Voyager keyboard overlays

[mfleming]

(06-06-2023 07:50 AM)brouhaha Wrote:  I found that the alignment is very good at the top of the page, and gets progressively worse toward the bottom of the page, ending up off by around 2 to 3 mm. I'm wondering whether my printer has an inaccurate Y axis, or the cutter does.

I tried years ago making multiple 41 overlays on a single heavy cardstock page using a Cricut cutter and encountered the same cumulative error. I duplicated the original design file then deleted all but one overlay in each copy. Each file could be run successively to cut all overlays to reduce error.

(06-06-2023 07:50 AM)brouhaha Wrote:  I've had enough hassles that I'm seriously considering switching to an Epson EcoTank printer.

I have a similar Brother tank style inkjet that survived six months in a mover's storage warehouse followed by a cross-country trip in a moving van. It only required a couple of nozzle cleaning passes to print like brand new. Highly recommended.

It might be helpful to distinguish between a keyboard overlay and keyboard stickers. An overlay masks the faceplate markings with replacement markings, and may or may not be used permanently. Michael Fehlhammer offered quality HP-41 cardstock overlays that I believe were die cut. He described the production process in a thread sometime in 2016/2017. Hopefully the C47 overlay project will be successful and be practical for other projects.

Keyboard stickers like Eric's mask both the faceplate and keycaps, and are intended to be permanent. I've seen such stickers for full-sized typing keyboards and believe they too are die cut. They are advertised for long term use, so they probably use an impress style printing (as opposed to spray-on). Might be worthwhile seeing what these companies can offer.

Somewhere in between might be a commercial printshop for the overlay/sticker blank and a cutter that's a step above a hobbyist unit.

~Mark