WP-34S / 31S Key Caps?

[Jake Schwartz]

Hi,

I just read about that Kickstarter project for a "consumer" 3D printer here and had a thought. Assuming that a 3D printer in the near future becomes reasonably priced and can combine multiple-colored plastics into single objects, I wonder if thin 3D-printed key caps with the '34S or '31S functions could be built, which could then be glued to the 20b or 30b key tops. I am beginning to wear out my adhesive labels with repeated use and at least one label is starting to lift off by itself.

Jake

[walter b]

(04-10-2014 06:09 PM)Jake Schwartz Wrote:  Assuming that a 3D printer in the near future becomes reasonably priced and can combine multiple-colored plastics into single objects, I wonder if thin 3D-printed key caps with the '34S or '31S functions could be built, which could then be glued to the 20b or 30b key tops.

That would be very nice. How realistic, however, is your assumption? And how thin can be thin to have multiple-colored plastics staying single objects still?

d:-/

[orcinus]

The main issue with nearly all consumer 3D printing technologies (yes, both FDM *and* SLA) is that the top surface will never ever be 100% smooth.

Which makes it unsuitable for this particular application.

You could print the keys upside down, but then you lose the ability to make anything but a completely flat profile (i.e. no slant at the bottom of the key). You could sand and polish them, but then you lose the whole point of *rapid* prototyping

Regarding multi-colored printing - it's currently fairly messy with the FDM printers and impossible with SLA printers. Certainly not applicable to printing keys. There are color-mixing extruder hotends on the horizon (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmn7K1U06Wc) but i don't think those will be applicable nor convenient for this purpose (and, besides, they're still not here).

What can be done (and is a fairly common trick) is changing the filament midprint from one color to the other, with the top layers having a cutout so the other color shows through.

Bear in mind that even that will look fairly ugly, as the cutouts will be far from crisp and regular.