculpt keyboard fortunately has a large palm rest in which the electronics and batteries sit, and he’s carefully measured the footprint of the top half of the SpaceMouse before hand cutting a very neat aperture to take it. The SpaceMouse PCB is attached below the aperture, and the bottom of the palm rest is attached with a little bit of padding to ensure a snug fit. The result: a combined input device to be proud of!

Of course, if this keyboard isn’t special enough for you, how about a typewriter?

9 thoughts on “Unholy Mashup Of SpaceMouse And Sculpt Keyboard Is Rather Well Done

  1. It sure looks “cool”, but my space mouse devices always sit quite some way from the keyboard to allow my arm to comfortably stretch instead of me being all folded-in …

    This might be a perfect example of: Design = 100 points, Ergonomy = – beep –

    1. It was not meant in the first place for ergonomic working. It was meant to be carried with me more easily. The base of the 3d mouse is very heavy (385 grams including 2 aa batteries. Now I do not need to carry that weight with me all the time.

      Secondly, when I design a lot in 3D I place the whole keyboard further away and I have access to E(extrude) , F(fillet) etc which are quite nearby.

      Furthermore I do not control the 3D mouse that good with my left hand so sometimes I use it with my right hand and I keep switching over from sides. This is also not needed anymore.

      Enough reason for me to make this hack and I am very satisfied with it. I might consider making an integrated palmrest for the 3D mouse part later.

    1. Don’t be so negative, theoretically you too could make it look professional.
      I know because I too fail to make things look nice 15 out of 16 times at least, but then sometimes I surprise myself when I build something.

    1. The RAM mounts are really great. I am lucky to have the medium AND the long arm. It makes marking up things very easy. I am also thinking of attaching a TOF (time of flight) sensor on a XY mill and scan the object completely. After that it should be possible to calibrate the start point of the workpiece. Still puzzling on that one. I already have the TOF sensor and testing starts soon.

  2. I was thinking, this does make the keyboard near impossible to to use by your average one or two-finger typist. And that could in some cases be a good thing I guess.

    1. I find myself using my right hand on the left side of the keyboard, especially when typing passwords (oops, did I just give a clue). So I should decide to type it with left, or to change the password(s) (oops, maybe another giveaway) . ..

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