newRPL keyboard overlay

[spiff72]

(04-16-2021 02:55 PM)lmamakos Wrote:  I'll post the new files when I add the additional keytop labels, probably have time to do that this weekend.

The color of my printed overlay is different than what it appears on the screen. I'm sure there's a color calibration/correction needed for both my monitor screen and the combination of printer and material.. but I just didn't need to make more problems for myself at the time..

It's a bit unfortunate for others that want to modify this that the geometry of all the pieces is derived from the OpenSCAD script. But that turned out to be really handy when tweaking things as it made all those rows and columns of keys much easier to line up with each other, rather than tweaking them by hand in Inkscape. If OpenSCAD could generate 2D output with colors, I would have preferred to keep it all in there, but these are the tools that I have. I was already using OpenSCAD for my 3D printing time-wasting pursuits, so it was a handy tool for doing the parametric modeling of the dimensions.

I'll make a new posting here when I've incorporated the updates.

Sounds good, and thanks again!

I have been doing a bit more experimentation with Inkscape here. I did manage to create my own keycaps covers (blanks) for the 6 2nd menu keys. Also played around with colors a bit more (in anticipation of getting the 39gs (hopefully this weekend it will arrive)). I like the near-black background for the 50g, but I think this will look weird on the white/gray of the 39gs. I was thinking of doing a nearly white background (just enough color so I can see the outline after printing) and modifying the various colors so they still contrast with the white background.

If you want to save some time over the weekend, I think all that I would personally need to continue experimenation would be the "v7" svg that includes your row spacing and cutout size tweaks, since I have figured out how to crudely add those extra blanks in there. I am just hesitant to go much further with the v6 version, since you mentioned that some of the keys interfered with the openings.

OpenSCAD scared me off as I was looking for a decent CAD option for at home use with my 3D printer. I have been using ProE (now Creo) for about 23 years, and ended up settling on Fusion360 for simple CAD projects for those times when I don't have access to my work laptop (which is almost "never" with the working from home routine).

Thanks again for your efforts on this!

[lmamakos]

I've posted links to the files off my blog post over here. This points to the same PNG file I posted the link to before, and I've also added the Inkscape SVG file and the OpenSCAD script and resulting SVG file that defines the geometry that is incorporated as a layer in the Inkscape file.

I would be curious to hear how well an inkjet printed version of this label works as compared to my laser printed with another thin layer of clear vinyl sandwich approach.

[spiff72]

(04-18-2021 02:39 AM)lmamakos Wrote:  I've posted links to the files off my blog post over here. This points to the same PNG file I posted the link to before, and I've also added the Inkscape SVG file and the OpenSCAD script and resulting SVG file that defines the geometry that is incorporated as a layer in the Inkscape file.

I would be curious to hear how well an inkjet printed version of this label works as compared to my laser printed with another thin layer of clear vinyl sandwich approach.

Awesome! I will dive into this and give it a shot. My plan is to print with an inkjet printer, and I bought a can of clear spray acrylic that I intend to use to "seal" it. (I don't have any of the clear vinyl sheets to use as a top layer, but I have considered that option.

[lmamakos]

(04-18-2021 03:01 AM)spiff72 Wrote:  Awesome! I will dive into this and give it a shot. My plan is to print with an inkjet printer, and I bought a can of clear spray acrylic that I intend to use to "seal" it. (I don't have any of the clear vinyl sheets to use as a top layer, but I have considered that option.

I was pretty happy with the acrylic spray treatment when I tried it, except for the toner from the laser printer flaking off at the edges of the cuts. It may be that the inkjet ink will bind better and not have that effect. I think it will have a better "feel" since the keyboard button labels will be thinner.

I spent a little time trying to pick the colors.. ultimately, the darker green I ended up with was inspired by the HP 48 that I had. But the black scheme on the 40gs also would look sharp and provide better contrast I suspect.

[spiff72]

Here is the result of my first attempt at applying the vinyl overlay...

It went OK for the most part, and looks really good (almost stock), but I am finding that the circles for the directional arrow keys are very difficult to cut neatly. I also found that pattern of holes seems to be a bit "off" positionally (in the vertical direction). I ended up doing a little bit of surgery on those holes while the overlay was partially applied (from the tangent key row downward it was already stuck).

The down arrow for me was hitting the top of the cutout in the overlay (that hole seemed to be too low) so I crudely trimmed a bit of the material from the top of that hole. I need to go and make sure that I didn't inadvertently move something (which I don't think I did, since I never touched that area of the template). The end result was that a bit of the blue-shift CUT label was cut away (the irony!)...

EDIT: In case someone wasn't following this whole thread, I am using a modified version of the template, where I added blank keytop labels for the 2nd/3rd rows of keys, adjusted colors to match the HP50g, and did a bit of adjustment on the colors of the RS and LS shift colors to contrast well with the dark background of the overlay.

[lmamakos]

(04-19-2021 12:39 AM)spiff72 Wrote:  ...I am using a modified version of the template, where I added blank keytop labels for the 2nd/3rd rows of keys, adjusted colors to match the HP50g, and did a bit of adjustment on the colors of the RS and LS shift colors to contrast well with the dark background of the overlay.

Thanks for posting the photos of your variation. Your darker color scheme is starting to grow on me! It enables the lighter "shift" colored labels with good contrast.

That's something I fiddled with quite a bit, which took me down the path of darker shades of green. Might as well just go to the black color, or something very close. I think that would still look OK on the while body of the HP 39gs. Maybe if I expanded the label size a bit more to cover more of the face and extend closer to the edges?

Or as they say, "better" is the enemy of "done" and this could be done enough for now..

Glad to see this was useful for others.

[spiff72]

I have a separate SVG file I created for the 39gs, just waiting for my eBay order to work its way through the dumpster fire that the USPS has become. (Apparently Priority Mail takes at least 5-6 days to get from North Carolina to Michigan.) Once I have that in hand I think I will have a better sense of how the black vs nearly white backgrounds will look on that 39gs.

I used a pale whitish gray for the background and black print for the keytops and unshifted labels, with alpha being orange, LS darker blue, and a reddish color for RS. I also attempted to shift the openings for the direction arrows up by 1.5mm and adjusted the positioning of the labels associated with the arrow keys accordingly. I just hope those keys aren't in a slightly different location for the 50g and the 39gs!

[Claudio L.]

(04-19-2021 12:39 AM)spiff72 Wrote:  Here is the result of my first attempt at applying the vinyl overlay...

That looks really nice!

[Claudio L.]

(04-19-2021 03:45 AM)lmamakos Wrote:  Thanks for posting the photos of your variation. Your darker color scheme is starting to grow on me! It enables the lighter "shift" colored labels with good contrast.

That's something I fiddled with quite a bit, which took me down the path of darker shades of green. Might as well just go to the black color, or something very close. I think that would still look OK on the while body of the HP 39gs. Maybe if I expanded the label size a bit more to cover more of the face and extend closer to the edges?

Or as they say, "better" is the enemy of "done" and this could be done enough for now..

Glad to see this was useful for others.

Thanks for your work on this template, it will indeed be very useful to a lot of people.

PS: You have more newRPL calcs than me!

[spiff72]

(04-20-2021 12:53 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  

(04-19-2021 12:39 AM)spiff72 Wrote:  Here is the result of my first attempt at applying the vinyl overlay...

That looks really nice!

Thanks!

The USPS seems to have lost my ebay 39gs shipment, so it will be a while before I can try my variant for that calc.

EDIT: I have to give all the credit to lmamakos for creating an excellent template for those of us who want to take the time to tweak things to their liking. The source SVG file is a gold mine for that...

[spiff72]

(04-19-2021 03:45 AM)lmamakos Wrote:  

(04-19-2021 12:39 AM)spiff72 Wrote:  ...I am using a modified version of the template, where I added blank keytop labels for the 2nd/3rd rows of keys, adjusted colors to match the HP50g, and did a bit of adjustment on the colors of the RS and LS shift colors to contrast well with the dark background of the overlay.

Thanks for posting the photos of your variation. Your darker color scheme is starting to grow on me! It enables the lighter "shift" colored labels with good contrast.

That's something I fiddled with quite a bit, which took me down the path of darker shades of green. Might as well just go to the black color, or something very close. I think that would still look OK on the while body of the HP 39gs. Maybe if I expanded the label size a bit more to cover more of the face and extend closer to the edges?

Or as they say, "better" is the enemy of "done" and this could be done enough for now..

Glad to see this was useful for others.

Hello again!

I am resurrecting this old thread because I am revisiting some of this template stuff, in the interest of possibly trying to create my own template for newRPL for the HP Prime.

I just have a question for you on your Cricut machine - which model are you using, and what type of cutter do you use for this type of work? I am looking at purchasing one, but was curious which one you used for your template cutting work.

Thanks!

[lmamakos]

I, er, "my wife" bought the Cricut Maker variation of the product. I don't know if its the "Cricut Maker 3" specifically, or if we've got a 'Maker 2".

There's some variation in the machines, and I think I settled on the "Maker" vs the "Explore" model because it handled a wider variety of materials, which really means the cutting force (which is adjustable) can be much greater. It also has additional cutting tools that can be used.

I think that if you're cutting vinyl, it likely doesn't matter. I used the default cutting blade supplied with the machine. And if you're cutting a single layer of vinyl that ought to be fine. I think it's described as the "Fine-Point Blade" among the various choices.

My first sets of overlays were printed on a sheet of vinyl on a laser printer, and then I applied a clear vinyl sheet over it to protect the toner for durability. That required some experimentation with the cutter to get the right amount of force to cut through those two sheets, but not through the backing.

A few months ago, I printed a few more overlays and this time did them on an inkjet printer. I then sprayed them with a UV resistant acrylic clear coating and let that all dry before cutting it out with essentially one of the standard vinyl cutting pressure settings. They turned out really great. And I've not noticed any wear on the labels obviously happening. (Though I admit it doesn't get heavy use.)

From that experience, I think the double layer of printed white vinyl with a clear overlay sheet isn't worth the trouble and the single sheet sprayed with the clear coating works great and ought to be able to be cut on any of the machines for sure.

I don't think there is any difference in cutting resolution, etc.

Now, I really sort dislike the company that makes these things and the very closed software ecosystem around them. I think that if I wasn't trying to talk my wife into this as an upgrade (because she already had a much older Cricut machine nearly as fancy), I'd maybe look pretty hard at one of the Brother machines. However, for "crafty" people, there's a big community that uses these machines, and her prior experience with the brand had some considerable influence on the decision process.

That said, I have no idea what the software ecosystem is like for the Brother machines, though I'd imagine it would be similar in capability.

[spiff72]

(06-08-2022 04:39 AM)lmamakos Wrote:  I, er, "my wife" bought the Cricut Maker variation of the product. I don't know if its the "Cricut Maker 3" specifically, or if we've got a 'Maker 2".

There's some variation in the machines, and I think I settled on the "Maker" vs the "Explore" model because it handled a wider variety of materials, which really means the cutting force (which is adjustable) can be much greater. It also has additional cutting tools that can be used.

I think that if you're cutting vinyl, it likely doesn't matter. I used the default cutting blade supplied with the machine. And if you're cutting a single layer of vinyl that ought to be fine. I think it's described as the "Fine-Point Blade" among the various choices.

My first sets of overlays were printed on a sheet of vinyl on a laser printer, and then I applied a clear vinyl sheet over it to protect the toner for durability. That required some experimentation with the cutter to get the right amount of force to cut through those two sheets, but not through the backing.

A few months ago, I printed a few more overlays and this time did them on an inkjet printer. I then sprayed them with a UV resistant acrylic clear coating and let that all dry before cutting it out with essentially one of the standard vinyl cutting pressure settings. They turned out really great. And I've not noticed any wear on the labels obviously happening. (Though I admit it doesn't get heavy use.)

From that experience, I think the double layer of printed white vinyl with a clear overlay sheet isn't worth the trouble and the single sheet sprayed with the clear coating works great and ought to be able to be cut on any of the machines for sure.

I don't think there is any difference in cutting resolution, etc.

Now, I really sort dislike the company that makes these things and the very closed software ecosystem around them. I think that if I wasn't trying to talk my wife into this as an upgrade (because she already had a much older Cricut machine nearly as fancy), I'd maybe look pretty hard at one of the Brother machines. However, for "crafty" people, there's a big community that uses these machines, and her prior experience with the brand had some considerable influence on the decision process.

That said, I have no idea what the software ecosystem is like for the Brother machines, though I'd imagine it would be similar in capability.

Thanks for the reply! I missed it for some reason until just now.

I ordered the Maker (not the Maker 3, and there was no Maker 2 from what I have found), and it just arrived today. I have been playing around heavily with it for the last couple of hours, and there is a big learning curve here.

My biggest struggles are with the best way to create the SVG files. I finally managed to get a decent cut (on just a blank white sheet of paper) where it wasn't cutting each key label twice. (My template is very simplistic right now - it looks like the attached image). I am thinking I won't even try to do a background template - just key labels, since the Prime has very little space between keys (and all of its markings are on the keys themselves.

My next challenge is how to do the "cut then print" with the Cricut software. I tried creating a PNG image of the template shown here, but it ends up cutting twice around each key label (I think it cuts on each side of the line around them, rather than treating those outlines as a single cut). This causes all kinds of problems (the labels come unstuck, etc). It also attempts to cut all the letters out - also a big problem.

All I want is to print that image, and have it make a single cut around each key label. This doesn't seem like it should be that difficult, but I have yet to figure it out!

[lmamakos]

The "print then cut" feature need to identify some color as the "background" and that's used by the software to generate the cuts. So you probably need to add a fill color to the buttons so they look as one solid object.

In the overlay that I made, I arranged for the PNG file export from Inkscape to have an alpha channel, and the "background" was transparent. These were the bits I wanted to be cut away from the vinyl. So I had (in my case) that dark greenish color for the template on the surface of the calculator and for the actual buttons, with a transparent ring around the buttons that was cut away.

When you import the file into the Cricut software, there's an option for "bleed", which is used to bleed the colors on either side of the gap being cut away into that space, so slight misalignments of the cutting blade won't leave white vinyl showing through. Their software does seem to recognize the alpha channel in a PNG file; or perhaps there's a way that you indicate what color in your graphic serves that purpose.

I described a little bit about the tools that I used in a blog posting at https://www.transsys.com/posts/2021/04/n...verlay-v6/ that might help, or maybe serve to generate more confusion :-)

It's been months since I've used the machine, so I'm probably forgetting some important thing or two that I learned the hard way.. If you're using Inkscape, you can import one of my SVG files, which is essentially the Inkscape "project" to see what I did.

[spiff72]

(06-10-2022 05:04 AM)lmamakos Wrote:  The "print then cut" feature need to identify some color as the "background" and that's used by the software to generate the cuts. So you probably need to add a fill color to the buttons so they look as one solid object.

In the overlay that I made, I arranged for the PNG file export from Inkscape to have an alpha channel, and the "background" was transparent. These were the bits I wanted to be cut away from the vinyl. So I had (in my case) that dark greenish color for the template on the surface of the calculator and for the actual buttons, with a transparent ring around the buttons that was cut away.

When you import the file into the Cricut software, there's an option for "bleed", which is used to bleed the colors on either side of the gap being cut away into that space, so slight misalignments of the cutting blade won't leave white vinyl showing through. Their software does seem to recognize the alpha channel in a PNG file; or perhaps there's a way that you indicate what color in your graphic serves that purpose.

I described a little bit about the tools that I used in a blog posting at https://www.transsys.com/posts/2021/04/n...verlay-v6/ that might help, or maybe serve to generate more confusion :-)

It's been months since I've used the machine, so I'm probably forgetting some important thing or two that I learned the hard way.. If you're using Inkscape, you can import one of my SVG files, which is essentially the Inkscape "project" to see what I did.

Thanks - I finally figured out the Print-then-cut using my SVG file. The trick is you have to individually select each key label (AND any graphics on it), and flatten them in the cricut software. I was trying to flatten the whole thing - which wasn't working.

It took me a couple hours, some youtube videos, and a reply on reddit to get that detail figured out!

[lmamakos]

Great to hear! In the workflow that I settled on, I flattened everything inside of Inkscape into a PNG bitmap file. I can't say why that rather than importing the SVG file into the Cricut software; maybe I had a variation of the same problem you experience, and I gave up sooner?

It certainly seems like having the cutter software being driven by a vector representation would be a better way to go, so I sure do understand why you went down that path.