Hello,
Third part of my feedback and suggestion : About rigidity of the keypad.
There is a lack of overall rigidity in the keypad, simply pressing a key is enough to bend the finger in question. It's really lightweight and doesn't really affect the keypad's functionality.
But when we strive for perfection, we continue to make improvements and learn from our mistakes.
Keypad support points :
There are two missing support points in the center of the keypad at the joint of the fingers and the metal part.
Consequently, without them the keypad bends the fingers when the hand is placed on it.
This is even worse with the magnetic stand where the support points are only at the back of the keypad. And there's also no support at all for the fingers. As a result, the fingers bend even more with each key press.
And it also miss support pad at the "middle" of the finger, where it can be also usefull on the magnetic stand.
[Also, the fact that there's a hole under the top finger pad makes them easy to lose... With less surface area for the glue to adhere to, they're easier to unstick... And all this for what ? A penny-pinching saving...]
Too much clearance :
Overall, there is a bit too much clearance, especially around the screws. Considering the tolerances of your parts, I believe there's plenty of room to reduce them without risk.
I'm particularly thinking of the grooves in the finger rails, 3mm wide for M2.5 is too much, especially since, in practice, the screws are usually around Ø 2.4mm. The same goes for the concentric grooves in the baseplate.
And even if, because of lack of clearance, a ball joint holder is not perfectly aligned with its finger rails it doesn't really matter, because the ball joint coupled with angular adjustment will widely compensate this.
Reducing clearance increases the contact surface with the screw head, thus increasing friction and tightening efficiency.
The screw head bearing is too weak :
The screws that are flat under the head ('D' ones) have insufficient bearing strength. The heads are not wide enough and this, even if you reduce clearance.
The wider the bearing, the better the friction, and the more efficient the tightening, meaning less force is needed to tighten. And if you don't need to tighten too hard, you preserve the plastic parts or the paint on the baseplate.
So, either find standard screws with wider heads, increase the screw diameter for a wider head, or add a washer to each screw.
Threaded inserts on the wrong side for the finger rails :
Currently, the insert tends to protrude from the plastic, and only the threaded insert and a bit of plastic around it create friction on the baseplate.
By placing the insert on the other side, on top of the finger rails, the plastic is then sandwiched between the threaded insert and the baseplate. I believe this would improve friction since more material would be compressed against the baseplate. Additionally, having black threaded inserts would make them less visible from above.
Moving the finger rails back towards the palm rest :
There is also enough space to move the screw that serves as the pivot point for the finger rails towards the palm rest support for 1 or 2 mm, or even more, while maintaining sufficient clearance. This would reduce the leverage on the finger rails and therefore increase finger rigidity a bit more.
Lack of material in the grooves of the finger rails :
There is a lack of material in the center of each finger groove, there should be a material point between the two screws, forming two grooves instead of one, as for the thumb rail.
The idea is to prevent the plastic from spreading in the center of the groove. Furthermore, there is space to do so, regardless of the position of the ball joint holder in the groove, there is an area that never sees the screws and could therefore be filled with material. A groove tends to spread, especially if the screws are tightened strongly.
Strangely i can see that in your service part, all finger rails are as i described... Why the new version in injected plastique doesn't have this ? A penny-pinching saving again ?
Choice of plastic for finger rails :
Metal is the most rigid material, especially for the frame. Replacing the finger rails with a simple metal plate that sits on top of the base plate would be the best option.
It would only be drilled with two threaded holes (for angular adjustment with the screws) and two grooves (for length adjustment of the towers).
Additionally, the current design lends itself well to this : with a 3mm thick plate, there would be no need to modify anything for the thumb and little finger.
However, for the other three fingers, compensating would involve adding shims under the ball joint holders or modifying the ball joint holders for these three fingers.
Disadvantages:
Joystick click too hard :
The joystick click is hard, partly due to the lack of rigidity of the keypad and the fact that there is no "opposing support point" to the click. One trick is to stick the joystick to the index tower.
But is there a solution to reduce the activation force in the joystick itself ?
Here is my third thread, next ones will follow !
Have a nice day !
Aeenarion.
Third part of my feedback and suggestion : About rigidity of the keypad.
There is a lack of overall rigidity in the keypad, simply pressing a key is enough to bend the finger in question. It's really lightweight and doesn't really affect the keypad's functionality.
But when we strive for perfection, we continue to make improvements and learn from our mistakes.
Keypad support points :
There are two missing support points in the center of the keypad at the joint of the fingers and the metal part.
Consequently, without them the keypad bends the fingers when the hand is placed on it.
This is even worse with the magnetic stand where the support points are only at the back of the keypad. And there's also no support at all for the fingers. As a result, the fingers bend even more with each key press.
And it also miss support pad at the "middle" of the finger, where it can be also usefull on the magnetic stand.
[Also, the fact that there's a hole under the top finger pad makes them easy to lose... With less surface area for the glue to adhere to, they're easier to unstick... And all this for what ? A penny-pinching saving...]
Too much clearance :
Overall, there is a bit too much clearance, especially around the screws. Considering the tolerances of your parts, I believe there's plenty of room to reduce them without risk.
I'm particularly thinking of the grooves in the finger rails, 3mm wide for M2.5 is too much, especially since, in practice, the screws are usually around Ø 2.4mm. The same goes for the concentric grooves in the baseplate.
And even if, because of lack of clearance, a ball joint holder is not perfectly aligned with its finger rails it doesn't really matter, because the ball joint coupled with angular adjustment will widely compensate this.
Reducing clearance increases the contact surface with the screw head, thus increasing friction and tightening efficiency.
The screw head bearing is too weak :
The screws that are flat under the head ('D' ones) have insufficient bearing strength. The heads are not wide enough and this, even if you reduce clearance.
The wider the bearing, the better the friction, and the more efficient the tightening, meaning less force is needed to tighten. And if you don't need to tighten too hard, you preserve the plastic parts or the paint on the baseplate.
So, either find standard screws with wider heads, increase the screw diameter for a wider head, or add a washer to each screw.
Threaded inserts on the wrong side for the finger rails :
Currently, the insert tends to protrude from the plastic, and only the threaded insert and a bit of plastic around it create friction on the baseplate.
By placing the insert on the other side, on top of the finger rails, the plastic is then sandwiched between the threaded insert and the baseplate. I believe this would improve friction since more material would be compressed against the baseplate. Additionally, having black threaded inserts would make them less visible from above.
Moving the finger rails back towards the palm rest :
There is also enough space to move the screw that serves as the pivot point for the finger rails towards the palm rest support for 1 or 2 mm, or even more, while maintaining sufficient clearance. This would reduce the leverage on the finger rails and therefore increase finger rigidity a bit more.
Lack of material in the grooves of the finger rails :
There is a lack of material in the center of each finger groove, there should be a material point between the two screws, forming two grooves instead of one, as for the thumb rail.
The idea is to prevent the plastic from spreading in the center of the groove. Furthermore, there is space to do so, regardless of the position of the ball joint holder in the groove, there is an area that never sees the screws and could therefore be filled with material. A groove tends to spread, especially if the screws are tightened strongly.
Strangely i can see that in your service part, all finger rails are as i described... Why the new version in injected plastique doesn't have this ? A penny-pinching saving again ?
Choice of plastic for finger rails :
Metal is the most rigid material, especially for the frame. Replacing the finger rails with a simple metal plate that sits on top of the base plate would be the best option.
It would only be drilled with two threaded holes (for angular adjustment with the screws) and two grooves (for length adjustment of the towers).
Additionally, the current design lends itself well to this : with a 3mm thick plate, there would be no need to modify anything for the thumb and little finger.
However, for the other three fingers, compensating would involve adding shims under the ball joint holders or modifying the ball joint holders for these three fingers.
Disadvantages:
- Instead of having only 3 types of ball joint holder (thumb, index/middle, and ring/little finger), we would have 5 different ones (since the height of the holder for the 4 fingers is different each time).
- Thicker pads under metal plate to compensate for the height difference. Ideally, one more or less in the middle and the other at the end to rest on the desk. In the case of a magnetic stand, place the 'middle' pads to rest on the stand.
Joystick click too hard :
The joystick click is hard, partly due to the lack of rigidity of the keypad and the fact that there is no "opposing support point" to the click. One trick is to stick the joystick to the index tower.
But is there a solution to reduce the activation force in the joystick itself ?
Here is my third thread, next ones will follow !
Have a nice day !
Aeenarion.
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