With bright colors and often intricate designs, after the physical shape of a keyboard the most conspicuous elements are surely the keycaps. Historically dictated by the stem of the key switch it attaches to, keycaps come in a variety of sizes, colors, profiles, and designs. As they necessarily include small features with tight tolerances to fit the stem of their key switch, injection molding is the classic manufacturing technique for a keycap. But as hobbyist 3D printing matures and resin printers become more accessible, home keycap manufacturing is increasingly good option. Instead of designing each cap by hand, consider trying [rsheldiii]’s KeyV2 OpenSCAD script to create custom caps with ease.
To cover the basics, KeyV2 can generate full keycap sets with Cherry or Alps stems, in the SA, DSA, DCS profiles (and more!) for any typically sized keyboard. Generating a particular cap of arbitrary profile, position, and size is just a short chain of function calls away. But standard keycap sets aren’t the highlight of this toolset.
If you’re not an OpenSCAD aficionado yet, visit [Brian Benchoffs] great getting-started guide or our other coverage to get a feel for what the tool can do. Part of OpenSCAD’s attraction is that it is the the paragon of parametric modeling. It’s declarative part files ensure that no parameter goes undefined, which is a perfect fit for KeyV2.
The root file upon which all caps are based on has about 150 keycap parameters which can be tweaked, and that’s before more elaborate customization. Making simple “artisan” caps is a snap, as the magic of OpenSCAD means the user can perform any Boolean operations they need on top of the fully parameterized keycap. Combining an arbitrary model with a keycap is one union() away. See the README for examples.
For the prospective user of KeyV2 worried about complexity; don’t be, the documentation is a treat. Basic use to generate standard keycaps is simple, and there are plenty of commented source files and examples to make more complex usage easy. Thinking about a new keyboard? Check out our recent spike in clacky coverage.
I soooo want a set of Commodore 64 key-caps for cherries sized to fit in an off the shelf PC keyboard, ideally double shot so it can be lit too
Good luck
You are just 5 years late, there was a group buy for a keyset just like that (the sides were printed, though, I believe there isn’t any manufacturer with tooling available for keycap side doubleshot): geekhack.org/index.php?PHPSESSID=bq332h4frg5hepdicuh939nulh1dkfqh&topic=71636.0;nowap
Recently I was idly looking for the same thing and found a place that will custom print a full 104-key set of keycaps for thirty bucks. They can also do side printing if you want the graphics characters to be just like the 64, but that runs into more money.
https://www.maxkeyboard.com/ansi-layout-custom-color-cherry-mx-keycap-set.html
(Sorry, make that $55–I didn’t notice that was for blank caps and the actual printing was extra.)
https://ibb.co/XLTjmYB how add a similar keycaps (half size)
and arrow keys, rotor? layout from https://klawiatura.wordpress.com/wersja-mini/
interesting, why 3 function keys?
Because they run Emacs? They need more for accent keys?
I’m a little late, but I am the creator of KeyV2. happy to be on hackaday! I think the write-up is a pretty fair shake; KeyV2 really shines when you need something bespoke. 4.75u keys, sculpted G20s, 2x2u POS SA row 5, fully sculpted kaycaps, that kinda stuff. Special considerations have been made for FDM printing, though all you really need to get a good SLA print is reduce the $stem_slop. Example SLA prints are shown on the Thingiverse page, which is listed in the readme.
If anyone has any questions the best ways to contact me are via the email on github, or open an issue on the repo itself. Have fun!